Women to be allowed to serve on USN submarines

[kallend 2,027]

www.nytimes.com/2010/02/24/us/24brfs-BANONWOMENON_BRF.html

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[matthewcline 0]

I think this is a good thing, and in 11 more months when the study is completed by the Sec Def Office we will see more of a good thing when the ban is lifted.

IMO, a sign of progress.

Matt

An Instructors first concern is student safety.
So, start being safe, first!!!

[shropshire 0]

'bout time too - and why not?


.... So long as they aren't asked to park them

(.)Y(.)
Chivalry is not dead; it only sleeps for want of work to do. - Jerome K Jerome

[rhaig 0]

does anyone here know if they were prompted to do so by someone's complaint?? Or are they just deciding it's the right thing to do and executing.

--
Rob

[billvon 2,998]

Good! Hopefully gays will soon follow.

[marks2065 0]

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Good! Hopefully gays will soon follow.

and in about 9 months maybe a baby or 2

[SimonBones 1]

It's been something talked about for years but ultimately decided against because of the space restrictions and the limitations that places on berthing spaces and bathrooms. SSBN subs are far bigger than your fast attack ones and would be a lot easier to create separate berthing spaces and bathrooms with some modifications. I don't think it had anything to do with complaining or progressive movement.

Women will still not be allowed to be stationed on 688 class fast attack subs because there literally is not enough space to have separate berthing spaces and bathrooms at all. It's pretty communal.

Saying that the military is lifting a "ban" on women in subs is a bit misleading as women were never really "banned" from going on board one or going out to sea in one. I've personally seen a woman on board a fast attack sub for short 3-4 day trips to sea more than once, but these were not woman service members who were stationed on board, just part of engineering or science teams riding the sub for specific purposes. There was actually a pretty standard procedure for when this sort of thing happened. Three male junior officers would be cleared from one small room and sent to berth in the enlisted quarters so that the woman would have her own room. Unfortunately this would remove 3 bunks from the pool of roughly 90-something bunks available for the crew of 140+ sailors. The junior officers bathroom was reserved strictly for her which denied access to one toilet and shower of the 5 toilets and 5 showers on board for 140+ people. While this can be done for very short periods of time out to sea, you can't reasonably do this for a 6 month period.

It's never been about sexism or banning women. It's really just been about the absolute lack of space for separate facilities in current submarine designs. While they've figured out a way to make this work for SSBN and SSGN subs through modifications (nobody I'd ever met ever really disagreed this was possible), I really don't ever see women realistically being stationed on the 688 class fast attack subs.

It's not terribly difficult for someone to get a tour of a 688 class sub if you go to somewhere like Groton CT, Norfolk VA, or San Diego. I think if you went and saw the spaces for yourself, you'd agree it's not really practical to station both men and women on it. That's just how this class sub was designed. And it's been discussed to death by everyone who's set foot on one.

Maybe future class fast attack subs will be designed and built differently to allow for it. Who knows.

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[marks2065 0]

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It's been something talked about for years but ultimately decided against because of the space restrictions and the limitations that places on berthing spaces and bathrooms. SSBN subs are far bigger than your fast attack ones and would be a lot easier to create separate berthing spaces and bathrooms with some modifications. I don't think it had anything to do with complaining or progressive movement.

Women will still not be allowed to be stationed on 688 class fast attack subs because there literally is not enough space to have separate berthing spaces and bathrooms at all. It's pretty communal.

Saying that the military is lifting a "ban" on women in subs is a bit misleading as women were never really "banned" from going on board one or going out to sea in one. I've personally seen a woman on board a fast attack sub for short 3-4 day trips to sea more than once, but these were not woman service members who were stationed on board, just part of engineering or science teams riding the sub for specific purposes. There was actually a pretty standard procedure for when this sort of thing happened. Three male junior officers would be cleared from one small room and sent to berth in the enlisted quarters so that the woman would have her own room. Unfortunately this would remove 3 bunks from the pool of roughly 90-something bunks available for the crew of 140+ sailors. The junior officers bathroom was reserved strictly for her which denied access to one toilet and shower of the 5 toilets and 5 showers on board for 140+ people. While this can be done for very short periods of time out to sea, you can't reasonably do this for a 6 month period.

It's never been about sexism or banning women. It's really just been about the absolute lack of space for separate facilities in current submarine designs. While they've figured out a way to make this work for SSBN and SSGN subs through modifications (nobody I'd ever met ever really disagreed this was possible), I really don't ever see women realistically being stationed on the 688 class fast attack subs.

It's not terribly difficult for someone to get a tour of a 688 class sub if you go to somewhere like Groton CT, Norfolk VA, or San Diego. I think if you went and saw the spaces for yourself, you'd agree it's not really practical to station both men and women on it. That's just how this class sub was designed. And it's been discussed to death by everyone who's set foot on one.

Maybe future class fast attack subs will be designed and built differently to allow for it. Who knows.

or the women can just forget about privacy, that seems to be the big hangup. They can learn to pee and shower with the men or not serve on board.

[Amazon 7]

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or the women can just forget about privacy, that seems to be the big hangup. They can learn to pee and shower with the men or not serve on board.

Isnt it great that some women want to actually serve their country since so many men FAIL at that patriotic duty???

[marks2065 0]

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or the women can just forget about privacy, that seems to be the big hangup. They can learn to pee and shower with the men or not serve on board.

Isnt it great that some women want to actually serve their country since so many men FAIL at that patriotic duty???

yes it is great that they want to serve and I think they should if they want. but the sub does not allow for seperate quarters and unless they can live with that they should not serve on board a sub.

[Andy9o8 2]

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or the women can just forget about privacy, that seems to be the big hangup. They can learn to pee and shower with the men or not serve on board.

Better yet, have the sub manned (womaned?) primarily by women. But some men would be allowed to be assigned to the boat, too. Of course, the men would have to give up their privacy hangups. They can learn to pee and shower with the women or not serve on board.

[marks2065 0]

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or the women can just forget about privacy, that seems to be the big hangup. They can learn to pee and shower with the men or not serve on board.

Better yet, have the sub manned (womaned?) primarily by women. But some men would be allowed to be assigned to the boat, too. Of course, the men would have to give up their privacy hangups. They can learn to pee and shower with the women or not serve on board.

I really don't see a problem with that, when was the last time you heard a guy say " no I don't want to shower with a bunch of chicks?"

[DanG 1]

In my limited experience both sexes have the privacy hang-up, not just women. I've served with women who had no problem sharing facilities, and men who wouldn't allow it. It cuts both ways.

I don't think the privacy issues is all that big a deal. The potential for love triangles and fratertnization is a better argument, but that's easily taken care of by effective leadership.

- Dan G

[shropshire 0]

Hey another solution ...... ALL Womin boats!

(.)Y(.)
Chivalry is not dead; it only sleeps for want of work to do. - Jerome K Jerome

[marks2065 0]

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In my limited experience both sexes have the privacy hang-up, not just women. I've served with women who had no problem sharing facilities, and men who wouldn't allow it. It cuts both ways.

I don't think the privacy issues is all that big a deal. The potential for love triangles and fratertnization is a better argument, but that's easily taken care of by effective leadership.

that is why I made the comment in an earlier post about babies. the military doesn't like the soldiers getting pregnant while serving and they probably would not want to deal with the jealousy issue from the partners of those serving in such close quarters.

[SimonBones 1]

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or the women can just forget about privacy, that seems to be the big hangup. They can learn to pee and shower with the men or not serve on board.

Isnt it great that some women want to actually serve their country since so many men FAIL at that patriotic duty???

yes it is great that they want to serve and I think they should if they want. but the sub does not allow for seperate quarters and unless they can live with that they should not serve on board a sub.

90 something beds, 140+ people. They'd have to be okay with sharing beds with men too and changing in front of them. There is NO privacy. Not to shower or take a dump.

Not many people regardless of gender like the idea of sharing a bathroom with other people of the SAME gender while taking a huge dump, even less the opposite gender. I don't think most men would actually want to share their bathroom with women when they have the shits. This really goes both ways.

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Better yet, have the sub manned (womaned?) primarily by women. But some men would be allowed to be assigned to the boat, too. Of course, the men would have to give up their privacy hangups. They can learn to pee and shower with the women or not serve on board.

This has been discussed to death too. Mostly by people who've never served on a sub. Where would you find a crew of women where the majority of them had years of experience in operating multi billion dollar fast attack submarines? Even if you wanted to do this, there is not a single woman alive now with the experience to supervise operations on a fast attack submarine. Good luck getting a crew of 140+ women together where at least 50% of them had supervisory abilities in operating fast attack submarines in covert operations. They just don't exist anywhere. Easier said than done. There also needs to be a pool of people to draw from with experience when if you could find these women. What happens if it's time for your XO to rotate to another command? Where would you find another woman XO with 10+ years of submarining experience to rotate in? This would make promotions and billet rotations impossible because there is only one single place these women could go to or come from.

Yeah, much easier said than done.

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[kallend 2,027]

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does anyone here know if they were prompted to do so by someone's complaint?? Or are they just deciding it's the right thing to do and executing.

I heard from a senior Navy person that it's really on account of recruiting difficulties, notwithstanding the ostensible reasons given in press releases.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[billvon 2,998]

>and in about 9 months maybe a baby or 2

You're right, that is an issue. Taking only gay women would solve that problem. (Or straight women/gay men, or all men/all women of any sexual orientation.)

[SimonBones 1]

I agree that making the argument that sending women to sea in a submarine will lead to a substantial amount of pregnancy is silly, especially since this is not a huge problem for most other military units.

But the fact that female service members do get pregnant (as is their right) presents a much larger problem for the submarine community than many other military communities.

The submarine community is a relatively small community compared to surface ships, aviation, etc. A fast attack submarine has a very small crew where each individual member is more vital to the command readiness than say... an aircraft carrier. If a couple sailors get pregnant on a carrier, it's really not a huge deal and doesn't really limit the movement ability of the ship.

Even on smaller surface ships like destroyers, frigates, what have you, a sailor can be replaced by a sailor of similar job from another kind of ship or from a shore command if movement would be limited by pregnant sailors.

This is not so true with submarines. Submariners really only stay within the small submarine community and don't transfer to/from other kinds of ships. Once in the submarine field, they generally stay there. It's sort of a qualification specialty that require special schools for.

If one or two women stationed on board a submarine were to get pregnant before a scheduled ship movement, their inability to be deployed could limit the entire ship mobility and mission readiness. There is an extremely small pool of people to draw from to replace submariners who can't go to sea for some reason.

I'm not saying at all that every, or most women, would attempt to get pregnant to specifically avoid a 6 month deployment. But it really is no secret that 'coincidentally' the highest occurrence of pregnancies for a navy ship happens shortly before a scheduled deployment. While this is an unfortunate reality for many military groups, its impact would be far worse for the submarine community.

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[Remster 30]

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But the fact that female service members do get pregnant (as is their right)

You may want to double check that.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/12/25/iraq.us.soldiers.pregnant/index.html

Remster

[marks2065 0]

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>and in about 9 months maybe a baby or 2

You're right, that is an issue. Taking only gay women would solve that problem. (Or straight women/gay men, or all men/all women of any sexual orientation.)

all that is being said is that allowing mixed sexes on subs adds many problems, not only the ones that occur regardless of sex but those that are only related to females or the mixing of genders. being on a sub is a little different than a surface ship in that they cannot just transport the problem back to a base. most issues are handled on ship and sometimes require more drastic measures to solve but if you add more problems it makes staying under for 3-6 months at a time more difficult, especially if they are 1-2 months pregnant when deployed and the deployment is 6months long.

[SimonBones 1]

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But the fact that female service members do get pregnant (as is their right)

You may want to double check that.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/12/25/iraq.us.soldiers.pregnant/index.html

Let me rephrase:

But the fact that female service members get pregnant (as is their right unless currently stationed in Northern Iraq unless they get CO permission)

or

But the fact that female sailors do get pregnant (as is their right)

or

But the fact that female service members do get pregnant (in general)

Jeez.

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[Andy9o8 2]

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But the fact that female service members do get pregnant (as is their right)

You may want to double check that.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/12/25/iraq.us.soldiers.pregnant/index.html

Let me rephrase:

But the fact that female service members get pregnant (as is their right unless currently stationed in Northern Iraq unless they get CO permission)

or

But the fact that female sailors do get pregnant (as is their right)

or

But the fact that female service members do get pregnant (in general)

Jeez.

Nope; still not phrased well. Just because females can get pregnant doesn't mean they necessarily do. Are we being a lazy boy? I think you'll be staying after class, Simon.

[SimonBones 1]

Aahh. I guess what I meant to say is that females serving in the military have never gotten pregnant in the history of the US military. It's all either a myth or fake evidence planted by the 9/11 Illuminati conspirators.

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[SimonBones 1]

http://www.navytimes.com/news/2009/10/navy_pregnancy_101709w/

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Report outlines pregnancy policy concerns

By Andrew Tilghman - Staff writer
Posted : Monday Oct 19, 2009 6:18:09 EDT

Some shore commands in the Norfolk, Va., area report that up to 34 percent of their billets are filled by pregnant sailors, and commanders are complaining about a “lack of proper manning to conduct their mission,” according to a Naval Inspector General report.

The IG has asked Navy personnel officials to review the new rules for Navy mothers-to-be and consider the work conducted by each rating and how pregnancy affects a sailor’s ability to do that work.

The spike in pregnant sailors assigned to some units comes after the Navy changed its rules for handling mothers-to-be. And it’s compounded by a baby boomlet in the Navy community.

When sailors on sea duty become pregnant, they are transferred to shore-based commands that fit certain criteria, such as being close to a Navy medical center. The length of that assignment changed in June 2007, when the Navy extended the postpartum tour from four months after a child’s birth to 12 months. Combined with a nine-month pregnancy, that puts expectant mothers on limited duty for up to 21 months.

Now, shore industrial and aviation commands say they are receiving more pregnant sailors — from 15 percent to 34 percent of authorized billets, in some cases — who are unable to fulfill essential duties because of their pregnancy, according to the IG.

“If pregnancy trends remain constant, the new pregnancy distribution policy could have over 2,500 sailors counting against shore duty commands in ratings where they are not able to conduct mission-essential work within industrial or hazardous material-type conditions,” the IG report, based on a site visit to Hampton Roads, Va., in March and April, concludes.

Personnel officials said the review is underway. “The current pregnancy and parenthood policy represents our enduring commitment to maintaining and improving a healthy life/work balance for our Navy family. Officials and Navy Personnel Command and Fleet Forces Command are reviewing the issue paper provided by the IG following their visit to Hampton Roads in April 2009,” Navy Personnel Command said in a written statement.

“Any future recommendations to adjust the policy will be announced after the review is complete and approved,” the statement said.

Since shore assignments for pregnant sailors were extended two years ago, pregnancies Navy-wide have increased. The number of women leaving deploying units to have children rose from 1,770 in June 2006 to 3,125 as of Aug. 1.
Maternity detailing

Pregnant sailors must be assigned:

• To an authorized billet within their rating community or “needs of the Navy.”

• Within 50 miles of a Navy medical center.

• Near their last permanent duty station.

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