Additional information
by Sharon Disher (Author)
When Sharon Hanley Disher entered the U.S. Naval Academy with eighty other young women in 1976, she helped end a 131-year all-male tradition at Annapolis. Her entertaining and shocking account of the women's four-year effort to join the academy's elite fraternity and become commissioned naval officers is a valuable chronicle of the times, and her insights have been credited with helping us understand the challenges of integrating women into the military services. From the punishing crucible of plebe summer to the triumph of graduation, she describes their search for ways to survive the mental and physical hurdles they had to overcome. Unflinchingly frank, she freely discusses the prejudice and abuse they encountered that often went unpunished or unreported. A loyal Navy supporter, nevertheless, Disher provides a balanced account of life behind the academy's storied walls for that first group of teenaged women who charted the way for future female midshipmen. Lively, well researched, and amazingly good humored, the book seems as fresh today as it was when first published in hardcover in 1998.
Back Jacket
In 1976 eighty-one young women entered the U.S. Naval Academy, ending a 131-year all-male tradition. Now, one of those trailblazing women has decided to speak out about their experiences. She draws on journals and letters from the period along with recent interviews to present a dramatic and sometimes disturbing picture of the women's four-year effort to join the academy's elite fraternity and become commissioned naval officers. From the punishing crucible of plebe summer to the triumph of graduation, Sharon Disher focuses on two female members of the Class of 1980, each with very different personalities and experiences. Teenagers faced with issues still unlabeled in the 1970s - sexual harassment, eating disorders, date rape - the two take separate routes in their search for ways to survive the mental and physical challenges of the regimen and the psychological isolation of being a woman in a man's world. Disher is unflinchingly frank in her descriptions of the prejudice and abuse that they frequently encountered and which went mostly unreported and unpunished. A loyal navy supporter nevertheless, Disher offers a balanced account of life behind the academy's storied walls for that first group of women who charted the way for future generations of female midshipmen.
Author Biography
Sharon Hanley Disher served in the Navy Civil Engineering Corps for ten years after her 1980 graduation from the Naval Academy, including service as the officer in charge of a construction battalion unit in New London, Connecticut, the second woman in the Navy to hold such a position. She currently resides in Annapolis with her husband and three children.
