Separate is not equal in US Marine Corps

The most male- dominated of the services has lower expectations of its female recruits and segregates men from women in training

Marine Corps recruits arrive for the Emblem Ceremony on Parris Island, South Carolina — the event near the end of boot camp where they officially become Marines — mosquito- bitten and sunburned, sand wedged under their fingernails and dug into their scalps.

After 10 weeks of gruelling training, they have had to complete a nine- mile ( 14.4km) hike carrying 50 pounds ( 22.6kg) of gear — plus a nine- pound rifle — through woods and swamps to the Iwo Jima sculpture that represents everything important to Marines. Hungry, hurting and smelly, they struggle to straighten one another’s uniforms, squaring their shoulders. To a person, they’re bawling. It’s gorgeous.

But when I arrived at Parris Island in June 2014 to command Fourth Battalion — the only training unit for enlisted female recruits in the Marine Corps — I saw something that shocked me. Lined up behind the female formation stood a conspicuous row of chairs. I was told that if any of these women who were about to join the few and the proud felt tired or lightheaded, she was invited to sit. Men had no such luxury.

At that moment, I realised new Marines were taught that the corps had lower expectations for women.

One of my first actions with Fourth Battalion was to remove those chairs. But over the course of my command, I learnt there were bigger obstacles to gender equality in the Marine Corps, the most male- dominated of the services in United States.

I was determined to change that. But that meant fighting many decades of opposition to having women in front- line combat roles. This was especially true in the Marine Corps, where we say, “Every Marine a rifleman”. Those riflemen are the infantry troops who put themselves in the paths of bullets and bombs while carrying heavy rucksacks, who jump out of planes and otherwise subject their bodies to extreme wear and tear. Until recently, women had been officially excluded from the infantry, even as they unofficially served in combat jobs — going on patrols as military police or medics, or getting caught in ambushes while driving in convoys. This all changed when the US Defence Department required that by 2016, all military occupations, including the infantry, be opened to women.

The Marines were the only service to request a waiver to not integrate women into some combat positions. The Pentagon rejected that request, but statistics suggest the corps has dragged its feet. About 500 Army women serve in combat jobs, 10 have graduated from the elite Ranger school, and 74 have graduated from the infantry or armour basic leader’s course. They have met the same exacting standards — for push- ups, speed and the weight they carry in their packs — as the men. But only 11 female Marines have made it into the infantry. And only one woman has made it through the punishing Marine infantry officer course.

Changing the dynamic

The Marine Corps has taken some steps. It recently introduced women to Marine Combat Training at Camp Pendleton, California, which had been all male, and brought in male drill instructors to train female recruits at Parris Island. I went to Parris Island feeling like we could change the dynamic for women. That’s the funny thing about recruits: They don’t know any better. If you teach them — that shooting is all about breathing, that running fast is all about training, that ruck marches are all about mindset — that’s what they’ll do.

At Fourth Battalion, I heard the shooting coaches tell women that their arms were too short to shoot well. The slowest woman in the platoon set the pace for runs. I mapped out the hikes and discovered that they had been improperly measured, which meant that women hiked fewer miles than they were supposed to. They weren’t being taught to stretch properly or were trained to build up their strength to avoid injuries. Those were fixable problems.

The things I saw in the Marine Corps predicted the # MeToo movement. If a female Marine is seen as a weak link, based on stereotypes first bred at boot camp, why would anyone believe her if she reported an assault?

I want Congress to understand that there is still no such thing as separate but equal. And I desperately want female Marines to understand just how capable and competitive they can be. What might the possibilities be for the military if women were allowed to compete and lead?

The definition of female strength continues to change, redefined by CrossFit gyms and extraordinary female endurance athletes. Yet, the Marine Corps continues to insist that women can’t train with men.

It’s silly. It’s insulting. It’s time to lead.