When she graduated from training, Leavitt had to rank the types of aircraft she was interested in flying; she wanted to fly a fighter aircraft, which was considered a combat assignment. Leavitt knew that one day—whether it was weeks, months, or years away—the Department of Defense would have to begin complying with Congress’s mandate to allow women to serve in combat. She just didn’t know when.
Stuck in the middle of the transition, she chose to take the risk and rank the fighter aircraft as her top pick against the advice of mentors and friends in the Air Force. She was denied and assigned to another type of plane. “But I had no regrets because I’d asked for what I wanted,” she recalls.
Courtesy of U.S Airforce
Three months later, the DOD changed its policy. “The Air Force remembered that second lieutenant who stood up and asked for an airplane she couldn’t have,” Leavitt says. She became the U.S. Air Force’s first female fighter pilot.
Today, she’s Maj. Gen. Jeannie Leavitt, also known by her call sign “Tally.” And last week, the Air Force marked the 30th anniversary of women serving in combat roles in its service. In a Zoom interview to honor the anniversary, sitting in front of a fighter plane at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in North Carolina, Leavitt reflected on the risk she took that resulted in earning that title. She was joined by Capt. Nicole “Jinx” Wedge, a 29-year-old fighter pilot who shared how Leavitt’s career paved the way for her own. “I don’t want to call it easy—it’s been a lot of work. But I definitely didn’t have to break those barriers like she did,” Wedge says. “It wasn’t even a second thought when it came my turn to ask.”
Leavitt reached a number of other “firsts” throughout her career. For instance, she was the first female fighter pilot to attend weapons school, the program made famous by the movie Top Gun. In recent years, she’s been exploring another kind of new territory as a leader in the U.S. Space Force. The 2019 launch of the Space Force was the first time the U.S. military stood up a new service since the introduction of the Air Force in 1947.
Over her career, Leavitt has seen the benefit of making combat roles available to servicemembers of all identities. “We had cut the pool in half by saying we’ll only take one of the two genders to fly fighters,” she says. “By opening up to the full pool of talent, you get a stronger force.”
Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com
@_emmahinchliffe
The Broadsheet is Fortune’s newsletter for and about the world’s most powerful women. Today’s edition was curated by Kinsey Crowley. Subscribe here.
ALSO IN THE HEADLINES
- Giving up on Everest. EY's monumental plan to split up its auditing and consulting arms known as "Project Everest" is officially a bust. U.S.-based audit leaders essentially blocked the breakup that partners globally supported. In the aftermath, EY's U.S. leader, Julie Boland, has vowed to modernize the firm's governance structure. Wall Street Journal
- First Monday in May. At last night's Met Gala, Brittney Griner attended with her wife, Cherelle, five months after Griner's release from a Russian prison. Serena Williams revealed she is pregnant with her second child; when she announced her retirement from tennis last year, Williams said her desire to have a second child (and the knowledge of the difficulty of her first pregnancy) was part of her decision-making. The event's theme honored the late designer Karl Lagerfeld, a controversial choice given Lagerfeld's history of fatphobic and sometimes misogynistic and racist remarks.
- Up for the job. In 2019, Lael Brainard warned about the risk of bank runs. In March of this year, Brainard, now National Economic Council director, helped President Joe Biden manage and contain the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank. The foresight earned Brainard kudos, but critics say policies she championed—like low interest rates amid surging inflation—are flaming other crises. Still, Brainard remains a top contender for Fed chair and Treasury Secretary should those jobs open up. Wall Street Journal
- Out sick. Fifteen percent of women surveyed by Mayo Clinic reported missing work or cutting back on work hours because of menopause symptoms. Black and Hispanic women reported having more symptoms and a more severe negative impact on their work compared to white women. Menopause symptoms could be costing American women an estimated $1.8 billion in lost working time based on the survey responses. New York Times
MOVERS AND SHAKERS: Janet Hsu and Tisha Hyter are joining the board of GoldieBlox. Dataseat hired Matina Thomaidou as VP, head of data science. Naila Bolus is stepping down as CEO of Jumpstart for Young Children. BetterUp is bringing on Shonna Waters as VP, executive advisory, and Christine Carter as VP, transformation science and practice. Marie Nelson will be the new president at Hot Docs.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
- Tackle the issue. Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel is urging GOP candidates to address abortion head-on as campaigning for 2024 ramps up. McDaniel says Republicans can no longer afford to ignore the issue and focus campaign messaging on just the economy after Democrats staved off a midterm “red wave.”Axios
- Not enough.Occidental Petroleum CEO Vicki Hollub defended her company’s goal to make oil production carbon neutral using direct air capture to flush out oil from the ground. Activists like Kari Helgason of Carbfix, a leading company in storing CO2 in the ground using direct air capture, said that companies still need to decrease reliance on fossil fuels in addition to pulling CO2 out of the air. Hollub sees carbon-neutral oil production as an important intermediary step to curb climate change while industries transition to more sustainable energy practices. CBS
- 'Paper ceiling.' Rep. Angie Craig (D-Minn.) announced that she won't require staffers in her office to have a bachelor's degree. She is drawing attention to what some are called the "paper ceiling," in which degree requirements hinder career growth and economic mobility for marginalized communities. Congressional workers are not subject to a degree mandate, but most employers on the hill tend to require degrees, as do 70% of new jobs generally. Bloomberg
ON MY RADAR
Kyrsten Sinema’s party of one New York Times Magazine
How Gen Z changed its views on gender Time
Paris Hilton has a lesson for everybody The Atlantic
The fugitive princesses of Dubai The New Yorker
PARTING WORDS
"I think that the most important thing is to be curious and to be rigorous."
–Mary Yap, CEO of Lithos, on what you need to pivot to a career solving climate change
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