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Eisenhower Sails with Record Number of Women Military Women in the Television News Spotlight Women Aboard U.S. Submarines? Women Aboard Australian Submarines! ————-
Eisenhower Sails with Record Number of Women On February 18, 2000 the carrier USS Eisenhower sailed out of Norfolk for a deployment to the Persian Gulf and Balkans with a record 610 women on board. What makes this especially remarkable is that many of the women are there because the commanding officer, Captain H. Denby Starling, asked for them. In 1994, the Eisenhower was the first combat ship to have women assigned. Since then, over 100 additional combatants have been added to the list with women in their crews. But probably none has been as enthusiastic about having women aboard as the Eisenhower. Faced with deploying with only about 80 percent of its billets filled, Starling looked to see how he could make up the shortfall. No additional men were available, but because many of the support ships on which women had been serving were being mothballed or turned over to civilian crews, he found, according to Dave Mayfield of the Virginian-Pilot, "a surplus of able women in shore jobs who wanted to go to sea but couldn't because berthing on ships wasn't available." His solution was to create berthing and heads (bathrooms) to accommodate additional women. The result: the Eisenhower departed Norfolk with 93 percent of the jobs on the ship and in the air wing filled, and the ship was more fully staffed than any carrier in the last three years. Starling is a strong supporter of women on ships. He told Richard Rogers of the Newport (VA) News that "we still don't have enough women, as far as I'm concerned. I would like to see the percentage [of women] higher. I would like to have enough women onboard that the fact we have women onboard is not an issue anymore." Some crew members already think it's not an issue. William McMichael of the Navy Times reported that a third class petty officer (E4) called the question of women on combat ships a "dead issue." The women seem to agree. A woman maintenance officer in one of the squadrons said that "Now, a sailor is a sailor. The experiment is now reality, and the reality is now the norm." Also, the senior enlisted sailor on the ship told the Newport News that "I can't speak for the Navy, but I don't think that women on sea duty is a temporary fix. I think you are going to seem more in the future, not less." The ability of the women to do the work does not seem to be a problem. According to the Newport News, a seaman on the Eisenhower said his ideas about what women can and can't do are changing. "I have already seen them do things I've never seen before. They say that some women can't do certain jobs, but I believe they can do whatever we [men] do. The other day I saw a female run a refueling rig. She was outstanding. She ran it smooth," he said. Pregnancy is a cause for concern for Starling, but he said it is manageable. He told the Virginian-Pilot that women don't seem to leave the ship at higher rates than men. In the past year, about 60 women were sent ashore due to pregnancy, but he said that a large and disproportionate number of men left because of disciplinary problems. The difference with women leaving because of pregnancy, he said, is "they're going to stay in the Navy" and may report back to the same ship. "When I kick a guy off for a discipline reason…we just put him out of the Navy." Sources: Richard William Rogers, "Women on the Ike: The Number of Women on This Ships Could Open Critics' Eyes to Potential Contribution," Newport (VA) News, Dec 12, 1999; Dave Mayfield, "Novelty of Females Aboard Gone as Ike Returns to Sea," Virginian Pilot, Feb 18, 2000; William H. McMichael, "Skipper Taps Women to Man Ike," Navy Times, Mar 6, 2000. ————-
Military Women in the Television News Spotlight • At the request of the Women in Military Service for America Foundation (WIMSA), the Women, Men and the Media Project, headed by Betty Friedan, looked at television evening news coverage of military women. The study was conducted by Andrew Tyndall and Aleksandra Scepanovic of ADT Research, a company that has monitored weekday nightly newscasts since 1987. The purpose was to analyze how military women have been covered by the major national news broadcast networks—ABC, CBS, and NBC—during the 1990s in war and peace. Using its videotape archive, Tyndall and Scepanovic analyzed wartime personnel stories during the Gulf War and all coverage of Pentagon personnel stories on the networks' weekday nightly news during peacetime. Below are highlights of the study which was published March 7, 2000: • Both during peacetime and during the Persian Gulf War, military women received twice as much coverage on the network news than their numbers warranted. During peacetime, about 14% of enlisted personnel were women, yet they accounted for 30% of all sound bites by enlisted personnel. During the Gulf War, women represented 5% of the military force deployed, yet provided 10% of all enlisted sound bites in Gulf War stories about the troops. • Women officers were especially overrepresented—comprising 2% of the armed forces yet receiving 20% of all peacetime soundbites . Women officers were routinely presented as the spokespeople for the unquoted troops under them and scandals and controversies concerning officers received more coverage than those involving enlisted personnel. • Combat coverage during the Gulf War, however, was heavily gender segregated: the battle front was for military men; the home front was for women. • Sex dominated the personnel beat and women dominated sex-related coverage. In stories about sex scandals, sexual harassment, and fraternization, military women—especially officers—were more prominent than their male colleagues. • There was one huge exception to women dominating sex-related stories—gays in the military. It was the single most heavily covered peacetime Pentagon story of the decade, yet women in uniform were virtually absent from coverage of the issue. • Sex-related stories made the news because the networks felt they needed to explain the differences in cultural views between civilians and the military. Civilians have little truck with sexual harassment, believe adultery is a private affair, and have become tolerant of diverse sexual orientations. To the extent that the military takes a contrary view of these matters—or scandals make it seem that some in the military do—the difference is newsworthy and the networks believe it is their job to explain it to their civilian audience. • Military matters in general became less newsworthy at the end of the decade and coverage of military women has declined accordingly in the last two years. • Civilian experts and politicians commenting on military stories were almost never women. The networks' Pentagon correspondents, too, were rarely women. • The only role in which civilian women appeared regularly in military stories was as so-called real people, ordinary civilians without power or expertise. • CBS covered the Pentagon beat more heavily than ABC or NBC during the 1990s. CBS featured military women much more than the other networks. • All three network anchors were scrupulous in reminding their audience that the military is made up of women and men. On only six occasions in the 780 introductions to personnel stories did they incorrectly use male terminology to refer to a mixed-gender force. ————- Women Aboard U.S. Submarines? The issue of assigning women to submarines has now reached that icon of the American media-Andy Rooney of 60 Minutes. In his commentary on Nov 21, he said: "There are just some things women should be and some things women should not be, and women should NOT be on submarines." On Nov 24, the Alliance responded: "By saying that women should not be on submarines, you are depriving the Navy of the opportunity to put the best qualified persons in the job. Five of the top ten graduates of the Naval Academy last year were women. Just because of their gender, you would automatically disqualify these outstanding young officers from assignments that require the Navy's best and brightest." Meanwhile, stories also appeared in the print media. The Los Angeles Times and New York Times had articles on Nov 14 and 15 respectively. Both stories cited the usual arguments against women on subs, but did mention the DACOWITS recommendation (although neither stated it correctly) and quoted DACOWITS Chair Mary Wamsley. Both newspaper reporters and Andy Rooney visited the attack submarine USS Oklahoma City in Norfolk, Virginia just prior to the stories/commentary. In contrast, an editorial in the Nov 16 Portland (ME) Press Herald was headlined "Navy Should Allow Women To Serve In Nuclear Submarines: Qualifications, not stereotypes, should govern task assignments" and said the Navy's nuclear submarine fleet should "end its exclusionary policies against women." In terms of presidential candidates, in responding to a Center for Military Readiness survey question, all Republican candidates opposed women aboard subs, except for Bush and Hatch who did not respond to the survey. McCain commented, however, that he would "consider the views of the Chief of Naval Operations who is responsible for the training, readiness, and well-being of all the sailors and officers under his command." On the Democratic side, neither Gore nor Bradley answered the survey. ————-
Women Aboard Australian Submarines! The information below about women being assigned to submarines in the Australian Navy has been provided by Kathryn Spurling of the Australian Defense Force Academy. In the second part of 1998 twelve women (one officer and eleven sailors) Australian Navy volunteers commenced their submarine training. They commenced their sea duty in March this year [1999]. So far the women professionals and the men professionals of the Australian submarine squadron have survived. The women were split up into two teams of six and each group assigned a six berth cabin onboard two Collins class submarines [The Collin class is a nuclear powered attack sub and several months deployments are not unusual.]. It did mean that "hot bunking" of this particular six berth cabin could not occur but of course as the numbers of qualified women rises, the normal fashion of submarine berthing will occur. It also meant that on one of the submarines the lone women officer shares with five women enlisted. This she and they were willing to do. Major alterations to the submarines were avoided which makes one wonder about the huge estimates being used in the argument against the acceptance of United States women submariners. The main "alteration" required for the Australian Collins class submarines was that proper screens were placed on certain ablutions. It is also amazing that the 'feminisation' of navy accommodation, particularly enlisted, is greeted with such disdain. The general consensus in Australia is that naval personnel are no longer willing to put up with Spartan living conditions and this figures in personnel losses. The improvements should be viewed as an improvement for all. Similarly the submarine personnel problem. There are simply not enough men volunteers to fully crew submarines. This results in an inordinate workload and unacceptable duration at sea for submarine volunteers. It simply makes sense to ease that situation by accepting all volunteers. Reprinted by permission of the Minerva Center.
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