MEN, WOMEN, AND MILITARY TRAINING: Why Did the Marine Corps Fire Kate Germano? It’s Complicated.

Germano’s crusade had apparently been to eliminate disparities between male and female recruit performance at Parris Island, within reason. For example, there was a gap between male and female performance on the rifle range, for which there seemed to be no explanation other than low expectations. All, including the men who fired her, concede that she made major progress in fixing this. And there’s more. According to a command investigation obtained by the Marine Corps Times’ Hope Hodge Seck, “Germano also ‘reinforced gender bias and stereotypes’ in the minds of her Marines by telling them on several occasions that male Marines would not take orders from them and would see them as inferior if they could not meet men’s physical standards, the investigation found.”

What does one make of that? On the one hand, advocates for women in the military should be pleased that there is an aggressive leader out there who refuses to accept low standards. On the other hand, apparently her drive for raising standards upset the female Marines who worked for her, and who then trashed her in a command climate survey. Germano’s supporters point out that it is possible to take the online survey more than once, and argue that a “vocal minority” of Marines working for Germano were able to undermine her leadership.

But wait, there’s more! . . . Germano’s sin seems to be that she was pursuing actual respect for—and self-respect by—women in the Marine Corps, and not the fictitious appearance of equality that both her bosses, and some of her subordinates, appear to prefer.

The country’s in the very best of hands.