Thursday, May 27, 2010

Diversity Thursday

How may awards have we received for excellence in manufacturing oversight? Production efficiency? Just asking.
The Navy's Task Force Life/Work (TFLW) initiatives will be recognized May 18 by the Alliance for Work Life Progress (AWLP) through the organization's Work-Life Innovative Excellence Award.

Capt. Ken Barrett, director of the Navy Diversity Directorate and TFLW, will accept the award at the 2010 Total Rewards Conference, sponsored by WorldatWork, AWLP's parent company, in Dallas.

As the highest honor offered by AWLP, the Work-Life innovative Excellence Award was created in 1996 to showcase programs and policies that demonstrate excellence in enhancing and promoting work-life effectiveness while achieving organizational goals. Past recipients include Pepsi Bottling Group, Ernst & Young, Verizon Wireless and IBM. Competitors for the award are evaluated on their program's responsiveness to employees' needs, innovation in overcoming barriers to implementation, and measurable benefits to the well-being of employees.

The Navy's TFLW program began in 2007 to address the professional and personal development needs of Sailors and to enhance healthy life/work balance. Since its inception, several TFLW initiatives have been launched, including greatly expanded telework programs, flexible work schedules, paternity and adoptive leave, and one year deferment of sea duty for new mothers. The Navy's TFLW and quality of life programs have previously been awarded by both the Families and Work Institute and the Telework Exchange.
I think they just outed themselves on which fetid pool TFLW came from.

And remember - someone has to go to sea. If you don't - someone else will.

75 comments:

kjbgu04 said...

Commander, first time I've ever been motivated enough to mosey on over from my reader in order to comment.  I have to take issue with you here.  I'm separating in 4 weeks, and most of it has to do with the fact that we don't have ENOUGH life/work.  Yeah yeah yeah, Sailors belong in ships and ships belong at sea.  I get it.  I'm an AEGIS SWO, and I also know how the CO's standing orders say not to take the deck if you are too tired.  We ooze throughout our day to day duties exhausted but no one taps out because the person who relieves you would only be more exhausted.  I see where you're coming from.

But TFLW is about the only thing standing in the way of the flood of meaningless drivel and mindless taskers.  I can't tell you how many times I stayed late redoing powerpoints because Squadron wanted some fancy animation, wanted this word to whoosh in from the left, not from the right, and not too fast or too slow.  I spent most of my time not giving my ISIC the data they wanted, but the data they wanted in a format (color/font scheme) that made them happy.  TORIS/TFOM that got foisted on the surface fleet is a disaster, as well as all the remote access tools that allow my SG commander to drill down into our gage calibration readiness remotely.  In my 2006 deployment the CSG got strung out from Somalia to the Korean Peninsula.  My DDG was off Somalia, and while we were fighting the anti-piracy fight my CO was answering mail from the Admiral off Korea about gage calibration.  Seriously?  VBSS visits and the like going down, and the most important thing is GAGE CAL?!?

TFLW is one of the few areas in which the Navy has put its increased efficiency to work to benefit the Sailor, not to create more mindless drivel for him.  Nevertheless, the mindless drivel record is about 1 win and 37 losses.  I start terminal leave at the end of June.

UltimaRatioRegis said...

"<span>But TFLW is about the only thing standing in the way of the flood of meaningless drivel and mindless taskers."</span>

Nope, I think the word you are looking for instead of TFLW is "leadership".

cdrsalamander said...

K,
I see and understand the problems you outline, and trust me - you're not alone.  The thing is - TFLW was not designed to address the problems you have.  Most of your problems, I would offer, are leadership problems.  Leadership problems that derive from leaders who have difficulty establishing priorities and managing their time demands on their people.

TFLW was/is designed around one main priority.  Keeping more women on active duty.  Secondary goal is to address parenting challenges for single parents.  Third is to allow general relief for families.  Fourth is to get awards.  Very little to anything has to do with internally driven SWO a55pain.

I wish you luck in the civilian world.  It is different out here and has its own challenges.  No TFLW here, that I can tell you.

Finally, thanks for coming out of the shadows - come back and comment more often.

LT B said...

It is not just the SWO world, but the unintended consequences of lager staffs, better comms, micromanagment w/ a zero tolerance mentality.  TFLW has nothing to do w/ K's issues.  It is, as Phib stated a female centric idea to allow women to have kids, stay in, etc.  That said, that increased the burden on the males AND females who have decided to focus on their "jobs."  The single (non parenting) Sailors get boned and not in the good way.  It is tough to balance family and military duty.  I think it is w/ good intentions this is done, but the fact that it is targeting females shows me, yet, once again, that there is not equality as there is NOT equal consideration or standards.  This program does not enhance the mission of the Navy, but DOES make us look good to the outside world.

Salty Gator said...

I really liked both comments on this thread.  K, great points.  I really hope that the experience is limited to your ship, but I know that it is repeated in other ships (but I won't make a sweeping generalization on the entire fleet).

As for TFLW, Sal has it dead to rights.  It wasn't until just last year that finally someone started talking about paternity leave for new born kids (allowing dads to take up to 10 days of leave when they have a new born).  Most everything was about scheduling women to allow them to have kids and a naval career.

Salty Gator said...

the Navy is a funny beast.  How often do you hear that our shipbuilding plan must reflect "realities to keep the industrial base from folding?"  Every year.  How long until we hear that we must keep up diversity efforts so that the diversity industry doesn't fold?
how much money are we pumping into these diversity industry companies that they are rewarding us?  How much do we pay them in consulting fees?  You know that Verizon, IBM, PepsiCo and Coca-Cola do...it's like paying $$ to Reverend Al Sharpton's National Action Network.  You have to!  If you don't, you don't get the benefit of "hush money" next time you are doing Union-Corporate contract negotiations.
the more awards that the Navy stands up to accept from these privately owned diversity industry companies the more concerned I get.  I WANT TO KNOW WHERE THE MONEY IS GOING!  WHO IS GETTING PAID?!?!?!

Anon said...

Just wanted to quickly not the paternity leave item.  The 45 days of leave after childbirth for women is convalesnce leave NOT maternity leave.  It took an act of Congress, literally, for fathers to be allowed leave.

Another item I have recently discovered concerning children and leave: Servicemembers are allowed 21 days leave after the adoption of a child, but if you have a child through a surrogate you are authorized nothing.

Anon said...

I understand where everyone is coming from about focusing towards women with TFLW, but I think everyone could benefit if the Navy were <span>truly serious</span> about giving people a balance.  We all know the mission comes first, but how many of us have had phone calls late at night concerning admin issues that truly could have waited until the monring?  How about the needless Blackberry emails on a Saturday night?  

Personally, the one that put me over the edge was when my CO showed up with the church flyer covered in notes outlining his plans for the week.

And since the Navy finally got off it's @$$ and started the Career Intermission Program it has been a huge flop.  We know the target audience is women, but the first approved applicant was a male.  JOs aren't dumb - see the life of a DH and say no thanks.
BTW, the Coast Guard has had a similar program for over 20 years and it works great, and it took us how long to get a pilot going?

Anon said...

Since we are talking diversity today....

http://www.navytimes.com/news/2010/05/gns_gay_ban_data_minorities_women_052710/

sobersubmrnr said...

<span>....and one year deferment of sea duty for new mothers.</span>

Thus leaving sea commands short of women to fill WAS-only billets and making shore commands as pregnant as the women at them.

During World War II, a ship would pass under the Golden Gate for the war zone and, if she returned at all, would not come back until due for a yard period....about a year....unless she had serious battle damage. Except for a quick stop in Pearl going and coming, that ship would spend most of that year underway, with only a few days of liberty here and there in garden spots like Esperito Santo, Majuro or Ulithi Atoll. And those days were spent at anchor. When they got back to San Fran (if they came back), they had a really nice, long commissioning pennant flying past the fantail.

Now we have pregnant chicks who don't have to deploy and get a whole year off after they pop the kid. Many of them are single mothers and some don't even know who the daddy is...except he's still on sea duty.

Boy, what a screwed up Navy. Someday, this time of relative peace we have experienced since the end of World War II will end. When it does, the US Navy will be in a real shooting war. PC crap like this will cost us lives and ships. But the powers-that-be will only learn after it's too late.

May God have mercy on us.

sobersubmrnr said...

She lived a lie, huh? She was the one telling the lie. She should have never joined in the first place, knowing good and well that she was not eligible.

SNAnonymous said...

Gator, I don't know if you've seen it, but a there is a great documentary out on the Military-Industrial complex called Why We Fight.  Highly recommended.

MR T's Haircut said...

"Task Force"... I puked in my mouth.

TASK FORCE means a warfighting unit intent on inflicting damage to an enemy unit.  Not this touchy feely crap.

GET SOME NUTS!

Byron said...

Gator, the hard cold fact is that the median age of yard workers is steadily climbing. I'll be 59 this coming August. Youngest person in our shop? 23. Next youngest? Mid-30s. Median age? Around 45, and climbing. Kids just don't want to do this kind of work any more. Perishable skills? Just think, if all the young Naval Aviators were getting out at four years...all of them. Who'd be making all the deployments? Same is true of your highly techincal enlisted rates.

It's not the bodies, Gator. It's the years of experience in trades that have little or no school that works as well as getting out on the ship and grunting. You damn right the "industrial base" has to be protected...there's no one else out there willing to fix your boats.

Anon said...

And during WWII our parents went with nothing and walked uphill to school in 10 feet of snow without shoes....blah blah.  It's a different time and a different world.

And I'll bet you calling your female shipmates "chicks" goes over well.  Glad you think women are equals.

Anon said...

You're missing the point of the article - get past the personal interest part and read the data.

   - 1/3 of all discharges were women
   - 1/2 of those women discharged were minorities

Do minority women flaunt their homosexuality more than white males, or is there something else going on?

Byron said...

Yeah, my parents lived a helluva lot harder life than I ever did, and they worked their asses off so I wouldn't have to. You seem to forget, that when the war started we were just starting to come out of the Great Depression, Mr/Ms Anon. My father stood in line to get a pair of shoes to go to school in because his parents didn't have the money to buy new ones when he outgrew the other. And the world is the SAME, you jackass, we just take it for granted now. Life always has been a hard cruel bastard just waiting to screw you up.

DeltaBravo said...

As a female, I think the word "chick" is charitable to be applied to someone who would use pregnancy to get out of a deployment or wouldn't fulfill her sworn obligation to her country.  (And you can't serve two masters at the same time.  Nor do those women do right by their young children if they stay in the Navy and leave the kids with relatives.)   Women always have a harder decision to make than men when it comes to work and family.  It's the nature of motherhood especially during the early years.  Something many 18 year olds or 20 year olds don't appreciate.   Which is why maybe young girls don't belong on ships at sea with young men for months at a time.  But that's just an old mom talking....

DeltaBravo said...

Hahah Byron.  I realize how easy our generation has it when I was telling my kids how hard school was for us old people because WE ACTUALLY HAD TO TYPE STUFF OUT FROM ROUGH DRAFTS!  NO COMPUTERS!  I was discussing the agony of opening BOOKS and correction tape for typewriters (remember that?) and xeroxing, and (horrors!) no cut and paste! 

How DID we do it?  (And we had to search for pay phones to call home!  Oh, the humanity!)

Yeah... if that's the worst thing we have to complain about, our parents left us a pretty safe world to grow up in.

Andrewdb said...

The church flyer covered with notes might be an indictment of the preaching and not the CO's attitude.

DeltaBravo said...

How DID the military run before powerpoint?  Did we win any wars? 

Serious?  Fonts?  If a leader is focusing on that, they are the kind that can't see the forest for the trees, which might also have something to do with the current issue at hand.

Andrewdb said...

A surrogate birth wouldn't involve an adoption?

xformed said...

Chalk it up as women who have more masculine trnedancies being attracted to a male oriented career.  Of course there will be higher percentages....

Anon said...

There's a contract between the parents and the surrogate, and technically all genetic material is the property of the parents.  While each state law is a little different, basically the baby that is born immediately belongs to the parents.

Anon said...

That's a stretch.

UltimaRatioRegis said...

Anon,

Why don't you get past the data part and get to the "personal responsibility" part...?

UltimaRatioRegis said...

Sorry to say, DB, but seems we consider presentation software to be the next RMA, after fission/fusion weapons in the 1940s.

Used to be able to write an OPORD on an MRE box.  Or draw the terrain model in the dirt.

C-dore 14 said...

K, Interesting comments although they tell me more about the leadership of your DDG and ISIC than they do about TFLW.

As for the comments about paternity leave, I'm a little surprised.  The Navy I grew up in did it as a matter of course and without a directive from higher authority.  In '78, when my wife went into labor with our youngest I was helo'd into the beach with a chit for a week's leave in my pocket.  It wasn't just because I was an officer, it was ship's policy (was on my previous two ships too).

Maybe we should spend less time on Power Points.

cdrsalamander said...

BTW - for both of my kids, my command let me take two weeks leave ... out of my four.  Never complained.

cdrsalamander said...

Bad case of the Thursdays ... it happens a lot. ;)

C-dore 14 said...

Anon, Having a "workaholic" boss is never good, but if you think that folks don't receive unnecessary phone calls or weekend e-mail out in the corporate world I think you're in for a rude awakening.

C-dore 14 said...

Anon, As someone who supports the repeal of DADT I am, however, disappointed that this article fails to mention the percentage of women and minorities who were processed after "outing" themselves.  In my limited experience with the policy (6 cases) all but one were "self referrals" and all were male Caucasians. 

C-dore 14 said...

DB, Some of us remember numbering each of our letters so they wouldn't be read out of sequence, a plan often foiled when you'd go without mail for weeks at a time.

Vigilis said...

Perhaps it takes 'courageous restraint' not to go to sea know that's what you have been paid to do theoretically. 

Vigilis said...

<span>Perhaps it takes 'courageous restraint' not to go to sea knowing that's what you have been paid to theoretically do. </span>

Anon said...

I agree that those calls exist in the corporate world, also.  And I would agrue as a society we have allowed mobile communication technology (Blackberry, iPhone, email, etc.) to intrude too far into time that should be spent on other endeavors.

Anon said...

Saw one of those - he was straight and working the system.  The command still processed him out because they, "didn't want to take a chance."

LT B said...

I'm thinking if someone said that in the shipyard, they are likely to get their a$$ whipped.  :)

Salty Gator said...

Delta Bravo is female? Had no idea.  We are gender blind here on Sal's blog!

UltimaRatioRegis said...

GET SOME NUTS?

Like so much else, they don't want to get their own, they want to take yours.

Salty Gator said...

Byron, I totally respect and understand this point of view.  however, I have to wonder about what would happen if we were to allow true market forces to be applied.  Granted, you and your coworkers have skills that most young folks of the X Box generation are not willing to spend the hours to learn.  But there is a reason why it is so damn expensive to build ships here vs. other places in the world.  the answer is labor, union labor to be specific.  I know that you personally are not union, but a lot of folks are.  And while the bosses make millions, the members don't and the taxpayer gets shafted with a huge markup.  So I"m not willing to say that we should keep buying crappy LCS's or DDG-51s just because we're worried about Bath, Ingles, Metro Machine, NASCO, or any other yard.
But really my comment was about where is our money going with the diversity industry?  We are sustaining the diversity industry with consulting gigs and then they bestow awards on us.  Hey, curiosity:  when is the last time the Navy won an excellence in Engineering award?

Byron said...

No, just an ass chewing for being a simplistic moron. I don't get cycled up enough to actually put my hands on someone unless you do one of two things: steal from me, or harm or disrespect my family. The first will get you a broken jaw and a concussion (ask the guy I caught stealing my car) and the second could get you killed. Family is fairly important to us crawfish suckers ;)

sobersubmrnr said...

Nice little snippy comment. Exactly how I expected you to reply.

When it comes to warfighting, women are not equal. And when it comes to war, it is not a different world. The conditions in a firefight or on board a badly damaged ship are the same, whether that ship was hit by a kamikaze or two Exocets.

sobersubmrnr said...

HEhehe.  :)

sobersubmrnr said...

Exactly how I meant it, DB. I used it as a term of contempt for them because they have earned my contempt. They are not my "shipmates" as Anon would say and never will be.

Old Salt said...

URR: "Or draw the terrain model in the dirt."

Which they still do.

DeltaBravo said...

I'm going to like this a second time because it made me laugh out loud.  Thursdays are so special here.

DeltaBravo said...

I did that!  Got into the hundreds!  Sad.. a whole generation that doesn't know the fun of a letter.

DeltaBravo said...

Naah.  I'm just meaner than the average girl.

ActusRhesus said...

I am a woman.  I am also single without children.  I am also supposedly in a "shore duty" billet. Over the last year I have found myself working almost every weekend that I did not specifically take leave, 12-18 hour days, I have regularly had to miss meals because there was no time to leave my desk, and when I do eventually make it home, I'm too exhausted to do anything but sleep and it's too late to eat dinner, so I've been subsisting on one meal a day, if I remember to get breakfast.  At one point I had a 72 hour SIQ chit and still worked 18 hour days, all three days I was supposed to be SIQ.  I have no time to PT.

Frequently I have had to choose between sleep and bathing because there was not enough time for both.  XOs of other commands have frequently noted that I "look like hell" and have asked if I need medical attention because the stress and overexertion sustained over five months have had a visible impact on my weight, appearance, and general demeanor.

Why?  Because if you are single, you get to pick up all the slack so others can go home at 1600.

TFLW = I work so someone else can have a life.

(And for the record, I spent a year IA to Iraq.  There I also worked pretty awful hours, but the difference was over there I was working to support a warfighting mission and didn't resent it one bit.  I resent having to sacrifice my mental health, physical health, and sanity so some other shore duty pogue can have a quality of life.)

FUCK TFLW.

Byron said...

AR, I would gladly share a foxhole with either you or DB, as I know I could safely sleep while you stood watch. You ladies "get it".

DM05 said...

TFLW is pablum, and it's spawned in the corp world too. Buddy is an up through the ranks, got his degree finally at age 40 mgr making righteous $$ in the IT world. He was connected 24x7 before everybody else jumped in. Takes a new big responsibility - and $$ - job in the western states. His 4 key managers come to him with the whole work life balance program and working 37.5-40 or so hours weekly....He says "If you're a manager and making the $$ you are, you are EXPECTED to work that much more and that much harder. Otherwise, I hire someone else, possibly outsource, or you can go sit in the call center 0800-1700 and make maybe half as much". World ain't fair, and the military isn't for everybody. TFLW is, indeed, about coddling females, and sticking it to the singles...Life isn't fair....

LT L said...

As someone who shared a staeroom with a gay shipmate and shared a house with another gay shipmate I have to agree: the real homosexuals try to cover it as much as they can, and as a resut are some of the most professonal sailors in the fleet. The ones who publicly come out couldn't hack it , and usually were as straight as I am.

ActusRhesus said...

Ironically, my next job (seven weeks...counting down...) is with a VERY operational unit...yet I hear the quality of life is phenomenal.  Work hard play hard.  I can dig that.

ActusRhesus said...

last week I got screamed at by my department head for not answering my phone at 2230.  I was at a movie.  They frown on phones.  This was after I had worked 6 consecutive weekends.

ActusRhesus said...

It's entirely possible to be a mother and a successful hard working officer.  My two mentors (self selected, not assigned through some patronizing navy mentor program) are proof of this.  CDR #1 is a mother of two girls.  She has been to sea, has been to Iraq, and is now and XO of a shore command. (The only kind of XO in our community).  How does she do it???  Her husband has a subordinate career with enough mobility to allow him to follow her PCS moves.  Nowhere is it written that mommy can't be primary wage earner and daddy can't be primary care giver.  CDR #2 is a mother to two young boys.  She has been a Flag Executive Assistant, and is currently in an extremely high op-tempo afloat job.  How does she do it? She and her husband are both officers and decided early in their marriage to never be Geo-Bachelors and to alway have at least one on shore duty for the children.  They've busted their asses on both ends to get service reputations where they have enough "pull" with the detailers to make that happen, and have both at times sacrificed their #1 billet choice for one that worked better with their family plan.

It ain't easy, but it's possible.  THESE are the kind of women we want in our senior officer ranks.  Ones who know how to prioritize and balance without a goddamn task force telling them how.

DeltaBravo said...

Does not like.  (We need a button for that.)

Salty Gator said...

"Sober," I'll cede your point only when every male sailor can bench press 350 pounds, run sub 6 minute miles, score over 1300 on their SATs, and rate 5.0 on their FITREPs / EVALS.  Because Lord knows I've seen a lot of suck ass males get outdone in everything by females, and I've seen some females outperform the top males too.  haven't met one yet that could bench press as much as me, but have met more than a few who can fireman carry me out of a burning space.
Don't compare all females to the uber echelon of what you think the male sailor is.  When you can meet the above metrics, and you can find enough men meeting those metrics to support 313 ships, call me.

LT B said...

AR,
   You are the type of Sailor with whom I like to serve!  God Bless You and may your PCS come pronto.  Nothing like loading our troops down w/ stupid busy work and keep me in existance reports to make them want to pull chaulks and go elsewhere.

LT B said...

Tell your DH to enjoy his evening.  You did.  :)  

Old NFO said...

Both in government, including the military, and in the corporate world, I'm always hearing how diversity makes us stronger and better.  To this point I've never heard how that works.  The diversity crowd doesn't seem to be much for qualitative analysis.  Are ships run better and more effectively with women on board?  Are openly homosexual supervisors who own you 24/7/365 good for unit cohesion and combat effectiveness?  Is there any data?  If not, then why not?

OnceAMarine said...

Lt B, are you going up to Vascalitis at 6am to do the drywall at the new McDonald's?  I'd join you but I've got a meeting with "The Bobs"..... :-D

OnceAMarine said...

Salty, I can't ever find much to disagree with you about but I look at this from a Marine Infantry perspective.  When it comes to my old line of work, women are not equal ( admittedly, many men couldn't hack it either).  I don't need to enumerate the reasons because the intellectually honest reader knows them intuitively.  Now, on other platforms and in other applications of force I have no doubt that women perform exceptionally well.  I'm of the opinion that there should be one high standard of excellence for each community and those standards need to be met and exceeded by each member of the community - end of story.  Anything else is counterproductive bullshit.  With that being said, in all other aspects of my life I've found that women as a whole are not my equal - they are superior in just about every way.  Oooh-rahh to AR and DB.

Grumpy Old Ham said...

<span>Work hard play hard.</span>

That's usually the sign of good leadership that has priorities correctly aligned with the mission -- as opposed to the kind of leadership you appear to have now (which, I suspect, is similar to<span> kjbgu04's situation).</span>

Hope it all works out for you.

C-dore 14 said...

AR, Your comments point out how little things have changed since I was commissioned nearly 40 years ago despite all the alleged attention to the needs of individuals.  Back in those days before "BAQ for all hands" the single JOs lived aboard the ship and thus were available for any tasking that the CDO or XO might come up with ("On board, on duty").  

Your comments are on target.  Programs like TFLW penalize those who contribute to keep the non-hackers happy.

LT L said...

I solved this by only giving out my land-line. Which leads to a story...

Doing my tour topside when my ENG (SYS8008; that will make sense to some of you) comes stomping up to me demanding I give him my mobile number. I politely refused several times before finally relenting and giving him the number. He pounds it into his phone and immediately calls, smiles his swarthy smile knowing he actually has my number and not one I made up (thanks for the integrity check, numbnuts), turns on his heel and heads back towards the hatch.

*splash*

ENG spins around "what was that?!?"

"my cell phone"

Anonymous said...

during Nam we saw ships operating at the maximum. there were several skippers that "stayed on the bridge" for days on end then hit the rack with orders to be called if "something happened" something happened usually after about 40 minutes. so they got up to attend to it.  then when things settled down they took a sleeping pill to get some rest. then after the invetiable 30-40 minutes to the next wake up they took an upper to ge up for duty. uppers, downers...... leads to breakdowns, which happened at the worst possible moments.

there was a sea story that a first class ET was run so hard that he put in a request mast to be busted to deuce so he could get some sleep and nodded off in the middle of it.

C-dore 14 said...

If you want to see someone who burns the candle at both ends you need to watch a carrier's CO during a line period especially in a confined maneuvering area like the Persian Gulf.

I used to tell my OODs and TAOs to never be afraid to call me up if they had a question because I didn't stand watch and could always catch a catnap during the day.  Once, after a fairly intense operating period my XO told the watch standers to call him first so I could get a full night in the bag.  When he told me about it the next morning (nothing had happened anyway) I thanked him and then told him never to do it again.

Andrewdb said...

If we let market forces dictate, we would be building ships, and buying everything else, out of China.  I don't think that is the right choice (and I don't think the prices from there are/would be anything but subsidized to encourage our dependence).

Mike M. said...

Tell me about it.  Micromanagement will be the death of the Navy.

sobersubmrnr said...

Good on ya, AR. I wish there were more like you out there pulling their share of the load.

sobersubmrnr said...

Salty, any woman that can physically outperform the average man is an anomaly and you know it. The Navy even acknowledges this by having PRT standards for women that are far below those for males. A female in the 17-19 y/o range has as much time to run the PRT as a male in the 35-39 year range. Those same female teenagers have a lower push-up requirement than males in the 45-49 year old range. When the women have the same PRT standards and the same height requirement as men then you can come talk to me about equality. You can't rely on an anomaly to drag your butt out of a burning compartment.

Nice try, no ceegar.

Ground Sailor said...

I guess this is anecdotal, not quantative, but I'll give you an example of diversity of the female variety helping combat effectiveness. Admittedly, not aboard a ship, but I think more relevant. There are a number of female Intel/Medical practitioners, that are out in the field in the 'Stan, Iraq, and elsewhere, who can go and talk to people that we folks with dangly bits can't- specifically, other females. In practicing medicine, or simply asking questions, these lionesses have managed to repeatedly collect actionable intel that couldn't be extracted with a vise by me and mine.

Admittedly, these aren't the folks we're talking about- they looked at the TFLW and decided their country needed them to emphasise the "W." But still, there's your combat effectiveness.

MR T's Haircut said...

In the end, a military exists to conduct warfare.   OUR enemies will pick the meanest, baddest, biggest, scariest, most destructive they can to destroy US.  We will pick the one who fits the social ideals of the people in academia and politics who have never and will never stand the watch at the gate....   we are doomed.

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