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It's Not About the Gun: Lessons from My Global Career as a Female FBI Agent
After spending more than twenty-six years as a Special Agent with the FBI, Kathy Stearman recounts the global experiences that shaped her life—and the mixed feelings that she now holds about the sacrifices she had to make to survive in a man’s world.
When former FBI Agent Kathy Stearman read in the New York Times that sixteen women were suing the FBI for discrimination at the training academy, she was surprised to see the women come forward—no one ever had before. But the truth behind their accusations resonated.
After a twenty-six-year career in the Bureau, Kathy Stearman knows from personal experience that this type of behavior has been prevalent for decades. Stearman’s It’s Not About the Gun examines the influence of attitude and gender in her journey to becoming FBI Legal Attaché, the most senior FBI representative in a foreign office.
When she entered the FBI Academy in 1987, Stearman was one of about 600 women in a force of 10,000 agents. While there, she evolved into an assertive woman, working her way up the ranks and across the globe to hold positions that very few women have held before. And yet, even at the height of her career, Stearman had to check herself to make sure that she never appeared weak, inferior, or afraid. The accepted attitude for women in power has long been cool, calm, and in control—and sometimes that means coming across as cold and emotionless.
Stearman changed for the FBI, but she longs for a different path for future women of the Bureau. If the system changes, then women can remain constant, valuing their female identity and nurturing the people they truly are. In It's Not About the Gun , Stearman describes how she was viewed as a woman and an American overseas, and how her perception of her country and the FBI, observed from the optics of distance, has evolved.
When former FBI Agent Kathy Stearman read in the New York Times that sixteen women were suing the FBI for discrimination at the training academy, she was surprised to see the women come forward—no one ever had before. But the truth behind their accusations resonated.
After a twenty-six-year career in the Bureau, Kathy Stearman knows from personal experience that this type of behavior has been prevalent for decades. Stearman’s It’s Not About the Gun examines the influence of attitude and gender in her journey to becoming FBI Legal Attaché, the most senior FBI representative in a foreign office.
When she entered the FBI Academy in 1987, Stearman was one of about 600 women in a force of 10,000 agents. While there, she evolved into an assertive woman, working her way up the ranks and across the globe to hold positions that very few women have held before. And yet, even at the height of her career, Stearman had to check herself to make sure that she never appeared weak, inferior, or afraid. The accepted attitude for women in power has long been cool, calm, and in control—and sometimes that means coming across as cold and emotionless.
Stearman changed for the FBI, but she longs for a different path for future women of the Bureau. If the system changes, then women can remain constant, valuing their female identity and nurturing the people they truly are. In It's Not About the Gun , Stearman describes how she was viewed as a woman and an American overseas, and how her perception of her country and the FBI, observed from the optics of distance, has evolved.
- GenresMemoirFeminismNonfiction
352 pages, Hardcover
Published June 1, 2021
About the author
Kathy Stearman
1 book7 followersKathy Stearman is a retired FBI Special Agent and author of forthcoming memoir, It’s Not About the Gun: Lessons from My Global Career as a Female FBI Agent, which focuses on her time overseas as head of FBI offices in south-central Asia and China.
Kathy also writes narrative non-fiction and essays related to international travel, the current political and social climate, and growing up on a remote farm in central Kentucky. She is currently researching topics for her next book.
When not writing, Kathy and her husband, Keith, continue to explore the world.
To learn more about Kathy and her upcoming memoir, and to sign up for her newsletter, take a look at her website, KathyStearman.com.
Kathy also writes narrative non-fiction and essays related to international travel, the current political and social climate, and growing up on a remote farm in central Kentucky. She is currently researching topics for her next book.
When not writing, Kathy and her husband, Keith, continue to explore the world.
To learn more about Kathy and her upcoming memoir, and to sign up for her newsletter, take a look at her website, KathyStearman.com.
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
November 25, 2021
Full disclosure, I grew up in the same small county as the author and she graduated high school with one of my older siblings. She was one of the local girls I admired and envied and admittedly gossiped about her sometimes "stuck up" attitude. I've wondered over the years whatever happened to her and it was no surprise to read how successful she has been in life. However, what was surprising was to learn of some of the challenges she faced on the road to the self-confident, independent, and courageous person she is. I'm grateful for women like Kathy who are willing to stand up for themselves and become role models for other women.
June 21, 2021
This was really good, and very well written.
August 15, 2022
This was a very interesting insight into a long career; I appreciated Kathy's perspective both as a woman in almost an all-male organization and her view of the FBI over several decades. However, it did come across as a bit preachy at times which is why I took so long to finish.
January 16, 2023
The last 2 parts were great!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 11, 2021
Beautifully Written Memoir on Succeeding in a Masculine Profession
It's Not About the Gun is the unvarnished tale of the challenges that confront a talented and ambitious woman pursuing a career in a male-dominated organization. The book is written from the heart and alternates between being hilarious, emotionally engaging, and informative.
Kathy Stearman is a very talented author with an important story to tell. In telling it, she includes the emotionally hard to tell episodes as well as the entertaining ones. It is a captivating read.
It's Not About the Gun is the unvarnished tale of the challenges that confront a talented and ambitious woman pursuing a career in a male-dominated organization. The book is written from the heart and alternates between being hilarious, emotionally engaging, and informative.
Kathy Stearman is a very talented author with an important story to tell. In telling it, she includes the emotionally hard to tell episodes as well as the entertaining ones. It is a captivating read.
February 12, 2022
bias works both ways
As a woman who made a career in a male dominated field in corporate, I can relate to a lot of the issues women like Kathy and I encounter. The glass ceiling, the bias. Some men are intimidated by strong women for sure. Yes there are men taking advantage of women—but there’re a few women who like to take advantage of men too. But trust me, some women are bitches (sorry for the term) and working with them is not easy at all. It’s important for us career women to acknowledge that as those women are undermining our efforts.
But the author of this book paints the world of the FBI like a place dominated by sexist and incompetent men. The men are all bullies and the women the victims. I believe that there always will be a certain percentage of those, but an organization only run by idiots cannot survive.
This book is an interesting read but at times Kathy’s flawlessness and all the incompetence of the management got onto my nerves. A bit too much for my taste.
As a woman who made a career in a male dominated field in corporate, I can relate to a lot of the issues women like Kathy and I encounter. The glass ceiling, the bias. Some men are intimidated by strong women for sure. Yes there are men taking advantage of women—but there’re a few women who like to take advantage of men too. But trust me, some women are bitches (sorry for the term) and working with them is not easy at all. It’s important for us career women to acknowledge that as those women are undermining our efforts.
But the author of this book paints the world of the FBI like a place dominated by sexist and incompetent men. The men are all bullies and the women the victims. I believe that there always will be a certain percentage of those, but an organization only run by idiots cannot survive.
This book is an interesting read but at times Kathy’s flawlessness and all the incompetence of the management got onto my nerves. A bit too much for my taste.
September 1, 2023
I bought this book because meeting a Legat team 20 years ago in an Embassy overseas led me to apply to the FBI. I was impressed beyond words by their professionalism.
Just prior to my polygraph and training date, though, I had to decline. I had to tell the FBI Agent who had called to check in on me that I had just gotten engaged, and the international nature of that commitment made it impossible to have both my person and my dream.
The agent's super classy response? "I'm so sorry to hear that. But if I could, you made the right choice. The Bureau can't love you back."
Incredible professionals. Nothing but class.
So this book was disappointing. Yes, my FBI interactions were limited, but this autobiography stunned me.
It was shockingly political. For instance, in the introduction she writes she understands why a woman would blow herself up to cause harm, if the political figure target were disagreeable enough.
Yet she yearns for the FBI to be respected while simultaneously giving plenty of reasons why not: her political biases.
Another point of hypocrisy is that she chooses to shame some women's choices, while stipulating she shouldn't be judged for hers.
It was simply hard to read and enjoy: the same person who believed herself to be a professional bad#*% writes that she did not respect some segments of society she swore to protect.
I'm well aware I had nothing but dreamy interactions with a bureau I never actually got to join... while her experiences were REAL. Some were even interesting.
I could even relate to some of the issues of being excluded from male outings and career jumps. I related to some of the issues she experienced as a woman in particular parts of the world, too.
But this just wasn't the women-in-arms book I was looking for.
I would not gift it.
It was disappointing to see her harshness. I guess I expected more from someone who broke through barriers left and right.
Instead, I read bitterness.
I'll admit, my belief that that FBI was the last unbiased bastion of truth actually started to crumble under the leadership of a fellow W&M alum years ago.
But this book didn't help build it back better.
Just prior to my polygraph and training date, though, I had to decline. I had to tell the FBI Agent who had called to check in on me that I had just gotten engaged, and the international nature of that commitment made it impossible to have both my person and my dream.
The agent's super classy response? "I'm so sorry to hear that. But if I could, you made the right choice. The Bureau can't love you back."
Incredible professionals. Nothing but class.
So this book was disappointing. Yes, my FBI interactions were limited, but this autobiography stunned me.
It was shockingly political. For instance, in the introduction she writes she understands why a woman would blow herself up to cause harm, if the political figure target were disagreeable enough.
Yet she yearns for the FBI to be respected while simultaneously giving plenty of reasons why not: her political biases.
Another point of hypocrisy is that she chooses to shame some women's choices, while stipulating she shouldn't be judged for hers.
It was simply hard to read and enjoy: the same person who believed herself to be a professional bad#*% writes that she did not respect some segments of society she swore to protect.
I'm well aware I had nothing but dreamy interactions with a bureau I never actually got to join... while her experiences were REAL. Some were even interesting.
I could even relate to some of the issues of being excluded from male outings and career jumps. I related to some of the issues she experienced as a woman in particular parts of the world, too.
But this just wasn't the women-in-arms book I was looking for.
I would not gift it.
It was disappointing to see her harshness. I guess I expected more from someone who broke through barriers left and right.
Instead, I read bitterness.
I'll admit, my belief that that FBI was the last unbiased bastion of truth actually started to crumble under the leadership of a fellow W&M alum years ago.
But this book didn't help build it back better.
April 3, 2023
I went to this book for inside information on how the FBI operates (research for my own crime novel), and in part I got that. I was less interested in the ambiguous details of the Legat jobs, which I feel constituted a big part of the book. That's not to say that the book left me cold. On the contrary I was very angry--hard not to be when you realize exactly how well grown and well anchored misogyny and chauvinism is in the US. That being said, the author was short sighted at times. She complained about men infantilizing and belittleing women, but then she calls a group of Indian prison officials "a murder of crows"--a despicable phrase, used in multiple countries to mock and belittle brown people in white-dominated societies. She talks about how few women are allowed to work in the world, but what she actually means is: in the countries she visited. Women are significantly represented in many former communist countries (I know, I come from one), so her generalizing statements got on my nerves a bit. As did her comments that "society is constant, but women have to change." Society is constant? Social norms are constant? Are we paying attention to the world around us? Also, while I am aware that women in India can have a harsh life, I also know quite a few successful women in science from India (and China for that matter), so I wonder if the author's assessments are primarily related to law enforcement, which remains male dominated in most countries.
Overall, proceed with caution--and not because of the gun.
Overall, proceed with caution--and not because of the gun.
June 15, 2022
As a Special Agent with the FBI, Kathy Stearman spent twenty-six years with the Bureau, one of only 600 women among 10,000 agents. Faced with sexist and misogynistic attitudes from the outset, she fought her way up to the position of FBI Legal Attaché and held positions in several countries, including China and India.
This book is not about the octane-fuelled, gun-toting antics of the FBI as seen on TV, but the real-life work carried out by legal attaches around the world and, more importantly, about how women are treated in the Bureau. Not having read anything by former FBI agents before, I wasn’t sure what to expect with this book, but it’s an entertaining and thought-provoking tale that gives an insight into what the organisation does and how they function. While the author’s treatment by fellow agents is at times quite shocking, she does seem to paint virtually every male agent as a total dick with no appreciation of how to treat women. That said, it’s an enjoyable book that provides some understanding of the internal politics and chauvinistic shenanigans that are still prevalent in many organisations around the world.
This book is not about the octane-fuelled, gun-toting antics of the FBI as seen on TV, but the real-life work carried out by legal attaches around the world and, more importantly, about how women are treated in the Bureau. Not having read anything by former FBI agents before, I wasn’t sure what to expect with this book, but it’s an entertaining and thought-provoking tale that gives an insight into what the organisation does and how they function. While the author’s treatment by fellow agents is at times quite shocking, she does seem to paint virtually every male agent as a total dick with no appreciation of how to treat women. That said, it’s an enjoyable book that provides some understanding of the internal politics and chauvinistic shenanigans that are still prevalent in many organisations around the world.
October 12, 2023
Wasted opportunity
I do not typically offer reviews but am compelled to do so here, if only to save some poor soul from wasting their time as I did. Rather than taking the opportunity to celebrate her accomplishments and perhaps those of other G women, the author instead limits herself to a diatribe about misogyny in the workplace. I hoped to gain a female perspective of what it meant to be in the FBI but this one is quite single minded. The writing was decent but I had difficulty with her transitions from one chapter the next. There was no sense of a timeline for her experiences. It would have been nice to at least associate her time as a Legat with a year in order to better put the political climate in context. The years can be determined through obvious clues but maybe that level of transparency is a threat to national security. Overall I would not recommend this book if you are interested in the FBI; probably only useful for studying sexism, or for those in need of schadenfreude.
I do not typically offer reviews but am compelled to do so here, if only to save some poor soul from wasting their time as I did. Rather than taking the opportunity to celebrate her accomplishments and perhaps those of other G women, the author instead limits herself to a diatribe about misogyny in the workplace. I hoped to gain a female perspective of what it meant to be in the FBI but this one is quite single minded. The writing was decent but I had difficulty with her transitions from one chapter the next. There was no sense of a timeline for her experiences. It would have been nice to at least associate her time as a Legat with a year in order to better put the political climate in context. The years can be determined through obvious clues but maybe that level of transparency is a threat to national security. Overall I would not recommend this book if you are interested in the FBI; probably only useful for studying sexism, or for those in need of schadenfreude.
July 27, 2021
2021 - Sibling Reading Challenge.
Manual log of a hard copy.
HFS. 10/10. Apart from the second to last chapter which is essentially a rant I was unable to put this down. I’m not exaggerating when I say that I started this book yesterday and finished it today (two days of reading). It’s a quick read. It’s suitable for men and women. I recommend it to everyone and you had best believe that this will stay on my bookshelf for future revisits.
Manual log of a hard copy.
HFS. 10/10. Apart from the second to last chapter which is essentially a rant I was unable to put this down. I’m not exaggerating when I say that I started this book yesterday and finished it today (two days of reading). It’s a quick read. It’s suitable for men and women. I recommend it to everyone and you had best believe that this will stay on my bookshelf for future revisits.
December 5, 2023
Kathy had such an interesting perspective on being an agent in the FBI. She makes a lot of great points about being a female in a mostly male dominated organization. From her time in the academy to being overseas and working with a variety of people from different backgrounds/countries, it’s no surprise she became such a successful leader in her career. She provides great insight on what it means to overcome adversity in not just her career, but also in her life after the FBI.
November 7, 2021
Detailed memoir about Stearman's career as an FBI Agent. Some of the information is redacted in this book but the book's message is still clear. Stearman has a powerful memoir style to blend the people, scene and tensions together. Her international experience as an FBI agent was one of the most fascinating sections of this book.
March 20, 2022
As a woman in federal law enforcement, I really enjoyed the authors perspective of her career. I have experienced some of the same issues she saw throughout her career but really admired how she handled anything thrown her way. I can see myself returning to this book often when faced with some of the same issues. Thank you, Kathy.
October 21, 2023
Really liked this book! I do have to say I would have liked to read about more of her process and life in the fbi as a female and less than about her legat position. I feel like the last half of the book was all about her legat position and being over seas. The first half of the book really interested me.
August 24, 2021
Kathy Stearman grew up on a farm, and wanted the career she could find the farthest from her childhood. A job with the FBI was not like she’d seen in the movies, but it definitely wasn’t like life on the farm either.
This book was wonderfully written and engaging. The author comes across as straight-forward and not overly-emotional (probably a necessary stance, working among mostly men). The stories about her upbringing, training, and career were all interesting, and then became even more compelling when paired with her retrospective insight.
Not all of the book was about the author’s own life. The commentary she offered about different political, military, and cultural events and occurrences around the world were also enlightening. As a reader without a desire to tour the world, the author’s descriptions of the physical beauty and traditions in the countries where she worked were colorful and appreciated.
Overall, I’d give this book 4 out of 5 stars. It would surely be enjoyed by those who enjoy law enforcement or FBI stories, and also highly recommended to those who like true stories about strong women, especially in non-traditional roles.
http://booksithinkyoushouldread.blogs...
This book was wonderfully written and engaging. The author comes across as straight-forward and not overly-emotional (probably a necessary stance, working among mostly men). The stories about her upbringing, training, and career were all interesting, and then became even more compelling when paired with her retrospective insight.
Not all of the book was about the author’s own life. The commentary she offered about different political, military, and cultural events and occurrences around the world were also enlightening. As a reader without a desire to tour the world, the author’s descriptions of the physical beauty and traditions in the countries where she worked were colorful and appreciated.
Overall, I’d give this book 4 out of 5 stars. It would surely be enjoyed by those who enjoy law enforcement or FBI stories, and also highly recommended to those who like true stories about strong women, especially in non-traditional roles.
http://booksithinkyoushouldread.blogs...
July 6, 2021
Very interesting feminist take on a woman’s life in the FBI.
August 19, 2021
Liked this book. Thank you for sharing your story Kathy.
Give book a 3.5.
Give book a 3.5.
December 29, 2021
A beautifully written, informative, thought provoking book. My favorite book this year.
March 20, 2022
Fantastic writer and a very accurate representation of being a woman in the FBI. Thank you for sharing your experience.
April 15, 2022
Language warning lots of f-bomb.
July 26, 2022
This wasn't as good as I had hoped it would be, but it did give insight to females in the FBI. After reading this, if I were young, considering the FBI as a career, I would choose something else.
November 30, 2022
Started off really interesting with good accounts of cases, but eventually turned into a whine-fest about her personal life👎🏼
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews