 This is Dennis McMahon and welcome to Positively Vermont. My special guest today is Doris J. Sumner, who is the president of Empowering Gender Opportunities, right here in Vermont, and the author of a book, A Memoir, called Life at Camp, very interesting work. I'm going to be discussing that and also other aspects of Doris's life and work. She is a veteran of the United States military. This is a month in which we will celebrate Veteran's Day. And first of all, I want to begin by thanking you for your service. And I think that's very important that people do that. And tell us a little bit about yourself, Doris. Well, thank you, Dennis, for having me. I'm very excited to talk about the book that is being launched this month, Life at Camp, Combating the Sexism We Tolerate and Why the Military Should Take the Lead. I spent 36 years in the Army. I joined when I was 18. And then I transitioned to the Vermont National Guard in 1986 and retired in 2019. So I definitely had a long life in the military serving in many different positions. The last 13 years, I worked as the Diversity and State Equal Employment Manager and it inspired me to write the book about the challenges when it comes to sexual harassment and discrimination, gender bias, and those sort of challenges that warriors face and how to report them, but also hold the military accountable. I want to note that some very interesting adjectives or descriptions, pro-guard, pro-military, pro-diversity, and pro-women, that's a great combination there. I think we will get into that as well as discussing some of the challenges that we face at this critical time, but just give us a little of your experience since you first took the oath. Well, I joined the Army in 1981 as a truck driver. So I was sort of what they called back then a tomboy. I liked the boys' toys a lot more than the things that were considered girls or women things. I joined the Army and enjoyed a great career and was having fun. Then I came back to the state of Vermont and joined the National Guard and instead of putting me in a line unit with being a truck driver, they sort of encouraged me to go into personal management. And so I went into that and I ended up working full-time for the National Guard in the Human Resource Office. And I found my passion to be in training. And I did a lot of training for the full-time members that worked for the Guard and whatever their career that they were working on, they would have to go to specialized training. So I was the person that would send them to those trainings. And I noticed then that a lot of supervisors were using their military leadership tactics to try to supervise people. But when you're supervising employees money through Friday, there's some protocols that have to be addressed. It's a little different than soldiering or directing military personnel to do things. And so what we call soft skill, mediation, those sort of techniques needed to be worked on. So I found a passion in that and then I transitioned into the Equal Opportunity Office. And a lot of the cases that came before me during my tenure were sexual harassment. And I, yeah, I felt like my background and experiences that I had motivated me to really wanna make it better, not just tend to the wounded, but actually heal the wounds. And so we started looking at why sexual harassment was happening and the team that I worked with, the Military Women's Program, we came up with some recommendations. And what we really saw was that it was the culture that was not conducive to Equal Opportunity, especially for women. In Vermont, certainly diversity with regard to race or religion or ableism, gender identity. In Vermont, the predominant diversity characteristic would be gender. And a lot of the studies that we reference and that we supported, all kind of came together with the underlying reason for sexual harassment was the culture, was the military culture. So how do you change a culture? How do you change the military culture when it's been around for over three centuries? And what we came up with was some strategies around gender equality accountability. So we change a culture by changing the demographics. So that's where our work began and there's certainly a lot to say about it. So that's why I decided to write a book. There's a lot to say about trying to shift the culture in the military to be more equal when it comes in with regards to gender. It's always been 84, 85% male and in a lot of units, it's 99% men. Up until 2013, there were a lot of units that women couldn't even join because they were combat units. And until that rule was repealed, women couldn't even get into those units. But even with that repeal in 2013, there is still predominantly men that are in the military. And we know that culture is determined and the prevailing norms are determined by the majority of the makeup of the culture of the people that are in there. So that's why I wrote a book about it because I think that there's something we can do to change some of the things that are happening with regard to sex-based violence in the military and in our society. Let me ask you this because this Positively Vermont program gets viewed not only in Vermont but other parts of the world and other parts of the United States. Do you give us an idea of the scope of the military in Vermont? And some examples of where it has been deployed in during your time, any other information you can give about that? Yeah. Well, sadly, one in four women and one in a hundred men will experience sex-based trauma during their tenure in the military. And that has not changed in decades since the military started keeping this research. And there's certainly been an enormous amount of energy put into the prevention of sexual assault and sexual harassment through many programs and policies and directives. The Justice Improvement Act that Senator Gillibrand had worked on for many years is something that she fought for to have sexual assault the commanders who determine if there will be accountability, take them out of the line so that a qualified prosecutor can determine if charges are gonna be filed against somebody who has sexually assaulted another person. And in that realm, they are looking about changing accountability after the fact. And what I talk about in my book is preventing it from happening at all by changing the culture and equalizing the respect for what women bring to the team. When we think about the military and our nation having one of the greatest militaries on the globe, it is because of our structure. It's not actually because of the men. It's actually because of the structure of the United States military that makes us the finest organization around the world. And so it is the quality of the warrior, okay, in that structure that really makes it great. And there are so many great warriors regardless of their sex or gender identity. And we just need more great warriors in there but we also like I said, need to shift that culture that it's not angiocentric, that it's not male minded in that it's taking whoever is there and they're qualified for that job that they're getting equal respect regardless of how they identify male or female. And so that's kind of the goal of the strategies that we try to employ when I was in the National Guard and working on the diversity councils. And I know they're doing a lot of the good work, okay, it's continuing, but we still have work to do. What's the work in progress I suppose? And what aspects of the law govern this? Is it EO? Is it Uniform Code of Military Justice? Is it some other state or federal laws? How is this environment governed legally? Well, the military certainly falls under the laws of the United States, but the Uniform Code of Military Justice is the policies and laws that the military adheres to while you're in uniform and you're on duty. And certainly a violation of the UCMJ is sexually harassing somebody or assaulting somebody. And those definitions can be found on the DOD websites and the Sexual Assault Prevention Response Program websites. So when an investigation is done and it's substantiated that a warrior has violated the UCMJ policy, it's the commanders that determine accountability for the alleged offender, the offender that was identified in the investigation. And so what I lay out in the book is there's a lot of gender bias when it comes to somebody in your unit, you're the commander and there's somebody in your unit who has offended somebody on a sex-based offense. And there's just a, there was and there continues to be gender bias regarding holding that person accountable. And it's frustrating for warriors who just wanna do their job and be respected and they report it as they're told to do. And then that process is, it's demoralizing, oftentimes demoralizing to report it and have all these people know about this incident that happened and then especially in the National Guard it's a smaller size unit. Everybody knows everybody. People are making assumptions and making judgments and taking sides and retaliation can come and all kinds of forms that you don't even recognize at first. And so a lot of times that really deters people from reporting an incident of sexual harassment or gender bias, it's very hard to prove that you weren't selected for a position because of your gender. Cause they can, the selecting officials can say, I, you weren't the right person for the job and even though you were equally qualified and the person that I hired had nothing to do with your gender, but you can feel that it has something to do with your gender and you carry that weight, was it because I'm a female and they didn't want me to be in that position? And so it's just important that we name it, that we identify it and that leaders are proactive when it comes to ensuring that they are building their teams with diversity in mind and how important that is. And especially for women who oftentimes is seen as the anomaly when you have 35 guys in a platoon and one female and the one female raises her hand and says, what about this? She really stands out or she makes a mistake. She really stands out because she's been an anomaly. And so we need leaders to be really vigilant when it comes to checking their bias regarding to gender in the military. If we wanna change it. What about opportunities for promotion? How is that, is that governed on a, I know it's merit, is it sort of a civil service basis or is it, how does that work and how does that affect women? Well, in the military, there's an enlisted branch and there's officers branch in the army and they have the war and officer branch. And so in order to go up and rank, there's time, you have to have a certain amount of time and grade. And then when you get into the higher ranks, you also have to have a position that you're going for, like say you're E6 and you wanna make ranked E7. The unit that you're in and the job that you hold, the occupation that you hold, there has to be an E7 position available to compete for. And what makes you more competitive are points that you can earn and you earn points by doing well in your physical fitness test. You can earn points by getting awards if you receive awards for excellent behavior. And your performance ratings, your immediate supervisor gives you an annual performance rating, okay? So they call those OERs or NCOERs where they sit down with you and rate your performance. So all of these accumulate into these points. So all of the warriors are on a point base. And so when that E7 position comes open, there's a certain number of people that are in, that are qualified based on the points that they have. And so how that impacts women is if you're in a unit where there's prevalence of gender bias and you're not given awards at the same rate as men, you're not given those stretch assignments that will give you an opportunity to get awards, okay? Also, there's some units who get extra points for their weapons qualification. And oftentimes the combat units spend more time giving weapons so they have an opportunity to gain skills on that. Whereas if you're in a unit that's not out on the range a lot, so you only go out once a year to qualify on your weapon, you might have a lesser score. So there is a lot, although it's fair in the sense that it's about points, it's how you get those points is where gender bias can kind of deter equal opportunity for women in that competition to get to the next rank. In terms of service, are there any restrictions today on women, is there a combat restriction? Or is there anything like that that remains? No, actually the repeal of the combat arms policy was in 2013 and they had a transitional period where there was a lot of qualifications before they could recruit women into the infantry or cavalry occupations and send them off to the occupational schools. But like I said, every year it's gotten a little bit better where there's less and less, I'll say red tapes to get women recruited into those positions. So all the schools are open for women and if they qualify just as any male would qualify, they can attend those occupations. It's really once you graduate and you have that occupation specialty, getting back to your unit, acclimating with your unit, fitting in, getting mentored and feeling belonged and supported. And anybody would want that, whether you're male or female. And like I said, it's hard sometimes for people in the majority to understand what it's like to be a minority until you find yourself in that position, like you're the only guy in a room, you go to a party and all of a sudden there's 35 women there and you're the only guy and you're just trying to connect with someone in the room about an experience. And so for women that are joining those occupations, they know that there's not a lot of others like them. And so they shoulder that extra weight of fitting in with the group and proving themselves to be just as combat ready and worthy to do the job as others. So yeah, it can be challenging, but it's also when you do find a unit where they support you and they embrace you and they mentor you and they value you, it feels really good to have that camaraderie. Well, your book has been endorsed by the major General Martha Rainville from Vermont. Tell us a little bit about her and perhaps the influence of a woman in that position had on you as a member of the military. Yeah, I'm very, very proud of General Rainville. When I began my job as equal opportunity manager for the Vermont Guard, General Rainville was just leaving. So I didn't have a chance to work for her in that position very long, but I had reached out to her while I was in the job. She came to speak for us at a women's event that we held in 2011. And then in 2018, I reached out to her again because we were trying to get a bill passed, a gender equality accountability bill to pass at the Vermont legislators with the help of former representative Geno Sullivan. And Martha Rainville was very generous with her time in speaking to us about how to draft the bill because she had that experience of being an adjunct general and understanding being a commander of the Vermont National Guard, what that would look like or how that would look like as far as having the Vermont legislative oversight on gender equality, accountability and diversity. So she was very generous with her time and helping us draft it. The bill did not get passed. We did testify and made some accounts of why we thought it would be important. And then COVID hit in 2020. So it just kind of fell to the wayside but I had kept a relationship with Geno Rainville and when I told her I was writing the book, she was very supportive. I sent her the draft manual and she read it and has just been a very, very gracious leader and endorsed the book and wrote the preview on the back. And so I'm very, very grateful for her support. Great. Well, tell us a little bit about the book itself. What a, it's a beautiful work. It just, it seems very detailed, very nice cover. Yeah, it's really something. Tell us a little bit about that. Tell us what's been confined in it. I know it's been a labor. It's been four years, four years it took me to write it. You know, it was, it took me less time to write it than clean it up. But because it is a memoir and because I talk about the Vermont National Guard, I did have it legally reviewed and approved by the Department of Defense to release the information that I did in there. It's more of a personal story about my growing up. You know, as I said, I was a tomboy. I liked the voice toys. I joined as a truck driver. Then I find myself towards the end of my career as a feminist really seeking equal opportunity for women and wanting the military to embrace feminine. And so I'm also recovering alcoholic and I talk about my issues with my alcoholism, my codependency, some of the relationship issues I struggled with and how getting the job as the state equal employment diversity manager was more of a passion for me to get it right. And too, it just fueled me to really wanna solve the problem versus just process cases and say case closed and move on. I really wanted to solve the problem with why does this continue to happen? And so in the book, it kind of goes along my career. I talk about how I joined the military and how I got out of active duty and ended up at the Vermont National Guard and got into the job as the equal employment manager. And then my transition within the job realizing that we've gotta stop this from happening. We've gotta stop this from happening because the damage is so forever imprinted on a warrior's heart. And even though on the outside they may look happy and confident and secure there are a lot of wounded warriors carrying pain that just stays with you. And so it became really personal for me and I'm kind of one of those persons that doesn't... I don't stay quiet too long and the generals kind of knew that about me and I did receive a lot of awards and I was on the national committee for equal employment managers. So I was very, very active both at the state and the national level on trying to promote this gender equality accountability as a means to change the culture and minimize sex-based offenses. And in the story I just come to realize that what I wanna give away the ending but I just come to realize that I alone am not gonna be able to do it. And so it is something that I'm hoping the book inspires other people to become active when it comes to combating sexism. So I know it's a memoir but the way I'm viewing it right now might also be of use to someone who's a professional someone who's a lawyer, someone who's in the military someone who's in personnel on those kinds of issues that people face in the workplaces. Is that correct? Yes, and I think the picture or the artwork on the front really depicts that whatever your journey is when you graduate high school, graduate college and you wanna be an engineer or you wanna be a pilot or you wanna go into nursing whatever your passion and your goal is when you take that first step on your journey you really don't know what the mountains and that you can see the mountains in the foreground and the picture you really don't know what kind of mountains you're gonna have to climb and how tough it's gonna be. And when you're passionate about something and you're at a certain elevation you don't wanna turn around and go back you're like, I gotta keep going I've gotta get to the summit I've gotta get to the top. And so I think for anybody whatever career you're in if you find that you're really passionate but you're not fitting in it doesn't feel good cause you're like, I know I wanna do this but I'm not fitting in. And so we talk about how do you reject assimilation and be who you really want to be and live your purpose filled life and to continue on and keep going. So I think no matter what career you're in this book will be helpful for you. That's great. Well, tell us about the launch hopefully people might see this before the launch but a lot of people will see this after the launch and tell us about the book launch when that's going to be and where. Right, I'm gonna have a celebration for all the people that helped me get this booked here to be able to be able to sell it. It's gonna be November 17th at the Eagles Club in Milton 42 center drive. And it's gonna be from four to seven. So we'll have some social time. I'm gonna read excerpt and I wanna have some questions and answers and just a celebration of the book I will be selling books at the launch party. And we hope to have the Amazon link to be able to purchase it on my website. It's all about ego.com as soon as that's available from the publishing company it's supposed to be available before the 17th of November but definitely after the 17th of November you can find the link to purchase the book on my website. That's great. Well, thank you very much Doris. Good luck with the book and we'll be in touch about you and your organization and other activities. This is Dennis McMahon. My special guest today has been Doris J. Sumner about her book, Life at Camp. Celebrating combat sexism in the military and people who tolerate it and we should be putting a little photo of the book somewhere there but thank you very, very much. Thank you Dennis for being here and we will love to be in touch. Okay, thank you so much. This is Dennis McMahon and this has been Positively Vermont. Thank you for watching.