Fight Like a Girl

leading Marines. He also reminded me that the forced marches or hikes were all team events—we all passed or failed together as a group. During the hike briefs, the training staff would tell us that we had to go X miles, but they wouldn't reveal the time limit, and they would say that if we didn't get there by the secret time, we'd have to redo the event the next day. The mental stress was designed to force us to go as fast as possible. The hikes were grueling and were usually held after a week or two of field training ops during which we'd get about two hours of sleep per night and one Meal-Ready-to-Eat per day. We were sleep- and food-deprived zombies frantically trying to put the pedal to what was left of the metal. IOC is a tough course.

It's hell.

When we would do these conditioning hikes during training there, I'd often end up carrying some other struggling lieutenant's M-16 (rifle) or someone else's pack across the finish line, because we were all committed to succeeding or failing together.

At IOC, everyone has good days, and everyone has bad days. You always help your buddy out. Some of the slower, weaker lieutenants were physically dragged along so that we all crossed the finish line on time and wouldn't have to do it again the next day.

Here's the thing the generals don't tell you: President Obama's policy of forcing the integration of women into all jobs—including the infantry—made IOC tougher. More on that in a second.

Elliot's podcast also reminded me that the brass moved the goalposts at IOC after women became part of the calculus.

The push to open all military jobs and units and stop discriminating solely based on sex forced the military—especially the Corps—to make their job-performance standards more rigorous and science-based, and even to establish new standards where none had existed before.

Now all training events at IOC are individual pass/fail, and attrition is upward of thirty percent.

But, still, there were the recalcitrant.

Elliot related a story: He was talking to a former infantry officer course director a few years ago when women first began attending as part of an experimental program.

Elliot asked, “So how's it going?”⁴

The course director said it was going fine.

Elliot asked, “So when do you think the first woman will pass?”

The course director said, “It's never going to happen.”

Elliot asked, “What do you mean it's never going to happen?”

The director said the curriculum had completely changed when women started going through. Everything is now individual effort, and you're not going to see a woman pass the CET. Even if they pass the CET, they will never pass the heavy-weapons march. It's just never going to happen.

Elliot persisted in the questioning, “I'm sure, eventually, some woman who, you know, can pass the CrossFit challenge will come through and pass. What happens then?”

The director looked at him and said, “It's never going to happen.”

During the podcast interview, Elliot said that he was unsettled by the idea that the standards had morphed to make it specifically more difficult for women.

Old prejudices die hard, and it's amazing what some men will do to keep their prerogative.

Well, as of this writing, it happened last week. Our first female Marine officer passed the course on September 25, 2017. I've talked to enough people to know it was absolutely legitimate. And before you get your boxers in a whirl about standards at IOC, the female officers are held to the exact same standards as the male officers—including how many pull-ups they have to do to max the physical-fitness test.

So now that a woman passed IOC, our work is done, right? Not by a long shot. The stories above, as well as Kate's story, represent just a few in a tapestry of what women face when navigating the Corps.

Here's another one.

In 2014, I was at an executive offsite meeting for the three- and four-star generals at the Navy Yard in Washington, DC, when the commandant, General James Amos, invited Lean In author and Facebook executive Sheryl Sandberg to speak. Kate touched on this earlier, but I'm going to give you my story firsthand here. There wasn't a single woman among the brass. The generals’ body language in there—legs crossed, arms crossed, sitting back in their chairs—was awful. It was classic dominance posturing. As one of the commandant's personal staffers, I was one of the very few non-general officers in the room. My job was to be seen and not heard and to take copious notes. I remember making a comment to a colonel sitting next to me in the back of the room: “You'd think they'd rather jump physically into a chipper-shredder than let women into the infantry.”

I took some twisted pleasure in seeing this super-successful woman tell these old codgers how they could improve outcomes for women in the Corps.

I think some of the resistance was them getting their minds around the thought that, while they were apex predators in the Corps, here was a woman who has kicked ass in the business world and probably pays more in taxes than all those generals’ salaries combined.

When she finished her comments and asked if there were any questions, I shot out of my seat and said, “Commandant…” I felt the eyes in the room boring into my forehead. “I know I'm not supposed to speak at these things, but I just want to let everyone in this room know that everything she just said is real, and I've watched my wife navigate the same issues through our Corps over the past eighteen years.” The commandant gave me a smile and a wink. Sandberg smiled. I sat down, breathed a sigh of relief, and shut up.

At first, it was hard to see how the institutional sexism impacted Kate, because she was so good at what she does. She was the exceptional female. She runs marathons, and now fifty-mile races. She climbs mountains like a beast. She's strong and fast. And she was a squared-away Marine.

The