Who was the first woman to serve aboard a US. submarine?
No women have ever served aboard US Navy submarines, as far as I know.
I don’t mean a ‘tour of duty’ but the first woman to serve on a US submarine.
If you don’t mean a tour of duty than what do you mean? I don’t understand your question. The US Navy does not currently allow women to serve on submarines. Here’s a cite:
http://www.csmonitor.com/atcsmonitor/specials/women/work/work012800.html
I don’t mean active duty as in a tour of duty, but serving for the US Navy, and the first woman on board. 1953, 1952?
So you’re asking who was the first woman in the Navy to actually walk aboard a submarine, as in like taking a tour? Is that what you’re asking?
Where’s that head exploding smiley when you need it?
The US has been building subs for quite a while now. They were used in the Civil War and earlier (albeit not very well).
The real question would be when did the Navy start allowing women to join. I would imagine that the first one to step on board a sub would follow soon after.
Airman Doors
In Official capacity.
Women have never served aboard submarines in any official capacity. I toured a sub as an officer candidate eons ago, but there was nothing official about that.
The submarine service in the US Navy is a male domain.
subs are one of the only places gender descrimination makes sense. no chance for seporate bathrooms or bed rooms. ignoreing things like rape. (a few girls… alot of guys, alone for months… )
ignoreing things like the chance for rapes and harasment. these are college age to 20 somethings. unless surgical sterilization was mandated someone would end up pregnent at some point, (thats not the women’s fault, if it was mostly women and a few men it would be the same way… people like to have sex… they just…do). and that either means ending missions over the acts of two soldiers or else risking putting babies into combat.
Actually, the possibility of women serving aboard submarines makes no more or less sense than women serving aboard other warships.
Even a relatively small Los Angeles-class sub (as compared to the much larger Ohio-class ballistic missile subs) could be cheaply modified to allow women to serve. Here’s what you do:
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There are 4 heads (restrooms) on board. One could be designated female-only. Alternatively, simply prohibit sailors from walking around in the heads naked. The showers are closed off with shower doors. Require sailors to at least have a towel around themselves. This is not impossible. When I was in college, there was an all-female dorm that went co-ed, and the building had only one restroom per floor. The residents on several floors voted to designate their restrooms as co-ed without incident.
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As far as berthing areas, even a Los Angeles-class sub has a separate 9-man berthing area and a 21-man berthing area, not to mention the chief petty officer quarters, and the three separate 3-man officer’s quarters. Plenty of combinations to separate females. Then you have my XO’s solution when this was first discussed about 10 years ago: the $1.99 K-Mart solution. This consisted of simply hanging a shower curtain across the berthing area passageway for whatever bank of racks you wished to separate. If you have mixed berthing areas, you also need to prohibit folks from walking around with nothing on. (Which is not much of an issue anyway; I never walked around naked, even when going from my berthing area to the shower.)
As far as sex on board, realize that there is really no privacy on board a sub. Most of the time you could stick your arm out, and you’ll hit somebody. There are virtually no isolated corners where an amorous couple could be guaranteed privacy before someone came by to take logs or inspect the space.
In all honesty, most of the objections to women serving on subs are spurious anyway. I am convinced that the objections simply come from those trying to maintain the status quo. I’ve also heard, tongue-in-cheek, that the real objections come from submariner’s wives, who aren’t eager to have their husbands go off on 6-month deployments with females. After all, regardless of the lack of privacy on a sub, there are port visits. In any event, this is no more an objection for subs than women serving anywhere else in the miltary.
–robby (ex-submarine officer)
Hey robby, I understand your argument, but then again, I can’t fully agree with 'em.
Taking the fact that no submarine has a private place, you are assuming that people will never “get it on” if nobody else is around. My point? People are not infallible. With 688 Class subs out yonder in the seas for 6 months or so, I can almost guarantee that human nature being what it is, someone’s gonna get pregnant.
On the level of “curtains”, I’ve been there and seen it before when deployed. There’s going to be a lot of talk going around through the guys undermining any female’s position, in whatever capacity she serves–the invitations to sexual harassment are just too damn inviting.
Am I for or against it? Either way I don’t care. Given the subs we have now, it’s not practical for a variety of reasons. Hell, having to send two of my troops home from southwest Asia because they got pregnant convinced me enough . . .
Tripler
It’s just a can of worms the Navy doesn’t wanna open, and I see why.
college age guys and girls… possibly could die? SOMEONE will have sex, these are 20 year olds, they will crawl into the sewage storage and have sex if thats what it takes. or else have a big freakin orgy after being bored with nothing to do for 7 months. maybe the risks are minimal, force birth control. still what happens if it fails? what option sounds better? spend a million dollars to scrap a mission and find a port (you lose the whole ‘being hidden’ bit if your going into ports), or risk sending babies into combat?
in college, my old room mate always had his girlfreind over, and I prefer not to imagin what he was doing late at night with her, I put head phones with music on and slept like that. because he would SWEAR they were being good, but I didn’t buy it… 8 months without me being ever away and I suspect he’d have given up even that much pretense and just bent her over in the middle of the room. some people are like that, I doubt the army weeds every one out. one baby is all it takes
college age guys and girls… possibly could die? SOMEONE will have sex, these are 20 year olds, they will crawl into the sewage storage and have sex if thats what it takes. or else have a big freakin orgy after being bored with nothing to do for 7 months. maybe the risks are minimal, force birth control. still what happens if it fails? what option sounds better? spend a million dollars to scrap a mission and find a port (you lose the whole ‘being hidden’ bit if your going into ports), or risk sending babies into combat?
in college, my old room mate always had his girlfreind over, and I prefer not to imagin what he was doing late at night with her, I put head phones with music on and slept like that. because he would SWEAR they were being good, but I didn’t buy it… 8 months without me being ever away and I suspect he’d have given up even that much pretense and just bent her over in the middle of the room. some people are like that, I doubt the army weeds every one out. one baby is all it takes
The way I heard it - no cites - many years ago (about the British Navy), was that women were not allowed on subs because a man would delay closing a flooding bulkhead door for a woman whereas he would close it against a man (dooming the man). This could doom the sub.
I remember hearing after the Gulf War 350 babies were born to members of our armed services while actively doing their duty. If theres a will, theres a way.
I’m guessing it was a Russian woman on a Russian sub back in the early fifties, not a U.S. submarine. Remember all those steroids those east european women were taking? They could pass as men.
A few years ago a female scientist spent several days aboard one of our submarines doing research in the Arctic.
USS Hawkbill
No cite, but IIRC a number of US military (female) nurses were ordered to evacuate the Philippines in subs.
Military, ordered to duty, on a sub. That ought to meet all the conditions of the OP.
Hymen Rickover.