I think the problem with letting anyone off of a sub when they request it is that there would hardly be anyone left to work on them. I think most of the guys think they wouldn’t mind it much like my husband and then as soon as they go out the first time change their mind.
And sub pay is a joke. I think we get $50 a month for it.
If there’s anything that the military does that you understand please explain it to me. I don’t think I’ve found a single thing.
Rank has it’s privileges . Gender should not.
Now naturally, there must be the occasional accommodation when circumstances warrant but it should not be institutionalized.
Now, with that said I don’t think women on submarines is unworkable but the logistics are certainly difficult. However, I’m sure at some point someone will figure out how to do it. At that point there will be a great deal of bitching and resistance until eventually things will normalize and it will just be a regular part of sub duty.
Can’t say I’d want to be one of the ‘pioneers’ though.
Heh!
Not bloodly likely… At least not within the working ranks of the services themselves. Considering how many female officers there are now, I doubt the o-gangers think that way, either. Maybe politicians think that way. If they think at all.
In the working ranks, there’s too much to be done to play silly games like ‘chivalry.’ A day’s job is still a day’s job, whether it involves refurbishing a pump or motor, painting a hull, or pulling preventitive maintenance on the guns. No petty officer is going to let the day’s work go undone simply because some of the sailors in the duty section have different plumbing. And make no mistake about it - In the Nav, that’s how the day goes - Watchstanding takes place in between all the other duties that are required to keep a ship or squadron running.
Chivalry when Shop 57B was about to explode? Nope! Liz and I turned to, immediately, with only one thought in our minds - control the casualty now. Chivalry when the Damage Control storeroom was on fire, and threatening the O[sub]2[/sub]N[sub]2[/sub] shop? No time for that silliness! There was fire to put out! Chivalry when moving Special Weapons? Not there, either - Intaglio, my wife, was there with her weapon, guarding the devices and ready to lay down righteous destruction upon anyone who threatened their security.
A whole new level of discipline? Why? The existing discipline works just fine where men and women are on ships together. It simply means extending that existing discipline to a new category of warship. Again, as I said above - There’d be some unpleasantness at first, mostly around people’s bruised egos. That’s nothing the Nav hasn’t dealt with before.
Nah… Not so much. A little more difficult than putting women into frigates, but not much beyond that. Submarines (remember - I’ve been there!) do have multiple compartments and spaces wherein people sleep. It just means that hot-racking becomes gender-segregated to various comparmtents, that’s all.
Nope. It’s fear of the unknown, and maybe some bigotry, IMO, that inform the politics of the situation.
While I'm at it... I suspect a larger number of women would volunteer than many are expecting. The Nav is a meritocracy. Submariners are an elite, selct group. Does anyone here *really* think that hard-charging women are imune to the ego-call of being part of an elite force?Royal Canadian Navy (ok, ok “Maritime Forces”):
2000 The Chief of the Maritime Staff announces that women can serve in submarines. Lieutenant Ruth-Ann Shamuhn of 5 Combat Engineer Regiment becomes the first female combat diver.
2003 Lieutenant-Commander Marta Mulkins is the first woman to serve as a captain of a Canadian warship. Master Seaman Colleen Beattie is the first woman qualified as a submariner, followed shortly by Master Seaman Carey Ann Stewart.
2004 Chief Petty Officer, 1st Class Jan Davis is appointed Coxswain of HMCS REGINA and is the first woman Coxswain of a major warship.
From this page:
http://www.forces.gc.ca/site/newsroom/view_news_e.asp?id=1581
Solveig Krey was a female submarine commander of KNM Kobben a submarine of the Royal Norwegian Navy a few years ago.
Q.N. Jones and Marley23, I appreciate your comments – it is easy to make possibly incorrect assumptions about things when following implicit incorrect premises: I assumed familiarity would discourage sexual crime in some instances, while forgetting the truth that most such crime is between people who know each other.
I still feel that there is a lot to be said for a tight military unit, with far more discipline than one finds in civilian life.
wnorthr, I guess I have been watching too many submarine movies :). In contrast, however, I never even saw the CO while on the Nimitz except for on cable TV.
The women’s chief’s quarters, the women’s officer’s quarters, and the women’s enlisted quarters? Each with their own head and shower, you say?
Again, where are you planning on putting all this? And what do we do when there aren’t enough female chiefs to fill up the women’s chief’s quarters? There’s enough animosity when they make people hotrack because there are riders, I’m sure it will go over real well when people (that is, people with dolphins) are hotracking with a mostly empty berthing compartment.
Me, myself, personally, wouldn’t have a problem with mix berthing and shared heads. We both know that is not going to happen.
You’re comparing the interactions of gay males and straight males v. the interactions of straight females and straight males. I think the slight difference between them constitutes more than “variation.”
I hadn’t actually thought about the medivac angle. I was just thinking along the lines of the turnover of personnel and the undermanning problems submarines seem to have as is. If you did have a female crew member get knocked up during a deployment (it was in port, no, really!) and you find out on-station, what do you do? What can a pregnant woman do on a sub while waiting for a “convenient time” that doesn’t risk exceeding exposure limits? What if she was a nuke? She’s not going to be standing any engineering watches. There’s enough grumbling and animosity when someone gets sidelined due to an accidental injury…
OK, all this will do is reveal my ignorant assumptions about Canadians, but somehow, I envision Canadians as being way too polite and well-mannered to have the same kinds of problems I think the American Navy would have.
Oh, pthhbbbbbt.
In-port hooks-up happpen all the time. On-board hooks-up are almost vanishingly rare. There’s this thing, you see, called NJP. NJP means that (among other things), when you get caught hooking up on board, you lose a pay grade, lose a lot of pay, and are otherwise seriously inconvenienced. Sure, they happen. And they get handled, just like any other breach of discipline.
Roughtly five percent of the female sailors are pregnant at any one point in time. This is slightly below the average for the entire nation’s average. Pregnant women go to sea quite often… In general, it’s only the later stages of pregnancy that are an issue. Last tri-mester usually finds the service member on detatched shore duty until a couple months after birth. Unless, of course, the ship is a pier hog, in which case, she’ll only go on shore-duty when the ship pulls out. If you’re really all that worried about it, there’s always birth control, and that can be made a condition of service in submarines… If they object, they don’t get to be on the boats. That handles the concerns about zoommies and the fetus. Since it’s a volunteer force, there’s no discrimination issue with making long-term contraception a term of service in boats.
::snort:: ::giggle:: ::clears throat:: why, thank you, thank you very much.
While courtesy and diffidence are deeply ingrained in the national phyche, I do assure you that we have a full spectrum of nice to not so nice people. The distribution may just be weighted a bit differently.
I won’t mention (too much) past scandals about military behaviour regarding the treatment of prisonners in Somalia, weird initiation rites that cased the Airborne regiment to be disbanded when a video was leaked, and the routine harassment of soldiers making PTSD claims. The military doesn’t attract many members from the touchy-feely-warm-fuzzy-herbal-tea segment of the population, as it shouldn’t.
That being said, I fell I must balance the equation with statments that Canadian Special forces and Canadian snipers in Afghanistan were nominated for US valor decorations (Pres. Citation & bonze & silver stars) and that the Princess Patricia’s Light Linfantry (PPCLI) regiment’s level of training caused them to be considered “special forces” by the joint Afghan command. Candian forces are routinely under-equipped but highly trained, although they did manage to scrape up some good gear for our troops there.
The reason I speculate* there won’t be a problem for our subs is that there’s so few of them (4) that they would likely be seen as a very desirable posting, and that any trouble makers would be quicly replaced.
*I have no first or second hance knowledge of attitudes in the current Navy.
You misunderstood my post.
For one, the “old boys” who fought in Korea and Vietnam are the ones calling the shots now, and they grew up with those values.
While many people in the ranks may think it’s a good idea, apparently they don’t, or we wouldn’t be having this discussion.
You say that you got right in there, your wife guarded her post. All admirable. Now, your ship is going to sink, and you have to close a hatch to prevent it- and your wife is on the other side, doomed to die. Are you following orders, mister? Can you live with yourself afterward?
Thay is the awkward point I’m making -right or not- that I feel is in the way of full military integration.
Don’t call me mister. I worked for a living.
And yes, I’d have shut that hatch or scuttle.
I’d have had nightmares for the rest of my life, but I’d have shut it. The nightmares would be worse than if I’d had to seal in any other shipmate, but only in degree, not in nature. We sailed to sea, into a war zone, together, Intaglio and I (at that time, she was ‘merely’ my fiance). There were roughly 20 other engaged couples aboard, as well. The Chain of Command had no doubts about either Intaglio’s or my abilities to do our duties. Neither did we. Neither was there any doubt about the other 500 or so women, nor about the roughly 700 men on board. Each and every one of us were trained professionals in the service of the United States Navy, and we knew what we were doing.
Trust the sailors of today to be every bit as professional and courageous now, as we were then, if you please.