Freedom of expression. And that legacy continues after she left. So she certainly made her mark on the world. And certainly showed that shes unflappable in the face of criticism and unflappable in the face of an attempt to undo all of the work that that fine organization is doing. For me, shes a great role model of how we conduct ourselves as women, in the face of what can be a little bit of a backslide from time to time. Its nice to have people we can see who embody strength and thick skin and certainly youve talked to you wrote in your book about how much you have how far youve come in this regard in in not letting the turkeys get you down. Your personal story makes the case for Public Policy that supports women, how do we get men to be allies in the fight to fight to further these policies when they dont experience these things personally . How do we make men care about feminism . Is we share our stories. Again not to be a broken record, but humanizing these issues just as i for exa
People who are potentially mega donors to their campaigns, or to their future campaigns. This is why voter apathy is so upsetting to me. Because we do show people like governor perry that acting in ways like that will go unaccounted theyre not held to account for it. And i think that we all ought to own our responsibility to make sure were using our voices in a way that show that we are as powerful as some of these folks that can write the big checks. Right. Because ultimately politics is powerful, but we also need to change culture, and we need to change the way that we see these issues through a moral justice lens. Maybe thats the direction we need to go. So how do you determine your political platform and agenda . Who educates you on the issues that you champion . It really comes from in here. And as an elected official, i try very hard to keep an open door for people to come in and talk about things that matter to them. My work on testing the backlog on rape kits in texas came from
[inaudible conversations] thank you from everybody and welcome back. We have a thrilling panel coming right up. I think the next session gets right at the heart of everything we are talking about. My name is mike green and executive director of the Truman National security project. Were very proud today to introduce treatment and is led by a Remarkable Group of women including combat leader smart bargains nation and hardly supported by a larger number of men in the truman project who also have combat experience myself included. I served in iraq and afghanistan and i dont know when the issue is settled for me. Im supposed to be an objective moderator but to put my cards on the table, my sister is currently serving with the station as it attempted in the new york police department. She could kick my asked. Outside of that for sure. You know over two years on the sharp end title field ive seen more than enough examples of women establishing themselves including providing the fire support
Try to keep any kind of evaluation out of this. So the marine corps has done a bunch of different studies and research. They began with a actually, they began with the infantry officer course which they opened to women in 2012 and asked for volunteers. Women, if you want to come to try out the infantry officer course, youre invited to attend. At the same time that they were doing that, they also began developing a set of combat proxy tests. The combat proxy test, they were six largely upper body based i should say Upper Body Strength based proxy tests that they evaluated the performance of 409 women and 379 female marines against and what they found from this combat proxy test was that about well not about, but 66 of the very good performers were men and 34 were women, and then the highest performing categories, it was 92 were men and 8 were women. So this initial Screening Test that they developed showed that there was certainly a percentage of women that fell into the good and the ve
I should have asked how many civilians were in the audience. Yes, excellent. [laughter] host it is no exaggeration to say there is a wealth of knowledge and experience in this room, and thats why were going to try to make this more of a conversation than a series of presentations. Were looking forward to that. This discussion is really about the central question of unit cohesion and leadership. In the battlefield, especially in the close fight. We have with us four people that i think provide a great perspective across the board. Dr. Megan mckenzie from the university of sydney. Shes a senior lecturing in the government. The center for International Security at the university of sydney. Research crosses gender studies , Security Studies and , international development. Shes published in top journals, including Security Studies. Her first book, female soldiers in sierra leone, and the newest book, beyond the military and myth women cant fight, debunks ss the belief that women cant fight