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We’ve all poured our heart out to our boss, spouse, chaplain, or kid and asked, “Right?” only to be told, “I’m sorry, I wasn’t listening.” Nobody listens any more. But a few do read. If nobody seems to care what you think about anything, perhaps you ought to contribute to our “Nobody asked me, but . . .” column.
Maybe what you have been saying isn’t worth listening to. But, if it is, we may print it and pay you $60.00. If it isn’t, you’ll feel better for having gotten it off your chest.
All the Way from Waves to Wins: A View from the Unrestricted Line
Upon being introduced to a male counterpart in the Royal New Zealand Navy, on a recent port visit, I was greeted with a good-natured, “Thank God we don’t allow women on our ships!” Although far from charmed by this approach, I found his outspokenness a refreshing change from the endless repetitions of our own party line: Equal opportunity for all! (with a few minor concessions to federal law). American naval officers have been “seminarred” and “workshopped” half to death, with the desired result that fear is struck into commanding officers’ hearts at the merest hint of an accusation of sexism or inequality.
It is difficult to argue with the effectiveness of this approach. Women are in ratings and billets now that would have been unimaginable even ten years ago, and the Navy offers some career paths with a virtually unlimited future to women with ability. Unfortunately, all of the official enthusiasm has served to hide the fact that the current compromise program still leaves a lot of inequities on both sides of the fence.
Every man who has to spend extra time at sea because of a shortage of shore duty billets in his rating, every surface unrestricted line (URL) officer who believes his chances for promotion are unfairly diminished by competition with “general” URL women, or every shipboard supervisor frustrated by the loss of a key player who got pregnant at an inopportune time is subject to focusing his resentment not on the program that causes these problems, but on the women who are the “beneficiaries” of the perceived inequities.
What most of these men don’t realize is how the same system can thwart the most determined of women. I’m not referring to the well-known congressional prohibition against women serving in combat roles, which is not within the Navy’s power to change; nor am I referring to the garden variety grumbling of the “I never worked for a woman before, and I don’t intend to start now” caliber—any manager worth her salt will learn to deal with the grumblers in time. What I am referring to are the many ways in which women are penalized for not fitting into a system that doesn’t recognize the legal limitations under which the women are restricted.
I doubt if there is another occupation in which women are prevented from doing a job they are capable of performing because of their sex alone.
The number of ships “manned” by mixed-sex crews continues to expand, and billets are now available for women who want to be quartermasters, boatswain’s mates, and surface warfare officers, as well as the more traditional yeomen, Supply Corps officers, and storekeepers. It is understandable that the law would prevent women from entering some of the “trained killer” ratings, but women are still kept out of such peaceful, yet traditionally male, ratings as machinist’s mate and boiler technician, despite a continuous shortage of manpower in those areas.
Female surface warfare officers, although considered equivalent to their male counterparts, are given few of the same opportunities for growth. They can look forward to initial sea tours in excess division officer billets, mostly on tenders, and post-department head school tours on those same tenders in billets previously not requiring department head school graduates. While ten ders are interesting and important ships, it is doubtful that women can have full and competitive careers merely by moving steadily upward m the same comer of the surface community. Tours on other types of noncombatants would go a long way toward making these female surface line officers more valuable to the Navy.
The Enlisted Surface Warfare Specialist program, excellent though it lS’ is heavily weighted against women. Only a small percentage of women, particularly those mid-grade and above• will ever have the opportunity to serve on a ship, yet their failure to obtain a warfare qualification will be a big ba' bility at promotion time. A similar situ ation exists in the officer community, where the odds against being assigned to a ship are overwhelming. The recen warning against the award of “back door” warfare pins to “general” VPL officers on shore duty was no doubt a left-handed testimonial to the determination and imagination of some ambitious young officers.
There can be little doubt that women are still being held back in the Navy, even beyond the limits of the law, not only in the surface community but in all warfare areas and some shore duty billets. Is there a good reason for this-
With all of the current press about equal rights, some proponents of the women at sea program may have lost sight of what the critics have never f°r gotten—that the women are here to defend our country. Whatever the verdict on the future of women in the mi itary is, it must be based on their ability to contribute to mission success.
Some of the major arguments againS women in seagoing roles focus on thert perceived shortcomings, physical or mental, in upper body strength, mechanical ability, and endurance. Some cite the lost time because of pregnancy and the responsibilities of raising a family. By far the most persuasive argument, and the hardest to contest, is
the presence of women in military 0fU?tlons >s detrimental to the morale le . e men- All of these arguments are gi tmate concerns, and deserve to be "sidered individually, sis I**10ut Pursuing an in-depth analytic ,ma*e versus female physical and arnta^ characteristics, it is difficult to can W^et^er or not the average male carry more sacks of potatoes up the rna|'S <^ec'c hrow than the average fe- itt l6’ °r rePa'r a broken diesel engine NavSS l'me' ^'s a'so pointless. The y is not composed of “average”
with women> hut of individuals If thfferent skills and shortcomings. his3 Ltr^er doesn’t show an aptitude for oth C”osen rat>ng, he is steered to an- nater area- if he doesn’t show an incli- of th>n ^°r an^ rat'n§> he is steered out (jo e Navy. Occupational determina- 0l)ns 316 not made in advance, based UalVlta^ soci°-economic, ethnic, or sex- group statistics, but on individual die 0nnance- To say women can’t han- has S(Janc^’n8 watch in the engine room t)Ua eC0me an accepted truism in some Wh 6rS’ anc* among the same people out° |VOU't*n't dream of keeping a man his ° cornputer room because of evrace- Being an engineer isn’t for prr^one> hut neither is being a data cessing technician. Both jobs demand special skills, both can be performed by any individual with the requisite talent.
There have been enough studies done in the past several years to forever bury the notion that women spend too much time off the job. Less time spent in unauthorized absence, treatment for substance abuse, and incarceration more than offset the lost time because of pregnancy. As every division officer knows, requests for time off to take the kids to the doctor are by no means confined to mothers.
The morale of the crew is probably the most important fighting characteristic a ship can possess. High morale is what keeps retention up and absence down, what fights fires effectively, and repairs safety hazards before they are found the hard way. It is what makes sailors tireless watchstanders at critical times, and what wins battle efficiency awards. No commanding officer wants to endanger the morale of his crew if he can help it. For this reason, commanding officers and their superiors are fearful of any impetus that may create a negative impact on their crew.
Women haven’t been out in the fleet long enough, or in a prominent enough capacity, for the fleet to have finished all of its growing pains. Although initial negative publicity was overwhelming, thankfully that has passed. Overall, the serious incidents have been few—fewer, certainly, than past incidents of racial prejudice.
Any sailor who claimed he didn’t want to work for a Filipino supervisor or sleep across from a Black shipmate would be viewed as a serious problem. Nobody would consider trying to raise his morale by altering the whole system to suit his whims, yet that is the philosophy of those who say women should be kept off of ships. The vast majority of men can and have adjusted to working alongside women—those who cannot must be made to answer for their prejudice.
Benefits can be realized when new blood is allowed into an old organization. From aircraft carriers and nuclear power, to pocket navigational calculators and permanent press uniforms, part of the Navy’s success has always depended on the ability to implement good ideas when the time is right. It is right, now.
The women in the fleet and on the shore are doing one hell of a job and deserve to be given the chance to do more. With projected manpower shortages and womanpower surpluses, it only makes good sense.
Nobody asked me either, but . . .
By Commander Richard S. Peterson, U. S. Navy
^^-Opportunity SSBNs
’nsT°W CUt out' Stop laughing! Send- ball'WOrnen t0 sea 'n nuclear-powered missile submarines (SSBNs)
► D d ^ave advantages, including: sub '|U^'n8 potential volunteers for
as ., uty > which will be more important groe futnber of males in the age l Ps for military service declines rajcjasing °r eliminating the need to
other warfare specialties for sub- >ne dutyP
trai Creas’n§ the size of the nuclear- de .^community, providing greater gre1 llily in career paths, including ^ QCr opportunity for graduate study tj,ereat'ng a more competitive, thus Uj^thgfitl, selection system for com- clea 31 S6a anc* Prornotion among nu- eijmr submarine officers (This could it (,'nate the charge that seniority is all es for command in the nuclear submarine community.)
► Increasing equal opportunity throughout the Navy
Reading this far, you probably have thought of several objections to this idea. Space is limited, but here are some possible rejoinders:
► Women can’t hack this type of duty. Some can’t. And some men can’t either. Keep the program selective and objective.
► There aren’t any facilities to accommodate women. Perhaps not, but that could be changed. For the sake of argument, let’s assume we use an allfemale crew for the first SSBN test.
► There aren't any women trained to command a sub, or even be department heads. Currently, the Navy is soliciting male surface warfare officers (SWOs), including department heads, to switch to subs. The same can be done with women SWOs, some of whom have served with distinction as department heads afloat. The Navy can “grow” its female commanding officers.
► All subs are combatants, and Congress won’t permit women on board. No. The (submersible research vehicle) NR1 is nuclear powered and noncombatant. If a decision were made to use this plan, a couple of former SSBNs could also be dedicated to useful research and training missions.
► Why waste the effort? Real SSBNs are combatants, and Congress wouldn’t allow such a move. Are they? Think about it. In anything short of an all-out nuclear exchange, the SSBNs are not combatants and assiduously avoid the combat areas. If and when they do become combatants, all women and children at home will have already become combatants too. Congress will recognize this distinction.
Such an ambitious program could be
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accomplished many ways. But here is one plan.
► Accept limited numbers of female officer and enlisted volunteers this year for entry to sub school and to nuclear training. Start a couple of women in strategic weapons system training as well. Begin lobbying Congress now f°r laws needed to make this program work.
► Put qualified female volunteers on board NR1 as regular crew members. Send others on all noncombat training missions, including missile test shots.
► Redesignate one or more old SSBNs as training vessels. With missile tubes removed or welded shut, and used f°r shorter missions, they would require smaller crews. Berthing could be arranged to accommodate both sexes. Useful missions would include hydrog' raphy, research, prospective command ing officer/executive officer training, and antisubmarine warfare target services. As combat support vessels, they would already meet congressional critc ria for female crew members.
► After several years, when there is a pool of qualified women, designate a women as commanding officer of an SSBN and assign a fully trained femae crew (or a mixed crew if that problem has been solved) to the submarine. Have women take command of newly constructed or newly overhauled submarines and go through the entire workup and series of readiness tests, just as a male crew does now. If Con gress has passed appropriate legislation placing this or all SSBNs in a special strategic-only reserve, send the women on regular patrol.
► If Congress has not passed the necessary legislation, continue to lobby, but redefine the role of the female- crewed SSBN to something like SSN (C3). Instead of regular missiles, load her with communications relay, navig3 tion, and damage assessment satellite!' for post-attack launch. This would aug ment and harden our war-reserve com mand, control, communications, and intelligence and electronics warfare (EW) strength. If it still fits the “com bat support” role, also include missile and low-altitude satellites with EW sensing and jamming “warheads” f°r Single Integrated Operational Plan sup port but not targeted to impact ashore- This would increase the firepower or the rest of the fleet by decreasing number of decoy and EW warheads each submarine-launched ballistic rms' sile would need.
This program won’t be easy to instl tute, but it’s worth the effort.