Another obstacle faced by women in U.S. military service is on the way down. The Navy announced earlier this year that it would allow women to serve on submarines – the last class of military vessels off-limits to women. That announcement was welcome, but incomplete. It did not name the subs on which women would serve, prompting some to worry that assignments would be put off for a long time. The Navy ended such concern late last week, announcing the four subs on which the initial complement of 24 female officers will serve. They’ll begin their assignments in December 2011.
It’s about time the Navy allowed women to serve on the boats. The service banned women from subs on the questionable theory that the long deployments and the tight quarters common to subs were not conducive to a coed crew. What nonsense. Men and women have served together in the Navy and other branches of the service for years in difficult and dangerous circumstances for years. There’s no reason to exclude them from subs.
The women, all officers and currently in training for submarine service, initially will be assigned to the USS Wyoming and USS Georgia, based in Kings Bay, Ga., and the USS Maine and USS Ohio, based in Bangor, Wash. All are big boats, larger than the average submarine. The women will serve in rotating teams of three and will share a stateroom. They will share the only officers’ bathroom. A reversible sign will let everyone know whether it is occupied by females or males. Those arrangements are satisfactory for the moment.
In the long term, the Navy will have to find a way to allow enlisted women as well as officers to serve aboard subs. That’s only fair. Enlisted men and women make up about 90 percent of the typical sub’s 160-person crew. To arbitrarily ban women from the boats because of living conditions is unfair, especially since women have proved they can adapt. After all, they live in close quarters with their male counterparts in Iran, Afghanistan and wherever the military is deployed. The Navy, to its credit, recognizes that.
It reportedly is working on ways to modify enlisted quarters and bathrooms to serve both men and women. That, understandably, will take time, but the Navy should not use the problem as reason to delay the full integration of women into the submarines.
Women in the Navy, regardless of rank, who want to serve aboard the vessels should be able to do so as long as they meet the demanding standards of the submarine service. It’s a matter of equity, particularly since duty on submarines, thought by many to be the elite branch of the service, is viewed as an assignment favorable to future promotions and choice assignments.