Re:U.S. fleet welcomes newest USS New Jersey, the first gend...
by bobthepanda on Sunday September 15, 2024 @05:22PM
(#41550537)
I don’t think this is quite describing mixed bathrooms, it seems like they are addressing the issue by making bathrooms unisex single toilets, which is hardly a radical concept in public facilities.
Re:U.S. fleet welcomes newest USS New Jersey, the first gend...
by yashap on Sunday September 15, 2024 @01:25PM
(#41548854)
Yeah, it’s a clickbait title. Reading the article:
- Until 2010 US submarines had exclusively male crews
- Since then more and more subs have had both male and female crew members, but the subs themselves were still designed for men
- This sub was designed to have a mix of male and female crew, which in practice means things like design tweaks around washrooms, sleeping areas, and making overhead valves easier to reach
Re:U.S. fleet welcomes newest USS New Jersey, the first gend...
by BadHumans on Sunday September 15, 2024 @01:23PM
(#41548846)
This headline is absolutely meant to incite a "culture war" but it seems cut and dry to me. Women weren't allowed to serve on subs so subs weren't designed with women in mind. Now women are allowed to so subs are designed to be more equitable.
Re:U.S. fleet welcomes newest USS New Jersey, the first gend...
by ASalazarMX on Sunday September 15, 2024 @03:32PM
(#41549697)
This news is hardly relevant to HN to begin with. I hope our descendants don't make too much fun of us for making a giant toy war out of self-identified genders and pronouns.
Re:U.S. fleet welcomes newest USS New Jersey, the first gend...
by happytoexplain on Sunday September 15, 2024 @01:48PM
(#41549031)
This is really egregious clickbait. As others have said, it's simply a mixed-gender crew. Interesting in its own right, but too bad the headline derails that. You can edit headlines when submitting - please make use of this feature.
'This was the first wartime deployment of a mixed male-female crew on a U.S. Navy combat vessel with just over one-third of her crew being women. During this time, the ship was branded as the "love boat" when 36 of the crew's women (about 10%) discovered that they were pregnant.'
Re:U.S. fleet welcomes newest USS New Jersey, the first gend...
by chroma on Sunday September 15, 2024 @01:28PM
(#41548879)
Pregnancies become a bigger problem on submarines because of the limited space for medical facilities and the difficulty of transferring crew on/off the sub.
Re:U.S. fleet welcomes newest USS New Jersey, the first gend...
by HeyLaughingBoy on Sunday September 15, 2024 @01:26PM
(#41548869)
Is that the one where, when you dig into the details, you find that most of them were either pregnant before they joined, or became pregnant while on leave with their spouses/boyfriends and only a small percentage actually became pregnant while aboard?
Re:U.S. fleet welcomes newest USS New Jersey, the first gend...
by chroma on Sunday September 15, 2024 @01:38PM
(#41548966)
The Wikipedia article says 22 of the 36 became pregnant with a fellow crew member during the deployment. All of them had to be transferred off the ship so they could be closer to an obstetrician in case of complications.
Re:U.S. fleet welcomes newest USS New Jersey, the first gend...
by Brybry on Sunday September 15, 2024 @01:59PM
(#41549116)
I think you might have misread that, it says 22 with a fellow crewmember or while on shore leave in Hawaii/Philippines/Singapore/Thailand/other ports (and the source [1] doesn't mention crewmembers but it's implied).
Re:U.S. fleet welcomes newest USS New Jersey, the first gend...
by seydor on Sunday September 15, 2024 @01:20PM
(#41548817)
"first gender-neutral" just doesn't have that ring to it like "first female submarine" or "first black submarine". I'm sorry but the title is just ridiculous
Re:U.S. fleet welcomes newest USS New Jersey, the first gend...
by dauertewigkeit on Sunday September 15, 2024 @01:19PM
(#41548805)
I can just imagine the drama. I know from experience in STEM circles at uni, the gender imbalance caused a lot of drama. The relatively few girls would basically be kingmakers, crowning the couple of guys who were handsome enough. That caused a lot of drama because as you can imagine, each girl had a whole entourage of guys all of which were secretly in love with her. We were of the exact same age as the people serving on this sub.
I can just imagine that drama but 200 feet under the sea.
Re:U.S. fleet welcomes newest USS New Jersey, the first gend...
by MarkMarine on Sunday September 15, 2024 @01:26PM
(#41548864)
This isn't uni. I spent half a year on a mixed gender Navy/Marines boat (Essex) and what you're imagining doesn't happen. Some people hook up, rarely there are issues with sexual assault, but honestly the same shit happened when it was all men.
Re:U.S. fleet welcomes newest USS New Jersey, the first gend...
by dauertewigkeit on Sunday September 15, 2024 @02:10PM
(#41549190)
I didn't mention sexual assault. If anything we were the most mild mannered of all the faculties. The more extroverted faculties had more issues along those lines. But there was a lot of drama and resentment that originated from that gender imbalance and the social dynamics that it evoked. And tbh, I find it hard to believe that it would be different anywhere else if you have the same gender imbalance issues.
Re:U.S. fleet welcomes newest USS New Jersey, the first gend...
by unsnap_biceps on Sunday September 15, 2024 @01:49PM
(#41549042)
I will sleep well knowing that the women that already serve on the submarine will feel better about the facilities matching their needs so they can serve their very best.
I will sleep well knowing that the woman that already serve on the submarines will know we care about them enough to make minor adjustments for their comfort.
I will sleep well knowing that my country doesn't kowtow to whims of other country leaders that don't want us to succeed.
Re:U.S. fleet welcomes newest USS New Jersey, the first gend...
by slwvx on Sunday September 15, 2024 @01:34PM
(#41548940)
If they laugh, that's their problem.
I think the US' racial diversity has provided a soft-power advantage around the world, and I see steps like this by the Navy as giving the same sort of advantage.
Re:U.S. fleet welcomes newest USS New Jersey, the first gend...
by wizzwizz4 on Sunday September 15, 2024 @01:19PM
(#41548809)
> Going forward, all nuclear-powered attack submarines and Columbia-class ballistic missile submarines will also be designed with gender-neutral accommodations from the outset, he said. For example, adjustments have been made to increase privacy in washrooms and sleeping areas and improve access to top bunks and overhead valves.
This is the sort of thing people mean when they say "gender-neutral facilities". They don't mean "allow $GENDER_A to peep on $GENDER_B" – they mean "let's render that a non-concern". (I'm not sure what to think about the US Navy figuring this out before the general public.)
Re:U.S. fleet welcomes newest USS New Jersey, the first gend...
by anbardoi on Monday September 16, 2024 @10:11AM
(#41556262)
As a submarine veteran, I can already tell the U.S.S New Jersey is going to get the nickname “U.S.S Jersey Shore” by the crew one of my shipmates was on an SSGN and he said there was always some kind of intersex drama when there’s both male and female on a boat
At first I thought this was talking about how ships are traditionally referred to as “she” in English.
- Until 2010 US submarines had exclusively male crews
- Since then more and more subs have had both male and female crew members, but the subs themselves were still designed for men
- This sub was designed to have a mix of male and female crew, which in practice means things like design tweaks around washrooms, sleeping areas, and making overhead valves easier to reach
It's almost as if they titled the headline for clicks!
'This was the first wartime deployment of a mixed male-female crew on a U.S. Navy combat vessel with just over one-third of her crew being women. During this time, the ship was branded as the "love boat" when 36 of the crew's women (about 10%) discovered that they were pregnant.'
The US Navy on the other hand is a temperate organization that doesn't believe in corporal punishment.
(The US actually had one, too, until 1862. The Kiwis kept theirs until 1990.)
[1] https://archive.md/eFVKi#selection-255.0-255.204
Of course there will be problems with mixed gender crews, but it seems like a step in the right direction.
I can just imagine that drama but 200 feet under the sea.
I will sleep well knowing that the woman that already serve on the submarines will know we care about them enough to make minor adjustments for their comfort.
I will sleep well knowing that my country doesn't kowtow to whims of other country leaders that don't want us to succeed.
I think the US' racial diversity has provided a soft-power advantage around the world, and I see steps like this by the Navy as giving the same sort of advantage.
This is the sort of thing people mean when they say "gender-neutral facilities". They don't mean "allow $GENDER_A to peep on $GENDER_B" – they mean "let's render that a non-concern". (I'm not sure what to think about the US Navy figuring this out before the general public.)
The privacy aspect makes sense. I've stayed on a carrier with a LOT more space and things were.. close.
But "improve access to top bunks and overhead valves" implies some sort of size, strength, or ability difference between men and women.