Friday, September 17, 2010

The Admiral's freudian slip and Hints of first U.S. mixed gender Submarine

In highly unusual parlance for a first-world navy admiral, this one referred to the fall 2011 billeting of women on submarines as 'to house women'. Are female sailors happy or resentful of being termed 'housed' on surface vessels of the U.S. Navy? After all, surface vessel history since integration of female crew has not been without the obvious, sinister connotation of the term house: bordello.
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Molten Eagle suspects the good admiral merely slipped in his rather unfortunate choice of wording. That would be as in a freudian slip (a slip of the tongue that is motivated by and reveals some unconscious aspect of the mind). Did the admiral really have in mind fraternity housing? If so, we have long suspected that the exclusive fraternity evolving in wardrooms of U.S. subs is the fraternity of USNA graduates, who have an almost unique attitude toward fostering a suitable command environment for female success.
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What is the desired command environment for females on subs? One in which the entire chain of command: ignores all but the most serious female shortcomings (Capt Nowak); declines benchmarking female performance to that of their male counterparts (Capt Graf); and overlooks the inevitable, mission-critical consequences of imptomptu PREGNANCIES and gynecological difficulties (First Known Case of Pregnancy at Naval Academy).
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What many NROTC grads lack is the peculiar political conditioning that is de rigueur at the Naval Academy. The culture there assures that all of the males who graduate are reliably PC when it comes to never criticizing and always assisting women officers in their careers.
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PREDICTION UPDATE (FIRST Mixed Gender Sub: USS Rhode Island)
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September 15, 2010 - Times-Union/Jacksonville - Sub Force CO says Kings Bay model for all sub bases [color emphasis added]

We are going to have women in subs and the first submarine to house the women will be from Kings Bay. - Vice Adm. John J. Donnelly, September 2010.
August 20, 2009 - Molten Eagle - Unusual Public Relations History -

[T]his submarine [USS Rhode Island, home port; Kings Bay] is destined to make the news again in what promises to be story of momentous gravity for the U.S. submarine service. An experiment involving a second gender, perhaps? - Vigilis, August 2009.
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Submarines are always silent and strange.

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