First Class

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.