Fight Like a Girl

even though many of the female participants performed at the highest levels on the female physical-fitness test, this would automatically set them up for failure, as they would not be as fit as their male counterparts. As I had witnessed firsthand, this was less due to physiology than it was to lower standards for performance.

In the end, the Corps had to be dragged across the line, kicking and screaming, with the commandant (General Dunford) being the only service chief to request a waiver to deny women the opportunity to pursue infantry jobs.⁸

In other words, the Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard, and Army had no issues with opening the doors to women in these new roles. The Army is way bigger than the Marine Corps and has a lot more ground-combat jobs at stake. You would have assumed, if anything, they would have joined forces with the Marine Corps in asking for a waiver if indeed there were viable reasons to believe that women would pose a risk to the lethality of the force.

And how embarrassing is it that, after he was promoted from Commandant of the Marine Corps to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Dunford didn't show up to the press conference given by his boss, the secretary of defense, to announce that all of the services would be required to integrate women into ground-combat jobs and units?⁹ It seemed petty to me. Imagine this for a second: How might the outcome of the Marine Corps combat-integration task force study have turned out had the female Marine participants been held to higher standards in boot camp? It probably would have made it more difficult for General Dunford to say that women were slower, more injury-prone, and worse shots than the male participants.

The Marine Corps has struggled with gender issues like the Marines United scandal on a regular basis since I was fired, and I am pretty torn up about that, and I'm torn up by that, because I'm still a Marine in my heart, even if I was kicked out of the gun club. Marines United, which involved the illegal sharing of explicit photos of female Marines by up to 30,000 male active-duty and veteran Marines, was a clear indication of how screwed up the culture of the force is.¹⁰ Think about it—out of a service with a total population of around 172,000, up to 30,000 men shared and commented on naked photos of female Marines on social media.

And although many women have completed the Army's enlisted and officer infantry courses, the Marine Corps only recently had the first female infantry officer complete its course, and the enlisted female Marines graduating from schools for ground-combat jobs has remained a trickle. Why the difference? I believe it's because the Marine Corps doesn't want women in these fields. Unlike the Army, which has taken a much more aggressive stance on welcoming women into the jobs, starting with how they recruit women, the Marine Corps has been slow on the draw. As a result of the Army's recruiting campaign, the service has consistently exceeded its goals for women in the newly opened jobs, and they see that as a success story.¹¹ I'd like to see the Marine Corps do the same.

It hurts me to see the differences between the Army and the Marine Corps, because I know it doesn't have to be that way. With the lessons learned about foot-dragging during the integration of African Americans into the Marines or the lifting of the ban on gays in the military, what would you think if the Marine Corps were on the vanguard, leading the Department of Defense in cultural change? Then each Marine could feel like he or she is part of an organization that both believes in equality and high standards and really does lead from the front.

And I know what is possible when it comes to women in the Marine Corps. I went to Parris Island and said, “Let's make sure they're living up to their potential.” They lived up to their end of the bargain and were amazing. It makes me sad, now, thinking about it. They had to work so much harder to make change happen. But after they did, the credibility and the changed relationships they had with their peers was tangible, palpable. That's amazing. The Marine Corps as a whole could experience that change.

Joe and I don't believe in fate, but there has been a weird convergence of events in our lives. Joe always says that things happen for a reason, and it is interesting that in being relieved of command, I was able to be an even louder squeaky wheel. But if nothing good were to come from my constructive dissent, I would be truly devastated.

I know that women join the service to be Marines—not to be held to lower standards because of opinions about the female form that are based on feelings and not facts. The more we subcategorize ourselves, the less whole we are as an institution. The more distinctions there are between men and women, the more we're set apart. We become the “other.” It makes it harder to just be Marines. In other words, segregating women from men is undermining the unity and functioning not only of the women themselves but of the entire Marine Corps.

In the general public, the biggest fitness trends right now are CrossFit and high-intensity interval training. The focus for women is no longer on doing aerobics and being skinny. It's about being strong, mentally and physically.

CrossFit is about creating a different standard of beauty, and if we Marines are smart, we will recruit these women. That is because they will, without a doubt, be able to handle carrying two-hundred-pound men. It doesn't mean all women will want to go into the infantry, but let's be fair here. Not all men want to, either.

It's becoming a self-leveling playing field. In the civilian world, the women who compete in CrossFit competitions get paid the exact same money