Plenty of space to waste carving out room for women.  Decades of successful naval operations with zero females on board ship ignored, in favor of Political Correctness and the feminist agenda.  Women in combat has gone from being an apocalyptic scenario to something pushed along in salami-slice increments in defiance of written law and long standing cultural consensus,by embedded leftists in our military, where flag-rank officers are chosen or vetoed by leftists in the Senate Armed Services Committe staff and leftist civilians in the Pentagon and White House.

Political Correctness adds to the cost of the military in general.  Maybe small escort carriers with maybe 12 to 18 UAV and a few ASW helicopters would be a good replacement for some missions.  A cruise missile launch ship would be another way of projecting firepower at lower cost.

You could probably achieve the same force using a pair of Arleigh Burke Flight III’s (2 helicopters + UAV’s and a lot of cruise missiles), and have much greater flexibility. No need for a escort carrier.

 

Besides, you would need the destroyers to escort the escort carrier anyway.