Leadership: January 2, 2003

Archives

The percentage of women in the Royal Navy has gone from 5.6 percent in 1990 to nearly eight percent today. At first, many officers and senior NCOs saw women on board as an additional headache they didn't need. In 1993, 47 percent of the officers and NCOs preferred shipping out with an all male crew. Now this is down to 13 percent. Lower ranking sailors saw a similar drop in preference, from 70 percent to 37 percent. But half the lower ranking sailors still see women on board as problem because the women, not having any macho hang-ups, are less reluctant to kiss up to officers and Chief Petty Officers to get out of unpleasant assignments. This is a problem throughout the armed forces where men and women work outside of an office setting (and even in an office, women will tend to call on guys to deal with broken copiers or other equipment.) The officers and chiefs have learned to live with this, but the sailors are still ticked off. There is also the problem of sex and emotional relationships. Women are in an ideal dating situation, although that sort of thing is discouraged, or forbidden, on ship, depending on the captains policy. Higher ranking sailors or officers are always tempted to use their rank to get a little loving and this sort of thing happens often enough to be a constant problem, or threat of becoming one. On the positive side, the younger sailors are more likely to behave themselves if female sailors are around, and the women are better at some jobs than the men (just as they are elsewhere). Overall, the problems of women on board are not great enough to cause any movement to go back to all male crews.

 


Article Archive

Leadership: Current 2022 2021 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002 2001 2000 1999 


X

ad
0
20

Help Keep Us Soaring

We need your help! Our subscription base has slowly been dwindling. We need your help in reversing that trend. We would like to add 20 new subscribers this month.

Each month we count on your subscriptions or contributions. You can support us in the following ways:

  1. Make sure you spread the word about us. Two ways to do that are to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.
  2. Subscribe to our daily newsletter. We’ll send the news to your email box, and you don’t have to come to the site unless you want to read columns or see photos.
  3. You can contribute to the health of StrategyPage. A contribution is not a donation that you can deduct at tax time, but a form of crowdfunding. We store none of your information when you contribute..
Subscribe   Contribute   Close