# Who is the 1st woman to serve aboard a US Submarine? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 22, 2003, 11:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-1st-woman-to-serve-aboard-a-us-submarine/214667 "2003-11-22T11:49:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Jake4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/bc8723/32.png) [@Jake4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jake4)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2003, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-1st-woman-to-serve-aboard-a-us-submarine/214667/21 "2003-11-23T17:22:08Z")
Evacuating the phillipines isn’t exactly being ‘ordered to duty.’ :rolleyes: **bradministrator** : Ha! ---
**Author:** ![yola](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/48db29/32.png) [@yola](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yola)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2003, 10:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-1st-woman-to-serve-aboard-a-us-submarine/214667/22 "2003-11-24T10:47:55Z")
I wonder who the first woman to be drafted will be? She’d fade into obscurity like Hymen Rickover. ---
**Author:** ![yola](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/48db29/32.png) [@yola](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yola)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2003, 10:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-1st-woman-to-serve-aboard-a-us-submarine/214667/23 "2003-11-24T10:58:02Z")
edit above to First U.S. woman drafted. Not first woman. And to say all those babies are teenagers now. ---
**Author:** ![Bear\_Nenno](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bear_nenno/32/3358_2.png) [@Bear\_Nenno](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bear_Nenno)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2003, 11:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-1st-woman-to-serve-aboard-a-us-submarine/214667/24 "2003-11-24T11:07:53Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Icerigger \* > \*\*A few years ago a female scientist spent several days aboard one of our submarines doing research in the Arctic. \*\* Dont hold out on us, **Icerigger**. Share the juicy details!! ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2003, 11:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-1st-woman-to-serve-aboard-a-us-submarine/214667/25 "2003-11-24T11:24:15Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by yola \* > 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. Not quite - 350 babies were born to service women, but when a woman in the military is found to be pregnant she is taken off active duty. Everyone quotes this as though it’s proof the young men and women were f\*\*\*\*\*\* like bunnies and it’s not - a substantial number of those women were pregnant prior to reporting for active duty, but just did not know they were pregnant, being in the first month or two or even three\*. For the sheet number of people in the military services, that figure of 350 pregnancies is actually probably on the low side compared to the general population in that age range. - There seems to be an unspoken assumption that a woman knows the instant she becomes pregnant. She doesn’t. Often, she doesn’t know until the near the end of the first tri-mester. ---
**Author:** ![yola](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/48db29/32.png) [@yola](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yola)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2003, 11:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-1st-woman-to-serve-aboard-a-us-submarine/214667/26 "2003-11-24T11:34:57Z")
Broomstick- When a woman in the military finds out she’s pregnant she might be taken out of combat duty, but not active duty. Hell, you can buy maternity uniforms. The new U.S. miltary is very child friendly. Where are all the new soldiers going to from anyway? The cabbage patch? ---
**Author:** ![swansont](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5fc32e/32.png) [@swansont](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/swansont)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2003, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-1st-woman-to-serve-aboard-a-us-submarine/214667/27 "2003-11-24T12:44:48Z")
The Navy’s Nuclear Power School staff would regularly get orders to spend one day on a sub if they had not served at sea (at least when I was there). I imagine they did this before my tour as well. Any number of female observers or technicians could have gotten orders to spend a short time on a sub. I’m not sure the first one would have been a particularly noteworthy occasion. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2003, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-1st-woman-to-serve-aboard-a-us-submarine/214667/28 "2003-11-24T12:49:03Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by yola \* > When a woman in the military finds out she’s pregnant she might be taken out of combat duty, but not active duty. Hell, you can buy maternity uniforms. The new U.S. miltary is very child friendly. Where are all the new soldiers going to from anyway? The cabbage patch? Yes, that’s what I _meant_ and you stated it much better. Pardon this civilian who too easily conflates “active duty” with “combat duty”. “Maternity Uniforms”?.. And to think it used to be an insult to say your mother wore combat boots, now it’s a matter of pride to say she was wearing camo at your birth… ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2003, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-1st-woman-to-serve-aboard-a-us-submarine/214667/29 "2003-11-24T13:33:17Z")
Personally, I think the U.S. Navy should just send out a submarine with an all-female crew and see how that works. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2003, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-1st-woman-to-serve-aboard-a-us-submarine/214667/30 "2003-11-24T13:41:16Z")
**Broomstick** , in an earlier thread about the pregnancy-on-duty issue , which I cannot link to now because the “search” function is suffering from “problems with the SDMB database”, there was a quote to two articles from the mid-90s that tended to agree that the pregnancy rate in the Gulf and in Bosnia/Kosovo was within a comparable range with that general age cohort in the US population. Anyway, as pointed out earlier, female members of the US Navy are just ineligible for submariner billets. Of course, we can always look forward to some upcoming episode of _JAG_ where the venal, weak, worthless civilian pressure to start enlisting submarineresses results in a huge fiasco that the handsome, brave, noble, heroic military lawyers have to disentangle 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Redsland](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9de0a6/32.png) [@Redsland](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Redsland)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2003, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-1st-woman-to-serve-aboard-a-us-submarine/214667/31 "2003-11-24T14:31:53Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Bryan Ekers \* > \*\*Personally, I think the U.S. Navy should just send out a submarine with an all-female crew and see how that works. \*\* Who would drive? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2003, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-1st-woman-to-serve-aboard-a-us-submarine/214667/32 "2003-11-26T20:31:35Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Redsland \* > \*\*Who would drive? > > 😃 \*\* I dunno, but in any case, they won’t be too stubborn to read maps or ask for directions. ---
**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2003, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-1st-woman-to-serve-aboard-a-us-submarine/214667/33 "2003-11-26T20:59:50Z")
Yeah, but they’d stop at every antique store along the way 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2003, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-1st-woman-to-serve-aboard-a-us-submarine/214667/34 "2003-11-26T21:13:52Z")
Only if they were having a sale. ---
**Author:** ![DreadCthulhu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/db5fbb/32.png) [@DreadCthulhu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DreadCthulhu)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2003, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-1st-woman-to-serve-aboard-a-us-submarine/214667/35 "2003-11-27T02:28:26Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Bryan Ekers \* > \*\*Personally, I think the U.S. Navy should just send out a submarine with an all-female crew and see how that works. \*\* Actually I have heard that idea floated around by some submariners I have talked with, maybe using one of the Ohio class boats for that purpose. Of course, I can see one minor problem with this: - when women live in close proximity, their periods tend to syncronize. Which means you might have 150 women, in charge of hundreds of nuclear warheads, all having PMS, AT THE SAME TIME! :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Waenara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/50afbb/32.png) [@Waenara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waenara)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2003, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-1st-woman-to-serve-aboard-a-us-submarine/214667/36 "2003-11-27T03:42:12Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by DreadCthulhu \* > \*\*Of course, I can see one minor problem with this: - when women live in close proximity, their periods tend to syncronize. Which means you might have 150 women, in charge of hundreds of nuclear warheads, all having PMS, AT THE SAME TIME! :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: 😉 \*\* 😛 Sorry, Cecil says that menstrual synchronization is [a myth](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_306.html). And besides, even if it were true they could stop having periods during the tour of duty by continuously taking birth control pills (skip the blanks), or by taking Depo shots. ---
**Author:** ![Waenara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/50afbb/32.png) [@Waenara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waenara)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2003, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-1st-woman-to-serve-aboard-a-us-submarine/214667/37 "2003-11-27T03:59:04Z")
Whoops, that link I gave was a Cecil article from 1986 that supported the idea of menstrual synchronization. [This new and improved article](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/021220.html) from 2002 says that the issue isn’t settled, but in general the evidence is against synchronization. ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2003, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-1st-woman-to-serve-aboard-a-us-submarine/214667/38 "2003-11-27T04:42:23Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Bryan Ekers \* > \*\*Personally, I think the U.S. Navy should just send out a submarine with an all-female crew and see how that works. \*\* So you’ll have an entire crew with no prior experince serving on a submarine? Is this really wise? ---
**Author:** ![vandal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/858c86/32.png) [@vandal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vandal)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2003, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-1st-woman-to-serve-aboard-a-us-submarine/214667/39 "2003-11-27T05:15:54Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by scr4 \* > \*\*So you’ll have an entire crew with no prior experince serving on a submarine? Is this really wise? \*\* No, it’s not. I don’t think any admiral (male or female) of sound mind would ever allow this. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2003, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-1st-woman-to-serve-aboard-a-us-submarine/214667/40 "2003-11-27T05:32:54Z")
Forget about the screwing… I think you’d be playing with fire just putting men and women in such tight quarters for such a long period of time. Someone falls in love, lets his or her feelings be known, and gets rejected. Then these people have to work together for a long, long time. Perhaps two people fall for the same member of the opposite sex. Jealousy erupts. Tough problem wihen you’re in each other’s armpits all the time. This can happen on a surface ship as well (and I’m sure it does), but at least there is more space to keep out of each other’s way when not on duty. I imagine the Navy is just reluctant to introduce a whole new level of interpersonal relationships into a very difficult environment. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-1st-woman-to-serve-aboard-a-us-submarine/214667.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-1st-woman-to-serve-aboard-a-us-submarine/214667.md?page=3)