Fight Like A Girl

Product Description

A Marine Corps combat veteran with twenty years of service describes her professional battle against gender bias in the Marines and the lessons it holds for other arenas.

Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel Kate Germano arrived at Parris Island convinced that if she expected more of the female recruits just coming into Corps, she could raise historically low standards for female performance and make women better Marines. One year after she took command of the Fourth Recruit Training Battalion, shooting qualifications of the women under her command equaled those of men, injuries had decreased, and unit morale had noticeably improved.

Then the Marines fired her.

This is the story of Germano's struggle to achieve equality of performance and opportunity for female Marines against an entrenched male-dominated status quo. Germano charges that the men above her in the chain of command were too invested in perpetuating the subordinate role of women in the Corps to allow her to prove that the female Marine can be equal to her male counterpart. She notes that the Marine Corps continues to be the only service where men and women train separately in boot camp or basic training. Meanwhile, in the U.S. Army, women have already become Army Rangers and applied to be infantry officers.

Germano addresses the Marine Corps' $35-million gender-integration study, which shows that all-male squads perform at a higher level than mixed male-female squads. This study flies in the face of the results she demonstrated with the all-female Fourth Battalion and raises questions about the Marine Corps' willingness to let women succeed.

At a time when women are fighting sexism in many sectors of society, Germano's story has wide-ranging implications and lessons not just for the military but for corporate America, the labor force, education, and government.A Marine Corps combat veteran with twenty years of service describes her professional battle against gender bias in the Marines and the lessons it holds for other arenas.

Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel Kate Germano arrived at Parris Island convinced that if she expected more of the female recruits just coming into Corps, she could raise historically low standards for female performance and make women better Marines. One year after she took command of the Fourth Recruit Training Battalion, shooting qualifications of the women under her command equaled those of men, injuries had decreased, and unit morale had noticeably improved.

Then the Marines fired her.

This is the story of Germano's struggle to achieve equality of performance and opportunity for female Marines against an entrenched male-dominated status quo. Germano charges that the men above her in the chain of command were too invested in perpetuating the subordinate role of women in the Corps to allow her to prove that the female Marine can be equal to her male counterpart. She notes that the Marine Corps continues to be the only service where men and women train separately in boot camp or basic training. Meanwhile, in the U.S. Army, women have already become Army Rangers and applied to be infantry officers.

Germano addresses the Marine Corps' $35-million gender-integration study, which shows that all-male squads perform at a higher level than mixed male-female squads. This study flies in the face of the results she demonstrated with the all-female Fourth Battalion and raises questions about the Marine Corps' willingness to let women succeed.

At a time when women are fighting sexism in many sectors of society, Germano's story has wide-ranging implications and lessons not just for the military but for corporate America, the labor force, education, and government.
Kate Germano was an officer in the United States Marine Corps for twenty years, retiring in July 2016. A combat veteran during the war in Iraq, she filled a variety of high-profile positions, including Marine aide-de-camp to the Secretary of the Navy, commanding officer of a recruiting station, and commanding officer of the all-female Fourth Recruit Training Battalion. Following her retirement, she served as the Chief Operating Officer of the Service Women's Action Network (SWAN) and now works as the Director of Talent Acquisition and Management for MGAC, a leading project, cost, and construction management firm in Washington DC. Her writing has been published in national media outlets including the New York Times, Time magazine, U.S. News and World Report, and the Washington Post. She has also been featured on NPR, Vice News Tonight, CSPAN, and the PBS NewsHour.

Kelly Kennedy is the author of They Fought for Each Other- The Triumph and Tragedy of the Hardest Hit Unit in Iraq. An army veteran with combat experience, she formerly worked for the Army Times and USA Today covering veterans' issues and health policy.