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Master and Commander
Posts: 1890
Location: Patterson, New York | Subject: Women on US Submarines
article below or here is the link:
http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=63825
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Breaking into the underwater boys’ club: Sailor one of 12 women to be submarine-qualified
By Erik Slavin, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Wednesday, July 22, 2009
YOKOSUKA NAVAL BASE, Japan — A sailor once asked Lt. Cmdr. Marilisa Elrod where she got the twin dolphins sewn below the U.S. Navy lettering on her uniform. She could understand the sailor’s confusion — he had probably never seen the insignia on a woman before.
"I said I borrowed them from my husband ... just to tease him," said Elrod, a doctor and undersea medical officer based in Hawaii.
Then she explained how she studied for more than a year and passed her qualification test aboard the USS Key West before earning the distinction of being a submarine-qualified sailor.
To a submariner, those dolphins mean that the sailor wearing them knows enough about every function of the boat to save it in an emergency.
Elrod is one of 12 submarine-qualified women in the Navy, officials said.
As a medical officer, she has had the opportunity to ride on several vessels. However, crews stationed aboard submarines remain all male in the U.S. Navy.
"I think in the beginning it would be difficult from a logistics standpoint, but I don’t see any reason why women would not be well-suited to be on subs," Elrod said.
Australia, Canada, Spain and Norway all allow women to serve on submarines, though their deployments tend to be shorter than those aboard U.S. nuclear-powered subs.
Some U.S. sailors say having women serve aboard subs would hurt unit cohesion. Others say sailors would adapt.
"You’ll hear all sorts of arguments against it, some medical ... some similar to the arguments you hear against having homosexuals serving in small units," said Petty Officer 1st Class Jim Grisham, an electronics technician serving aboard the USS Seawolf. "Nothing credible, in my opinion, and little that the surface Navy and the other armed forces haven’t learned to deal with."
Female U.S. Naval Academy students have come aboard the Seawolf and other submarines for years as part of their summer training.
While aboard submarines, Elrod has shared an officer’s stateroom.
If women were allowed to serve permanently aboard subs, they would need designated spaces that aren’t available on today’s boats, said Submarine Group Seven spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Greg Kuntz.
"It’s the space and the design itself that makes it very difficult at this time, but it’s not that we aren’t constantly reviewing [the idea]," Kuntz said. "The big question we continually ask ourselves is, ‘How could we make this work?’ "
Studies on retrofitting existing submarines to accommodate female berthing have shown that doing so would be prohibitively expensive, Kuntz said.
Submarines are already packed tightly with equipment; the few spaces that aren’t, like the chief petty officer’s lounge, aren’t likely to be given away to enlisted sailors of any gender, Kuntz said.
Meanwhile, rack space is precious; the lack of bedding requires some enlisted sailors to "hot rack," meaning that three sailors share two racks while working different shifts.
Nonetheless, some sailors think it could be done if women are willing to put up with the same near-absence of privacy as men. For example, an extra curtain could cordon off a women’s bunk area in the existing berths.
In Elrod’s case, a sign hung on the door of the head, or bathroom, when she was using it. Certain times could be designated as women only, as they are for shower trailers in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Undiagnosed pregnancies before deployment could interrupt missions, detractors say. However, there are protocols for evacuating sailors with medical emergencies.
Submarine medics would also need to keep women’s health issues in mind; for example, abdominal pain can be harder to diagnose in women, Elrod said.
"There are definitely some things that would need to be worked out and some instructions would need to be written, medically speaking," she said.
Other than the logistics, the biggest change would have to occur among attitudes. A large group of men in their 20s and 30s, living in very close quarters, tend to produce a lot of off-color humor.
"There’s a sort of fraternity culture on board that would have to evolve, but if destroyers and the space station can be sex-integrated, then so can submarines," Grisham said.
Kuntz, who is submarine qualified, said that successful submariners of any gender tend to be shaped by the existing culture more than they change it themselves.
Petty Officer 2nd Class Seth Powers, 29, said that even most sailors who think it’s a bad idea wouldn’t have much choice but to do their jobs.
"It would probably work out," Powers said. "I don’t see it being impossible. … People would just get used to it."
© 2009 Stars and Stripes. All Rights Reserved.
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COMSUBBBS
Posts: 3202
Location: Alexandria, Virginia | Subject: RE: Women on US Submarines
Different time...Different circumstances...Cleaner more acceptable ships...Cruise line level accomodations...gentler and kinder more civilized service...with house broken bluejackets, no cussing, frowned on drinking, smoking and topside watches on the 12-to-4's discouraged from taking a whiz on the tanktops, no skin book swaps, naughty calendars and raunchy joke marathons. Different NAVY...to be honest, even if I admittedly can't recognize the similarities in our service, beyond entering the boat through a watertight hatch....I do recognize it's probably time for the gentler sex to go to sea in submarines....Why not? All you really have to do is add sanitary products vending machines, more mirrors, blow dryers and have WOMAN'S DAY and FAMILY CIRCLE swaps. It's times like these that remind me of why old smokeboat coots coined the phrase Diesel Boats Forever. DEX |
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Old Salt
Posts: 489
Location: San Freakcisco CA area | Subject: RE: Women on US Submarines
I gotta add a comment or two here - PAMPANITO hosts a monthly breakfast as a goodwill and community outreach program aimed principally at boosting our education programs. A few months back, a woman who is now on Senator Feinstein's staff in SF attended and even before we set foot on the brow, she raised the question of females serving in submarines. That was at the beginning of the program. Somewhere mid-tour, I found out that she is a former DACOWITS (or whatever) member so I began thinking "Oh, sh**" or something to that effect. By the end of the program, I fully expected to hear some chauvinistic pig diatribe but instead, she stunned me by saying "Now, I can understand why women won't fit very well into the submarine environment." Her conclusions were based purely upon limited accommodations, lack of privacy, and literally "no place to run to, no place to hide" (except maybe a surfaced midwatch tour as lookout). If she was telling the truth, her espoused position had nothing to do with the classic arguments about submarining being "a man's work" - or logic arguments thereof, but simply accommodations. I have subsequently learned that she has so advised the Senator -- she followed up her experience aboard PAMPANITO with visits to one or two modern 688s which, as she reported, had even less privacy than the old BALAO boats. I rode a gaggle of 637s as the NavShips Project Officer for the WLR-6 but I never set foot aboard a 688 or any modern boomer, so I have absolutely no firsthand knowledge of accommodations. My basic point -- if a DACOWITS member came to such a conclusion on her own - which appears to be the case in this example - then I don't foresee women serving in US submarines in my lifetime anyway - militant advocates or not ... |
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Master and Commander
Posts: 2357
| Subject: RE: Women on US Submarines
SOB490 - 2009-07-24 9:29 AM
My basic point -- if a DACOWITS member came to such a conclusion on her own - which appears to be the case in this example - then I don't foresee women serving in US submarines in my lifetime anyway - militant advocates or not ...
Whilst I respect your point of view there Sweet Old Bill, it is just a state of mind. We, and a few other navies around the world, have them serving at sea on subs.....so why cant the mighty USN achieve this?
It wont be long until you design Class's of subs that will achieve this, and yes, you will still be alive to witness it.
Just a thought before I hit the sack...good night. 
Blue *_* |
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Old Salt
Posts: 438
Location: Fort Lauderdale, FL | Subject: RE: Women on US Submarines
Blue from West Oz - 2009-07-24 12:16 PM
SOB490 - 2009-07-24 9:29 AM
My basic point -- if a DACOWITS member came to such a conclusion on her own - which appears to be the case in this example - then I don't foresee women serving in US submarines in my lifetime anyway - militant advocates or not ...
Whilst I respect your point of view there Sweet Old Bill, it is just a state of mind. We, and a few other navies around the world, have them serving at sea on subs.....so why cant the mighty USN achieve this?
It wont be long until you design Class's of subs that will achieve this, and yes, you will still be alive to witness it.
Just a thought before I hit the sack...good night.
Blue *_*
Thanks.
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Master and Commander
Posts: 2357
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610ET - 2009-07-24 11:24 PM
Blue, been meaning to ask you about this. On your boats how do you handle berthing, head use, etc?
Thanks.
Berthing.......they are not allowed to give birth at sea!
Head use etc.......the heads and showers are privatised for personal use.....no open area for guys to stop and have a perve.
As for the Berthing question, just joking.....the berthing arrangements onboard are '6 man cabins'...6 person cabins, "whatever"......so they have their own mess to sleep in.
I do believe however, thatin the more liberated nations like Scandanavia, they have mixed sleeping arrangements, not separated.......that's what I was told by a shipmate who did some time over there. He may have been pulling our legs, I don't know for sure.
Blue *_* |
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Women on US Submarines
