Hollow

A Memoir of My Body in the Marines

By: Bailey Brett Williams

Narrated by: Bailey Brett Williams

At eighteen, Bailey Williams bolted from her strict Mormon upbringing to a Marine recruiting office to enlist as a 2600—a military linguist. But the first language the Marine Corps taught her wasn't Arabic, Farsi, or Dari. It was how Marines speak to, and about, women. There are only three kinds of women in the Marine Corps, she was told: you can be a b----h, a dyke, or a whore.

Determined to prove she's not whatever it is the men around her believe a woman to be, Private Williams turned to an eating disorder, intending to show her discipline through the visible testament of bone. She ran endurance distances on an increasingly Spartan diet, shoving through her own body's resistance.

Pushed to the brink by a leadership and a culture that demands women shrink themselves, she finally looked to the women around her, and began to wonder what else she was losing. Quietly but inexorably, the power of other women's stories whispered an alternative path to what it means to be a woman, and a warrior.

Hollow is a story for anyone whose identity has been prescribed to them—and has dared question if there is another way to live.

©2024 Bailey Williams (P)2025 Tantor Media

Hauntingly potent

If good writing relies on raw and unflinching honesty, then this book sets the standard. The account serves as a voice for a demographic kept shamed in the dark…

an incredible story written by an incredible human.

I was very moved by this story and also educated. I think it is worth everyone's time to read or listen.