Aye Aye, Ma’am: A Stuyvesant Alumna’s Experience in the Marine Corps and Her Work Advocating for Changes in the Military

Anuradha Bhagwati (‘93) does not mince words in the advice she offers to current Stuyvesant students. Bhagwati counsels, “Definitely follow your dreams. There is so much pressure on [Stuyvesant] kids to follow other people’s dreams, oftentimes, parents’ dreams. So, try to figure out what you’re passionate about and what really makes you happy.”

Bhagwati certainly practices what she preaches. She grew up in a traditional household and, like many students, felt that her mother’s decision on any given matter was non-negotiable. This was a difficult situation, particularly during her high-school years, when she came out to her parents as being lesbian. She recalled, “They were horrified. My mom threatened to kill herself. [...] When she said, ‘Break up with her or I’m going to kill myself,’ I took that at face value. Culture matters more.”

In college, Bhagwati continued to struggle with the dilemma of whether to follow her parents’ preferences or her own. She would have liked to major in Religious Studies, but her parents did not support her choice. She studied English instead. “They were kind of elitist about some subjects. Religious Studies just never crossed their paths,” she said.

Though Bhagwati did break up with her girlfriend in high school and majored in English in college, she did not allow herself to succumb to her parents’ pressures as an adult. In the middle of a semester in graduate school, where Bhagwati was studying International Studies and journalism, she decided to drop out and join the Marine Corps. This decision marked a turning point for her. “I did everything that [my parents] had told me to do at that point; I fought a little bit along the way, but at the end of the day, they had the final say,” she explained. In joining the Marine Corps, Bhagwati was finally on the road to pursuing her own passions and dreams, but that road was not one without its own hardships.

Bhagwati recalls that the initial 10 weeks of her training were a “fog of experience” consisting of mentally and physically grueling activities, little sleep, and a lot of shouting. “The entire process is one of you being yelled at for 10 straight weeks. […] It’s literal chaos, like receiving a firehose of words and you are running around with your head cut off the entire time,” she described.

The most difficult aspect of the Marine recruit training and Bhagwati’s experience in the Marines was the sexism she and other women faced. The Marine Corps is the branch of the military with the lowest number of women (women represent about eight percent of Marines, but 18 to 20 percent of the Army and Navy). According to Bhagwati, the Marines have the strictest physical fitness standards of all the branches and are the least open to women. Because the Marines had not integrated women into its forces at all, Bhagwati’s initial experiences were very rough. “I remember very clearly feeling that women weren’t treated very well. There were lower standards for us; we were expected to fail. […] I was accused of cheating on a physical fitness test because they thought I ran too fast,” she recalled. “A lot of the language used in the basic training for officers was very gendered, very demeaning to women; it didn’t need to be this way.”

This sexism manifested itself in a multitude of other ways. For one, the Marine Corps separated men and women during their initial training. This segregation reinforced the principle that there were different physical standards for men and for women. Second, women were verbally abused. “We were constantly reminded that women were weak and nasty and didn’t belong,” Bhagwati said. She pointed out that in the Marines, being called a “girl” was an insult. Third, many of the male Marines disrespected women. “It’s a very hostile work environment. […] They wanted to have sex with us, not work with us,” she said. “It was very well known; there was degrading language and pornography in the workplace; the guys were going to strip clubs all the time.”

Bhagwati attended Officer Candidate School and was one of the four women who graduated out of a class of 18. As a captain, she supervised Marines who had never worked under a woman. She noted that while there were some men who did not want to salute her, there were also men who expressed support for the achievements of female Marines.

Because women were so much in the minority, Bhagwati had no female role models in the Marines. “I knew one woman who was senior to me. There are so few women in the Marine Corps; it is a little bit like seeing an endangered species,” she said.

For Bhagwati, her breaking point occurred when she filed a sexual harassment investigation against a fellow officer. “That was the final experience I had. It was really painful; I was scared for my life. I had to get a restraining order against him,” she said. At the time she had filed the investigation, she realized that it would end her career because the other officers would try to protect the officer engaging in the harassment.

Ultimately, the investigators sided with Bhagwati but only recommended that the perpetrator be removed from the Marines. “[Because] it was just a recommendation, it wasn’t enforced. He stayed another 10 years and then got kicked out for adultery, which was completely ridiculous,” she voiced.

After Bhagwati left the Marine Corps, she met many female veterans who also experienced sexism in the Marines and other branches of the military. These women formed the Service Women’s Action Network (SWAN), an organization that advocates for change in the military. Within her work at SWAN, Bhagwati is most proud of her role in revoking the combat exclusion policy. This policy banned women from joining many units, such as infantry and Special Operations. Now, all of these units are open to women.

Even though SWAN has made great strides toward achieving more equality for women in the military, there is still a lot of work that needs to be done regarding sexual violence in the military. Bhagwati commented, “Now, there’s consciousness, but [...] the military justice system is still broken, so we’re still hoping.” SWAN worked with Senator Kirsten Gillibrand to write the Military Justice Improvement Act, a bill that would require any felony-level crime to be handled by a military lawyer rather than by the unit’s Commanding Officer. Bhagwati acknowledges that it would be difficult to get this bill passed, but believes that the need for the bill is significant.

Despite all the difficult experiences Bhagwati endured in the Marine Corps, she appreciates the opportunities she had to run a platoon or a company in her early 20s. She explained, “You can’t have that access to management experience in the civilian world; it just doesn’t happen that fast.” She described her role as being a bit of “a parent, a mentor, and a big sibling” for the Marines under her charge. More importantly, Bhagwati thinks of her time in the Marines as a time of great personal growth. “I learned to find my voice. I can assert myself if I have to,” she said. “[These skills] are useful, particularly for women, who are socialized for all the wrong reasons to let other people go first, to acquiesce, and to take care of others. It was very useful to learn to speak up for myself because I had to—otherwise I would have been crushed.”

Bhagwati has written a memoir about her journey in the Marines and her work as an activist called “Unbecoming.” She is now working on another book about her experiences after leaving the military and having a service dog.

Learning about Bhagwati’s experiences in the Marine Corps might elicit different reactions from students: some may be discouraged by her experiences, while others might want to learn more about the military. Regardless, Bhagwati’s story is an inspirational one, and we will want to continue hearing from her and seeing where she finds herself next.