This probably comes down to erring on the side of caution. If the dosimeter records safe exposure levels (as it almost always will), and there’s reason to believe that the dosimeter is getting higher occupational exposure than the wearer, then you can be confident that the wearer is also getting safe levels. And if a dosimeter recorded dangerous exposure, that’d probably be something to worry about even if the person wasn’t wearing it at the time.
Scumpup, just to add more anecdotal evidence for your question: I was a surface nuke. Because so many of the billets for nuke engineers are submarine, about two thirds of my instructors were sub. I first heard the joke from fast attack sailors about ballistic missile sub sailors. And then vice-versa. When both segments of the submariner community are pointing fingers at each other - while the long-time skimmer salts are pointing fingers at both of them, I take it as a joke with no real basis in fact. Individuals may or may not hook up - that whole crews pair off, no way.
ETA: I’ve said it before here on the Dope: Submariners get called all sorts of names by surface sailors. They just call us by one name: Targets.
I think they win the insult wars. 
This is precisely what I was going to mention. Take radiography, for example. Should someone go home, leaving their poopy-suit and TLD in an area undergoing radiography, I’d imagine it will register the much higher dosages you’re talking about.
(I never had it happen onboard in the yard, although there were a few midwatches where radiography was taking place–and as the BDW I had to go beat on the door to Radio and tell those idiots to go find a rack like everyone else in the duty section. As you very well know, robby, a radiography incident on my watch would be a VERY, VERY serious thing.) :eek:
All I know is an all-femal nuclear-sub crew would be a great premise for a porno film.
^
probably has already been.
Anyway, whats would be the practical issues of integrating women into subs, bersides the obvious ones! Obvious to laymen at least.
I assume you mean the boats. 
AK84, the biggest concern to my mind would be how to integrate all the old salts who truly feel like the alleged CPO in the subsims article was speaking. I was active duty during the Tailhook scandal, and one of my younger CPOs opined that the women involved should have known better than to walk down that hallway - and since she did choose to walk down it, she deserved what she got.
I grant you this is fifteen years out of date experience. And pre-dates allowing women into the nuclear engineering pipeline. I may be jumping at shadows, here.
But the military tends to be one of the more conservative segments of American society. Harassment can be pretty hard to police - not impossible, nor should it be condoned - and some pretty careful policies should be put in place to prevent problems where ever possible.
ISTR that we’d had one poster temporarily who had been among the original draft of female watch officers qualified for nuke engineering duties - who emphasized that the students and trainers had gotten a lot of sexual harassment training prior to having the women show up. And in the end - at that time - it was decided to keep the women aboard the carriers, instead of allowing them to go sub.
The other obvious question I’d have is to wonder what sort of accommodations would have to be made to adjust the sewage systems of the subs for women. You can sometimes hear the expression “potty parity” which claims that in public places, because women often have more involved toileting needs, they need more toilets per person, than a population of men would. Also, men won’t be disposing of things like tampons and other ‘female sanitary supplies’ through the sewage system - and I’d want to make sure that the CHT system was up to par for those things. Even if they aren’t supposed to be sent down the toilets. Men screw up with things going down toilets, so I see no reason to suspect that women will prove less susceptible to that sort of error.
Now, obviously the “potty parity” issue has been worked out with surface vessels. I don’t know how, when my ship took on about 20 female middies we just set aside two small berthing complexes for them - and that worked for temporary housing. I don’t know if it would be possible for more than that number of sailors. And certainly don’t know how things would work with women regularly assigned to divisional duties - you have to be able to have the messenger watches waking up people for mid-watches, so our solution of keeping all men out of the berthing complexes wasn’t going to work.
I’d be laying the women myself, but that’s just me.
On a few military websites, I have seen posters rail against women in the military. Horror stories about “gender normed” whatever the hell that is, tests, etc etc etc. Are these complaints based on any facts?
I am not 100% certain. What I believe this to mean is that there are different standards for people in the same jobs based on their genders. Which is fine, IMNSHO, when you’re talking about the military’s physical readiness test. Or about BMI indexes.
There do remain many tasks within the military that are about things that favor one gender over another. The first that comes to mind is firefighting. If every Marine is a rifleman first, every sailor is a firefighter first. Dealing with the nozzle of a hose at 150 PSI while wearing bunker gear and an OBA requires a lot of upper body strength and stamina. And I’m not certain that all female sailors I’d met could do the job. (FTR, not all the male sailors could, either.) Gender normalizing of requirements for some jobs does seem a bad idea.
Of course, I also believe that many of the people railing against the practice are using it as a socially-acceptable excuse to keep “Dirty Gurls” out of their club.
Of course, all this is pure opinion, and based on experiences that are 15 years in the past. Take it with a grain of salt.
Valid point. Heck, I weigh 130 soaking wet, and once I’m wearing an FFE and SCBA I look like five pounds of crap in a ten pound bag. Of course, I was a submariner–and if the need arises to deploy a hose on a submarine, you are well and truly #@%&ed, for the most part.
Personally, I don’t believe stationing women onboard submarines will ever work. I am not sexist, nor am I trying to protect the boy’s club. As has been mentioned in this thread already, it would introduce too many problems into a place where problems can be extraordinarily hazardous and not easily remedied. The submarine service–although rarely lauded–has always been a very important part of the Navy, and the armed forces in general. What we do down there “works,” and it has worked for decades. Putting women onboard the boats might be a skillful PR move on the USN’s part, but hey… how many women are out there upset because they can’t serve on a sub?
Heh, hell… how many MEN are out there eager to live and work on a submarine? We’re an odd lot. 
The dose limits are determined for only occupational exposure. On boomers it’s not as much of an issue as the TLDs are read when the off-going crew leaves the ship, which is usually the only time they get off
I assume on a fast attack the badges aren’t read daily in port, but there isn’t much expectation of over-exposure either. I would think as a general rule they should be left onboard in a shielded storage locker which also has its own area monitor dosimeter to account for unusual exposures to the locker. Losing a badge off the boat is more likely and it’s more difficult to account for the missing exposure than it is to account for off-body exposure if it’s left onboard.