FIRST ISSUE: Logistics
I was in the surface Navy when women were integrated onto combat ships. My first deployment we had no women on board and we had a urinal right on the flight deck welded to the back of the island. It was obviously very convenient for use when we were busy moving airplanes around (something we did for 16 to 20 hours a day when at sea).
My second deployment had "women" on board. Actually we had one woman, that's right just one. She was an officer and, honestly, I hardly ever saw her unless she was looking through the glass cockpit at me (I was a yellow shirt/flight deck director/wave my arms and the planes move kind of guy). The problem was that a week before she got to the ship a guy with a welding torch came up and cut our urinal off of the island and it was gone.
Now instead of just running over a few yards to do what you HAD to do we now had to go down three flights of stairs to take a leak. Those who were inclined to be slackers now had a perfect excuse to sneak away from work and disappear for 10,20 or even 30 minutes. Then I had to send workers to look for missing workers. It really was a big hassle and cut our efficiency.
A second problem was that there were close to 4000 men on my ship and not enough facilities on hand. I lived in a room that was about 1100 square feet with 163 other dudes. And for all 164 of us we had 4 toilets and 4 showers. I remember waiting in line for over 90 minutes just to get a shower after a long, hot 16 hours day on the flight deck.
Once a female was added in it got even worse. The one female on our ship got
her own bathroom near
her own berthing and she also got one of the two bathrooms the pilots used near the flight deck. Now there were about 200 pilots on the ship and they now had their facilities cut in half because of one person. So next thing you know we had pilots who wanted a shower or to use the can spilling over into other areas of the ship because they didn't have enough of their own facilities. Again it caused a greater strain on the ships crew and cut efficiency. How does waiting in line for a shower cut efficiency you ask? It cuts into your sleep. We worked on average about 16 to 20 hours a day and every chance you had to sleep you took it. We averaged a 5am to midnight workday (at sea) and waiting in line for an
extra 45 minutes made a big difference when your tank was already near empty.
Now with all of that said, my surface ship was like a palace compared to the facilities available on a submarine. Adding a couple of women to the mix
WILL cause problems that many folks can't even comprehend. Submarines don't even have enough beds for everyone to sleep in so people share bunks (not at the same time). When many submariners are going off duty they wake up the guy who is coming on duty. That guy rolls out of the shared bed and goes to work. The off duty guy flops in to get some sleep. They call it "hot bunking" because the bed never gets cold. Now think about where the women will sleep. There will be a whole section of bunks being taken up by one or two women and a whole slew of guys will be stuck hot bunking.
From what I have heard the Navy is building newer surface ships with more facilities to accommodate women. This will help with some of the problems I've mentioned on surface ships but the Navy isn't building any more LA class boats or Ohio class boats. The "women" problems will haunt the sub force for another 20 years.
ETA: Also there is no such thing as a free lunch. If you add more space for women's facilities you lose space that belonged to other things. Less fuel space, less food space or less office space. In short, even when things get better for crew services you lose someplace else.
NEXT ISSUE: Conduct
Its a problem, its always been a problem and its always going to be a problem and anyone that thinks that young kids full of hormones stacked together for long periods of time isn't a recipe for hard times is only kidding themselves.
^^^^ This IS a real problem. Sex, assault, rape, jealousy, on duty lovers quarrels, prostitution, STDs, pregnancies, special treatment and plain old awkwardness are all problems on Navy ships now that women have arrived in force. Anyone who thinks that a bunch of 18 to 22 year old men and women cramped together at sea for six months isn't a powder keg is just fooling themselves. The Navy has THOUSANDS of sexual misconduct problems every year on surface ships. It gets hushed up and swept under the rug to keep it out of the headlines. That doesn't mean that it isn't a real problem, it just means that you aren't seeing it on CNN.