Voices from the Field features contributions from scholars and practitioners highlighting new research, thinking, and approaches to development, diplomacy and security challenges. This post is authored by Jeannette Gaudry Haynie, PhD, a Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve, a combat veteran, and the founder and executive director of the Athena Leadership Project.

In 2013, Captain Deirdre Carbery, a female Platoon Commander with the Irish 42nd Infantry Group, deployed with the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon. Upon arriving, she noticed that data collected on local population movements was not broken down by sex. Recognizing that women, men, girls, and boys have different needs and routines in their daily lives, Captain Carbery developed a method to track sex-disaggregated data in order to better inform mission leaders about howthe impacts of operations on the local population. Through this new data, leaders learned that women rarely participated in public life. They learned that the local agriculture workers were overwhelmingly female. By changing tactics and including female soldiers on local patrols, leaders learned more about the different needs of women and children, needs that had been largely unaddressed. Through the new data and interactions that resulted, Captain Carbery’s unit was able to better comprehend and improve the security situation while gaining new intelligence.

A year ago, a senior enlisted female Marine told me a story about her experiences with a Female Engagement Team (FET) in Afghanistan. Working with a Special Forces unit in country, she had quickly realized that she often saw security differently that her team and commander