Navy To Allow Women To Serve On Submarines

[MacBeth]

I am glad I think more highly of most men than you do, Brian

[Brian]

May 16, 2010 13:07:55 GMT -5 Pax said:

"Submarines are different than surface ships, Pax.

Our submarines rely on stealth and on the ability to remain hidden. A surfacing sub reveals its position. That may be less of a concern than it was during the height of the Cold War, but it's still important nonetheless.

Placing women on subs WILL lead to problems that we are not faced with now; that is a fact. Even those who support placing women on subs have to realize this. "

Brian -- I just want to be clear on my reading of what you're saying above -- You're saying that having women on submarines will force them to surface more often?



YES

[Brian]

May 16, 2010 13:15:02 GMT -5 oskar said:

Placing women on subs WILL lead to problems that we are not faced with now; that is a fact.

No, that is a statement.
The "fact" is that your statement has been disproven by other nations.

What other nations are you referring to, Oskar?

[Pax]

Can you be more specific about what sorts of things would lead to submarines being forced to surface more often, if women were aboard?

[Brian]

May 16, 2010 13:39:36 GMT -5 MacBeth said:

I am glad I think more highly of most men than you do, Brian

Well, at least in this case, I think perhaps you see things based on how you'd like them to be; in contrast, I saw things based on how they are. We're looking for trouble on this one, Beth.

[oskar]

What other nations are you referring to, Oskar?

Norway, Sweden, Canada, Denmark, Australia and Germany to name some.

[Brian]

May 16, 2010 14:16:15 GMT -5 Pax said:

Can you be more specific about what sorts of things would lead to submarines being forced to surface more often, if women were aboard?

Sure. Subs usually deploy for six month cruises. A pregnant sailor is not going to be kept on the sub until the mission is over. The same can be said for sexual assaults. After all, is a female sexual assault victim going to be forced to stay on the sub for months after an incident takes place?

[oskar]

May 16, 2010 14:24:49 GMT -5 Brian said:

May 16, 2010 14:16:15 GMT -5 Pax said:

Can you be more specific about what sorts of things would lead to submarines being forced to surface more often, if women were aboard?

Sure. Subs usually deploy for six month cruises. A pregnant sailor is not going to be kept on the sub until the mission is over. The same can be said for sexual assaults. After all, is a female sexual assault victim going to be forced to stay on the sub for months after an incident takes place?

There should be no such "incidents" among military professionals. Your opinion speaks more of a lack of professional standards in the US military than it does anything else.

[MacBeth]

OK, Brian, if some male sailors cannot handle it, cover the subs with female sailors and those male sailors that are adults.

[MacBeth]

• Coed Subs Work For Other Navies The Christian Science Monitor's Taraneh Ghajar Jerven argues, "there is no evidence that integrating crews will undermine national security or cause social disruption. In fact, the practice of submarine crew integration has been successful for Canada, Australia, Norway, and Sweden. A study commissioned for NATO found that on Canadian Victoria-class submarines, 'Women have been seamlessly integrated into the environment with few problems. No attempts have been made to segregate the genders, and no special provision has been made for bunking or shower facilities.'"



www.theatlanticwire.com/opinions/....Submarines-3415

[Pax]

One could mandate that a pregnant submariner will be forever barred from serving again aboard a submarine. It seems to me that persons who actually want to serve aboard a submarine would not be happy serving anywhere else, so this should serve as an effective deterrent.

As for sexual assault on board, I think that'd be even more rare than it is on a surface ship, because sexual assault requires privacy, and there is no privacy on a submarine.

Other than that, it appears that other nations have managed to integrate women seamlessly.

Even if they hadn't tried it yet, it seems to me that ruling out ever trying it based on a series of assumptions about what might happen isn't the correct course either.

[oskar]

A simple question for you, Brian.

Would you be able to resist assulting/having sex with a fellow female sailor if you were both on a sub?

[Brian]

May 16, 2010 14:24:13 GMT -5 oskar said:

What other nations are you referring to, Oskar?

Norway, Sweden, Canada, Denmark, Australia and Germany to name some.

That's a very small list, Oskar: in fact, most nations--including those with the biggest submarine forces-- still DO NOT use coed crews to man their submarines.

[Brian]

May 16, 2010 14:37:04 GMT -5 oskar said:

May 16, 2010 14:24:49 GMT -5 Brian said:

Sure. Subs usually deploy for six month cruises. A pregnant sailor is not going to be kept on the sub until the mission is over. The same can be said for sexual assaults. After all, is a female sexual assault victim going to be forced to stay on the sub for months after an incident takes place?

There should be no such "incidents" among military professionals. Your opinion speaks more of a lack of professional standards in the US military than it does anything else.

Sure, there should not be ANY incidents. But people are people, and even when there are standards, things will happen. The question is whether the United States is willing accomodate equality-based concerns if doing so hurts the submarine forces. I don't believe the risk is worth it.

[Brian]

May 16, 2010 15:08:42 GMT -5 MacBeth said:

OK, Brian, if some male sailors cannot handle it, cover the subs with female sailors and those male sailors that are adults.

If things were really that easy...

[MacBeth]

I am assuming their subs are around the same size as those of the US and take the same amount of sailors to run each of them. What difference does it make how many subs there are?

Are you saying the more people in any particular branch of service is the real impact and not the interraction of the crew of the subs themselves?

Not sure your point is really a point this time, Brian.

[Brian]

May 16, 2010 15:11:07 GMT -5 MacBeth said:

• Coed Subs Work For Other Navies The Christian Science Monitor's Taraneh Ghajar Jerven argues, "there is no evidence that integrating crews will undermine national security or cause social disruption. In fact, the practice of submarine crew integration has been successful for Canada, Australia, Norway, and Sweden. A study commissioned for NATO found that on Canadian Victoria-class submarines, 'Women have been seamlessly integrated into the environment with few problems. No attempts have been made to segregate the genders, and no special provision has been made for bunking or shower facilities.'"



www.theatlanticwire.com/opinions/....Submarines-3415

I could not pull up that link, Beth.

[Brian]

May 16, 2010 15:38:58 GMT -5 Pax said:

One could mandate that a pregnant submariner will be forever barred from serving again aboard a submarine. It seems to me that persons who actually want to serve aboard a submarine would not be happy serving anywhere else, so this should serve as an effective deterrent.

As for sexual assault on board, I think that'd be even more rare than it is on a surface ship, because sexual assault requires privacy, and there is no privacy on a submarine.

Other than that, it appears that other nations have managed to integrate women seamlessly.

Even if they hadn't tried it yet, it seems to me that ruling out ever trying it based on a series of assumptions about what might happen isn't the correct course either.

Those are good points, Pax.

[Brian]

May 16, 2010 16:45:20 GMT -5 oskar said:

A simple question for you, Brian.

Would you be able to resist assulting/having sex with a fellow female sailor if you were both on a sub?

Hmm.... That's quite a question there, Oskar. You asked me if
* I * would be able to resist assaulting a female sailor?

Absolutely. There would be no chance of that, Oskar.

As for having sex with a female sailor, I'm pretty sure that would never happen, either. It's not that I wouldn't be tempted by the opposite sex, but the Navy does have a policy against fraternization; a person can even be brought up on charges for it. I certainly wouldn't want that kind of trouble, and I'd be incredibly honored to be serving on the submarine to begin with. That's very special duty.

[Georgina]

I find myself in the really weird position (no offense intended) of agreeing with Brian on this one. These are young people we're talking about, and military or no, they're not robots. They're not on constant 24/7 emergency mode with lots of downtime and not much going on, in a really squished space, and nowhere to let off steam.

And, let's face it, most "grown-ups" can barely conduct themselves as "adults" who are loose and wandering around in the world with other places to go and be.

You can't compare the situations to a college dorm because people aren't confined to the dorms. They get to leave. They go to classes. They can go to the library, bar, cafes, just out for a walk. They can go visit friends, socialise in situations not their dorm, they have escape hatches in more than one sense. On a sub, under water, you have no place else to go. I'd argue that it would horribly, horribly difficult and totally unfair to ask the people living in those conditions to not have any feelings at all. Any emotional responses, and physical responses to the conditions they're in. I'm not saying women aren't qualified. Of course they are. I just think you're inviting a whole bunch of crap and difficulties and unnecessarily placing both young men and women into an even more difficult situation by throwing everyone into one spot. I think that, yes, if they're going to integrate, then they need separate quarters for the men and women so everyone gets some downtime. I think it's psychologically unsound otherwise.

[wheelspinner]

May 20, 2010 1:11:20 GMT -5 Georgina said:

You can't compare the situations to a college dorm because people aren't confined to the dorms. They get to leave.

True but the situation is directly comparable to a crew in a space shuttle. There have been mixed crews in space for almost 30 years, and there is even less scope to get out and about. You can't surface in space.

[Pax]

Thanks, Brian. :-).

G and Brian -- I hear what you're saying. I do think some assumptions are being made, though, on both sides, including myself. We all have our estimates of how well men and women would deal with being in close and intimate quarters with each other for such a long period of time, and what impact that would have on performance.

There's really no way to finally know without trying it and seeing what happens.

To G's specific point, if there is a problem, then the solution is to have sex-segregated crews: All-male, all-female.

[Georgina]

I don't know about wholly sex-segregated crews, Pax, but provisions for separate sleeping and bathing areas at least. I think men and women can work side-by-side day in and day out and behave reasonably, I just think it's asking far too much of healthy humans for males and females to live in 100% the same space 24/7 for months on end. A situation where personal quarters are separated by sex I think would facilitate making it feasible. I don't think you have to segregate the crews entirely, just for down-time.

[Georgina]

WS, out of curiosity, do you know how long are the space shuttles up in space? And what sort of "showering"/bathing facilities they have? (I put "showering" in quotes because I'm pretty sure they don't stand under streams of water in the space shuttle, but I"m not certain of that.)

And, again, in co-ed college dorms, men and women don't shower in the same room, use the toilet in the same rooms or even sleep in the same rooms, do they? The women bunk with other women and men with men. It's just that the whole building is co-ed with common spaces shared by both. But personal spaces are segregated, are they not?

[MacBeth]

I pulled it up, but try this fully posted link

It is a debate about women on subs.

www.theatlanticwire.com/opinions/view/opinion/Debating-Whether-Women-Should-Serve-on-Navy-Submarines-3415

[MacBeth]

Women have been part of the International Space Station crew since March 2001
www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/index.html

From the dates there, it seems that the crews are there for about 6 months.

In fact, sleeping is pretty comfy in space because you can slumber without gravity's incessant pull, according to Canadian astronaut Julie Payette, who has been living aboard the linked space station and shuttle Endeavour for more than a week.

"We sleep very well in space. Can you imagine?" Payette told reporters in a recent interview broadcast by NASA. "We have a sleeping bag each, and when you get into it you float in the sleeping bag. The sleeping bag floats in the module. So all you have to do is just attach it somewhere, which is a good idea by the way because during the night while your sleeping you might start drifting and end up somewhere you didn't intend to be in the first place."
.......................
NASA's first space station, Skylab, and Russia's Mir space station did include a shower facility for crewmembers. On Skylab, astronauts floated into the shower, pulled up a privacy curtain, and were able to shower in water from a push-button hose and dry off using a vacuum system.
But on the International Space Station and NASA shuttles, astronauts have a squirt gun that shoots water and a wash cloth. They also have a special rinse-less shampoo to keep their hair clean.

"We wash like we would if we were on an expedition or a camping trip or something," Payette explained. "It works."


www.space.com/missionlaunches/090827-sts127-space-sleeping.html

[Pax]

Dunno. Half-relevantly, they say that nudity isn't as stimulating as partial nudity. Not sure if it "really" applies here, but, maybe it does, so, there it is.

As for separate facilities -- I agree with Brian on this one, I think subs are way too confined. There just isn't room for that kind of accomodation. The solution has to be: co-ed crews sharing the same facilities; or single-sex crews; or no females on subs at all. It's just physics -- I wouldn't build a bigger submarine just so that men and women can have separate facilities --Submarines are strategic assets that need to be engineered for the mission.

An interesting question too is, ok, if only one gender can crew a submarine, why not all-women, then? They're smaller, take less oxygen, eat less food, etc... better, smaller, faster submarines could be built if they were meant to be crewed only by women.

[Brian]

May 20, 2010 1:11:20 GMT -5 Georgina said:

I find myself in the really weird position (no offense intended) of agreeing with Brian on this one. These are young people we're talking about, and military or no, they're not robots. They're not on constant 24/7 emergency mode with lots of downtime and not much going on, in a really squished space, and nowhere to let off steam.

And, let's face it, most "grown-ups" can barely conduct themselves as "adults" who are loose and wandering around in the world with other places to go and be.

You can't compare the situations to a college dorm because people aren't confined to the dorms. They get to leave. They go to classes. They can go to the library, bar, cafes, just out for a walk. They can go visit friends, socialise in situations not their dorm, they have escape hatches in more than one sense. On a sub, under water, you have no place else to go. I'd argue that it would horribly, horribly difficult and totally unfair to ask the people living in those conditions to not have any feelings at all. Any emotional responses, and physical responses to the conditions they're in. I'm not saying women aren't qualified. Of course they are. I just think you're inviting a whole bunch of crap and difficulties and unnecessarily placing both young men and women into an even more difficult situation by throwing everyone into one spot. I think that, yes, if they're going to integrate, then they need separate quarters for the men and women so everyone gets some downtime. I think it's psychologically unsound otherwise.

Great post, Georgina. And, of course, it's always nice when someone agrees with me!

Don't worry, though. I won't get too big of a head over this.

[Brian]

May 20, 2010 3:28:17 GMT -5 wheelspinner said:

May 20, 2010 1:11:20 GMT -5 Georgina said:

You can't compare the situations to a college dorm because people aren't confined to the dorms. They get to leave.

True but the situation is directly comparable to a crew in a space shuttle. There have been mixed crews in space for almost 30 years, and there is even less scope to get out and about. You can't surface in space.

No, actually it isn't. The longest shuttle mission was for 17 or 18 days--not 6 months (a standard sub deployment).

[Brian]

May 20, 2010 6:39:57 GMT -5 Pax said:

Thanks, Brian. :-).

G and Brian -- I hear what you're saying. I do think some assumptions are being made, though, on both sides, including myself. We all have our estimates of how well men and women would deal with being in close and intimate quarters with each other for such a long period of time, and what impact that would have on performance.

There's really no way to finally know without trying it and seeing what happens.

To G's specific point, if there is a problem, then the solution is to have sex-segregated crews: All-male, all-female.

Pax, if it can be done--and I don't know how realistic this is--I would be in favor of all-women submarine crews. That's really the only way I can see us possibly having women on our submarines; however, since I'm not a submariner, I don't know if it could realistically be done due to some of the heavy equipment on the sub. But if it CAN be done, I see no reason to oppose the idea.