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Long and hard and full of seawomen: Pentagon ok's women on subs

Lord Blackadder said:
To a large extent I agree with you. But it's also true that nuclear submarines have a reputation as being among the highest-stress and most dangerous postings in the navy; there is far less room for error than with a non-nuclear or surface ship. Carriers, the other major nuclear ship type, have much larger crews and lots of space per person in comparison with subs. Which is why it has taken so long to reach this point.

It's not as easy as "everyone just needs to get along", it's "everyone needs to work together professionally and we cannot afford any mistakes". Besides, it's just as stereotypical to assume the men are boors as it is to assume the women are helpless. The reality is not so much that men are boors as that putting people in close proximity and under stress pushes people to the limit - nuclear subs are famous for this - and adding women to the mix makes it undeniably more complicated for everyone.

Again, I am by no means against it. But it's simplistic to think it's something we can "just do", just like that. We need to come up with a system that works, and we don't have it in place yet. The pilot program linked by the OP is probably designed to identify issues regarding mixed-gender crews, to help develop future rules and so forth.

If you read memoirs by submariners from WWII onwards, you get a sense of just how claustrophobic sub duty is, and the issues with having mixed crews become immediately obvious. I'm not saying they're insurmountable, but it's not easy either.
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To think that neither women or men can handle a change even under such conditions is a bit of an insult to our forces isn't it? We have men and women serving together in actual combat scenarios with their lives directly on the line, somehow I think we can manage close quarters.;)
 
NT1440 said:
To think that neither women or men can handle a change even under such conditions is a bit of an insult to our forces isn't it? We have men and women serving together in actual combat scenarios with their lives directly on the line, somehow I think we can manage close quarters.;)
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Absolutely, but I was trying to point out that it is irresponsible to rush it. And if we are being too cautious, isn't that forgivable in the presence of nuclear reactors and ICBMs? :eek:

I'll say it again - I support mixed crews and believe it's going to happen.
 
Lord Blackadder said:
Absolutely, but I was trying to point out that it is irresponsible to rush it. And if we are being too cautious, isn't that forgivable in the presence of nuclear reactors and ICBMs? :eek:

I'll say it again - I support mixed crews and believe it's going to happen.
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Of course this shouldn't be rushed. That said, the last thing we need is what will probably happen: years of pointless boards and commissions "investigating" how to put people together on a sub. I think what needs to happen is that we need to make it very clear via policy that any crap will not be tolerated, and actually stand by it.
 
Mousse said:
Women just ain't themselves during certain times of the month. I pity those long suffering submariners.:(
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Not all women. Like many men, I work with women professionally, and I haven't seen 'time of the month issues'. The women I work with are professionals and they deal with it. As do female judges, female army soldiers, female pilots, female surgeons and many others who have heavy demanding jobs with great responsibilities. They deal with periods, and do their jobs.
dukebound85 said:
Once again, it has nothing to do with women or gender

It has EVERYTHING to do with the logistics, and the modifications (mega millions and mega time) that will need to be done for a "need" that isn't there
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If it's nothing to do with gender or personal issues, then what other modifications will need to be made? I see no problem with men/women sharing toilets / bathroom - every home in the USA has a mixed gender toilet / bathroom, and in some countries most public and company toilets / showers are also mixed gender.

As for beds, maybe some beds will be female only.

And anyway this program is starting in the officers quarters first. Presumably all the officers don't sleep in a single dorm. What other modifications and logistics issues are there? Enlighten us - I freely admit I've never worked on a sub, but I do have tunneller friends who have worked in mixed crews for days underground in very tight spaces.
 
NT1440 said:
...what will probably happen: years of pointless boards and commissions "investigating" how to put people together on a sub.
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We are going to end up spending tons of time and money for what return? Are subs currently under-staffed? I dont see a good reason to spend years and millions (probably billions seeing as the gov't is involved) when its not needed.
 
Subs are cramped inside.

The movie Das Boot (The Boat) comes to mind. WWII era subs had terrible living conditions.

Jump forward to today's nuclear subs. While bigger and more modern they are still small on the inside.

The current Virginia attack subs have a beam of 34 feet and are 377 feet long. When you take into account those are outside dimensions, space inside a sub is still very constrained for the 134 crew complement.
 
NoSmokingBandit said:
We are going to end up spending tons of time and money for what return? Are subs currently under-staffed? I dont see a good reason to spend years and millions (probably billions seeing as the gov't is involved) when its not needed.
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If we didn't use pointless boards and policy was thought out quickly and efficiently (not going to happen) there wouldn't be an issue here.

Essentially the argument is "we shouldn't do this because we are too incompetent to make small policy changes", which has nothing to do with the point of the change.
 
Obviously some changes are going to be needed to accommodate mixed gender crews. Probably not as much as some people think, as mixed genders are already common in many - if not most - military contexts.

1) Obviously the Navy is not going to pull every sub off-line simultaneously to make the changes. If any physical plant changes are even needed. Changes will be done as part of normal and routine maintenance periods.

2) This is an initiative that the Navy is proposing to their masters, the politicians. That means the Navy must feel that they will get more of this than the transition costs.

When you take into account that in the USA more women are graduating from post-secondary colleges than men, the Navy may have decided that they were going to be facing a skills shortage soon. So why not tap into the half of the population that they had been ignoring up until now?
 
If men and women can serve together in space aboard the International Space Station then I can see no argument to disallow them to serve aboard submarines.

Any argument about the stress of a mixed sex crew, privacy, logistics, etc that can be made for submarine service can also be made for service aboard the space station. Yet mixed crews in space have been proven to work and they will work under the seas as well.
 
grinnelljd said:
Any argument about the stress of a mixed sex crew, privacy, logistics, etc that can be made for submarine service can also be made for service aboard the space station. Yet mixed crews in space have been proven to work and they will work under the seas as well.
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I agree. But I don't care how simple a decision it is in principle. We are talking about the most powerful weapons the world has yet seen. I don't see anything wrong with being very cautious.

I'm sure they'll identify the issues and work on solutions. And if the service is maybe a little too macho, well, maybe sending women into nukes will make the world that much safer and the service that much more professional...
 
Lord Blackadder said:
I agree. But I don't care how simple a decision it is in principle. We are talking about the most powerful weapons the world has yet seen. I don't see anything wrong with being very cautious.

I'm sure they'll identify the issues and work on solutions. And if the service is maybe a little too macho, well, maybe sending women into nukes will make the world that much safer and the service that much more professional...
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Is estrogen suddenly going to launch nukes or something?
 
Luckily, the maturity, thoughtfulness, and professionalism of those who are actually serving or have served on warships is significantly higher than that found on the typical internet forum.

Regardless of what Congress or the Admirals, armchair or otherwise (and all of them are "armchair", as they haven't been real operators in at least fifteen years by that point in their career) say, those that serve will make it work, no matter how unworkable, and no matter how many of us have to die in the name of "progress", because that is, as it always has been, our job.

You're welcome, carry on.
 
Beric said:
Very poor decision, IMO. Clearly a PC one.

Every square foot of a sub is important. Having to make separate women's quarters, restrooms, and the like, and suddenly thinking about privacy, can only hurt the sub's effectiveness and morale. And just think about having people cooped up for months at a time. Let alone retrofitting every single sub. Subs take mental toughness (which I certainly don't have).
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Surely not all the people in a nuclear sub sleep in a single dorm? Therefore they could have a female dorm(s) and a male dorm(s) if that was necessary, or just have mixed dorms - its not really a big deal to share a dorm with women I don't care about it and I've done it.
 
Sounds just like Battlestar Galactica to me.

Have none of you realised that maybe the reason they're only mixing the officers is to give experience to the future commanders of all-female crews?
 
Eraserhead said:
Surely not all the people in a nuclear sub sleep in a single dorm? Therefore they could have a female dorm(s) and a male dorm(s) if that was necessary, or just have mixed dorms - its not really a big deal to share a dorm with women I don't care about it and I've done it.
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I believe that on Ohio-class-size submarines, there are multiple bunking areas, usually near the missile tubes.
 
I could also point out that many backpacker hostels now operate mixed-sex dorms with 6 to 18+ people of both genders sharing a single dorm. I've slept in some myself, and it's fine. It's 2010, get with the times.

Shades of Joe Halderman in the Forever War there.
 
RedTomato said:
I could also point out that many backpacker hostels now operate mixed-sex dorms with 6 to 18+ people of both genders sharing a single dorm. I've slept in some myself, and it's fine. It's 2010, get with the times.
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Yeah, but as we've seen written several times in this thread, apparently unlike backpackers sailors just aren't mentally capable of keeping their hormones in control. Pretty insulting TBH. :rolleyes:
 
I think it's funny how much people say "it is not needed" who are you to say that ? I think that any step towards equality between man and women has to be made and the costs of it really do not matter at all.

Why is everyone saying that the woman are the problem when in fact, the men "hormons" are the problem. Seeing them as a nuisance because we were here first ? (in the sub)
We need to be less ethnocentriste...
 
"Pentagon ok's women on subs" That sounds just wrong, almost chauvinistic. It's too macho for me.
 
But more importantly does this mean subs will now get candles, windchimes and scatter cushions as standard?
 
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