Women in the Navy

This caught my eye the other day while browsing (see the pic on front page and follow to Page A5.) It tells a bit about the integration of women into submarines of the Royal Australian Navy. At present the RAN is trialling it in the Collins class submarines, which were designed from the hull up to accommodate women. (edited - wrong hyperlink, sorry)

It’s only been a couple of months, so not time to tell yet how well the integration is going. Of the Western navies, I think only the Canadian, Norwegian and Swedish have women in their submarines, and mostly of recent date. The US still says no, and will probably for some long time now as their Virginia-class is already in production and design changes would not be cost-effective. It looks as if women in the USN have missed the sub for the foreseeable decade, anyway.

It’s a tough ask, putting women on subs, not because of the ability to do the job, but mainly due to the lack of space and privacy. Both are in very short supply, and shrinking violets, male or female, do not survive for long. It’s harder than on surface ships, and with long periods at sea and undersea, the ability to get away from everyone else is just not there. Everyone is stuck with everyone else, rather like Antarctica postings in winter, I imagine. It would take a tough woman to make it through. But toughness is a necessary quality in any submariner.

I’m optimistic, as I think experience shows that if the desire and commitment on the part of all those involved is there, integration is not as impossible as it first seems under most circumstances. Attitudinal changes take the most time, as we’ve seen first on shore establishments, and then on surface ships. But when I compare today’s Navy with the Navy I joined up with, I’m staggered at the changes that have taken place and which now are greeted with no more than the turning of a hair.

Things like equal pay and equal rank. When I joined in 1979, the defence forces had only just pushed through equal pay for women. Then quickly on the heels of that came equal rank, so we were not 3rd 2nd 1st and Chief officers, we became Sublieutenants, Lieutenants, Lieutenant Commanders and Commanders. At that time there was
a) no female of Captain rank,
b) no female in the role of Commanding Officer.
c) We were still a separate service, the WRANS (Womens’ Royal Australian Naval Service.) That didn’t turn over until 1981, and we became RAN like the fellas.
d) No female at sea either in a billet or under training

Basic training was a year, followed by a training billet ashore. We started at the Naval College at HMAS Creswell in NSW. We were laughed at quite a lot, and also scorned, and treated with disdain and I must say, in some quarters, hate. We learned useful skills such as basic seamanship, navigation, morse code and small arms, but only when the instructor could be spared from teaching our male counterparts, and then only in a very grudging and denigratory fashion, like I’ll show you how to point that thing somewhere safe so you don’t shoot your classmates.

Most of us viewed our studies with mixed feelings. We knew we had to uphold the value of women in the RAN, so we had to do well. On the other hand, we knew we would never get to use that knowledge we’d been given, and in a very short time we’d be pushing paper and sorting out personnel issues, Service regulations and writing styles, and all of those other assorted tasks that women are good for.

So it came as a rude shock when, halfway through our initial training at HMAS Watson, the training base at Sydney, Parliament triumphantly ordained that women could now go to sea.

Immediately. At least, within two weeks. That meant our current class was off to do a training cruise up the Australian east coast on the Jervis Bay, an ex-rollon rolloff container vessel co-opted into training junior officers. Its advantage was that the staterooms, two to a cabin, could accommodate women without disruption and with separate bathrooms.

It wouldn’t be too much to say that a kind of panic set in amongst the six girls affected. We’d not taken our classes that seriously, things like astral navigation and anchoring theory could be safely dumped once we’d passed the exam. Now we were going to have to do it for real in ten days’ time, and we simply were not prepared for it.

We probably didn’t handle it very well. Actually I know we didn’t. But then, to be honest, neither did the Navy at that point. The announcement was made in a bald signal. No one came to talk to us about it, and discuss some of the issues with us, and some of our concerns. No counselling was ever undertaken ( I don't mean the trauma sort. Just general advice and an idea of what to expect would have been nice.) The hierarchy just assumed we’d be thrilled, and everything would roll on while the Services basked in the glory of equal opportunism. Some of the male instructors, no less dismayed at the thought of women going to sea, tried to get a protest going. We joined in, stupidly. Why us? Let the next group go. At least they will know what they’re up for BEFORE they start training. At least they will be trained properly. We’re just not ready. Etc etc.

This was grist to the mill of the male naysayers. It reached the ears of TPTB in the grey sponge, that is, Navy Office in Canberra, that the new female midshipmen were baulking at the announcement. The proverbial hit the fan as the Navy, desperate to keep this from turning into a PR disaster via the Australian press, came down on us like a ton of bricks. A posse of female honchos descended on HMAS Watson and explained to us, in explicit terms, that we would comply or resign. Some of us actually considered the latter. A few heads rolled. Signals flew. Some extraordinary behind-the-scenes machinations ensued. Eventually calm prevailed.

We shut up and did as we were told. Two weeks later we embarked on the Jervis Bay for a training cruise, the first time women had gone to sea in the RAN. That part of it actually wasn’t so bad after all. Yes, we didn’t know squat but it was amazing what we had actually retained. We did do basic anchoring drills and celestial nav, scrubbed the decks and kept port lookout etc, and we survived. We had no complaints coming, really. It was only a week.

The hardest part was learning to do it all under the unrelenting eye of a gaggle of photographers and journalists from Woman’s Day and Cosmopolitan. The Navy had given accreditation to an accompanying press corps, and they made our lives hell for the next week. We had photographs taken of ourselves everywhere in all sorts of situations, but the ones that made it to the newspapers were of us in our pyjamas. The overriding interest of the general public, it seemed, was not of the historic role we were about to fulfil in the service of our country, but what we were going to wear and our sleeping arrangements.

Actually it was a lot harder on the males in the class. Every five minutes when we preparing for another drill or nav lesson, some photographer would shove a camera in our faces and say, hang on fellas, we just need another shot of the girls at the breakfast table, or doing their Morse lessons, or taking a sighting. Move out of the way, there mate, you’re in the shot. We want the girls.

Which was pretty tough on the guys. After all, they were doing this for a living, and all the attention was on us, and we weren’t even going anywhere with it. After we debarked in Cairns, we would all go back ashore and do girl stuff, while they sweated on their bridge watchkeeping tickets and wondered why nobody gave a damn about them.

The next group after us did have it a little better. And the group after that. A girl from the third class after mine became the first female PWO, or principal warfare officer, in the RAN. Jobs opened up at sea to women. Women became XO’s and in 1988 a female CO was appointed. In 1990, they were permitted to serve in ships facing possible combat duty.

As of 2003, there were a total of 2,148 females (513 officers and 1635 other ranks) which is 17% of the total number of Navy personnel. There has been little penetration to the higher echelons, however, which is disappointing – only 5 captains and no females of flag rank, although the Air Force has one Air Commodore. We continue to lose females at senior level, a problem not unique to the defence forces.

There was a lot of adjustment, and some huge problems, and there are still. We have had our own sexual harassment scandals at sea and ashore. But on the whole, integration has been viewed as a success. There is now only one branch from which women are still barred, and that is the Clearance Diver specialty (bubblies or Seals to you foreign types). One of the clearest aspects of integration is that nowhere on the Navy recruiting pages will you see ‘jobs for women’ or ‘female careers’ mentioned. Over 98% of positions are open to women – actual career structures, not token billets.

There's still way more to go. But it's heartening when I realize than one generation - 25 years - has wrought so much change.

Comments

[Rita]

Enjoyed your article on "Women in the Navy" Currently researching the WRANS and it is the kind of information that I am looking for.

[lex]

We've actually had a female squadron CO back in the late 90's, just not (yet) one for a deployable squadron. There are a couple ladies moving through the pipeline, but a few of the ones in front of them have left the service or jumped off the fast track.

Hard to do that and have a family, especially if wife and husband are both in the service...

[Ozwitch]

Thanks Lex. Glad you enjoyed it. Some funny memories came back when I wrote it - it all seems soooo long ago . . .

Stan, I believe the army generally lags behind the other services in most countries in the male/female ratio because of the nature of some of the work. I guess a consistent rise, even if small, would be less alarming than if ratios dropped off. There are too few in some areas that expected more females, such as fighter pilots - I don't think the USN is anywhere near getting a female squadron CO and hence on to higher positions such as carrier XO/CO yet. Don't know about USAF. Anybody help out here?

I'm glad to see that experience of integration gave you a different viewpoint, which is the best sign of positive change - not those who were already convinced.

[Stan]

I have to admit when I started I wasn't too keen on having the girls around. Not because they weren't good people or good at their jobs, but because at levels like 20% of the workforce, I wasn't sure that the changes and the problems were worth the effort.

Later on in my service I actually came to appreciate that the changes brought on by having the ladies about were generally for the better. More good than bad and as you've pointed out, today that's just normal. One of the last crews I flew with was about 30% female and my 2IC was also female. It was probably the best team I ever flew with and deployments with them were a blast. These things just take time, that's all. (Note: In the Army there's no getting around the physical aspects that some jobs require. So I don't believe we should expect as many women there as the other two services).

[lex]

What a great read, Oz! Thanks for posting this, I'd no idea how it went down, down there.