"Starting Over", 11" x 14", Silkscreen, 2024
Kirsten, Marine Corps, 2009-2015
I don't think I had … it makes me really sad that I have to say this but I don't think I had any female Marine leadership that I could directly look to and say I want to be a female leader in the Marine Corps like her. Like I don't think I had any female Marine role models. At the time… there are some that I didn't know that well but I really didn't have any that I could look up to. There was a lot bad leadership. And a lot of that was you know I saw it as them having a chip on their shoulder maybe they saw it differently like they were just hardened over time and they saw things differently than I did. But I was just I was listening to what the guys were saying and I was asking questions and trying to figure out why they liked the leaders they did and why I liked the leaders that I did and why I didn't like the leadership I did. That's really how I try to mold myself. After a while you forget that you're even a different gender in this situation until like you show up somewhere new again and it starts all over. But after like… I really think it would take like maybe a month of them getting used to you and then you're just like one of the guys like it just it becomes like no other thing like whatever they didn’t really care. Every detachment or unit I was in during my time in eventually developed into a family dynamic so if I was a lower rank if, I was one of the PFC or Lance corporals in that situation I was treated and seen like a little sister you know I can look at the guys as like older brothers and maybe even some of the higher ups as father figures. I mean you know you kind of… a family dynamic eventually develops and those kind of like… the respect with those roles kind of develop as well.
I don't think I had … it makes me really sad that I have to say this but I don't think I had any female Marine leadership that I could directly look to and say I want to be a female leader in the Marine Corps like her. Like I don't think I had any female Marine role models. At the time… there are some that I didn't know that well but I really didn't have any that I could look up to. There was a lot bad leadership. And a lot of that was you know I saw it as them having a chip on their shoulder maybe they saw it differently like they were just hardened over time and they saw things differently than I did. But I was just I was listening to what the guys were saying and I was asking questions and trying to figure out why they liked the leaders they did and why I liked the leaders that I did and why I didn't like the leadership I did. That's really how I try to mold myself. After a while you forget that you're even a different gender in this situation until like you show up somewhere new again and it starts all over. But after like… I really think it would take like maybe a month of them getting used to you and then you're just like one of the guys like it just it becomes like no other thing like whatever they didn’t really care. Every detachment or unit I was in during my time in eventually developed into a family dynamic so if I was a lower rank if, I was one of the PFC or Lance corporals in that situation I was treated and seen like a little sister you know I can look at the guys as like older brothers and maybe even some of the higher ups as father figures. I mean you know you kind of… a family dynamic eventually develops and those kind of like… the respect with those roles kind of develop as well.