U.S. fleet welcomes newest USS New Jersey, the first gender-neutral submarine | Hacker News Reader

U.S. fleet welcomes newest USS New Jersey, the first gender-neutral submarine

northjersey.com

19 pointsbookofjoe24 comments

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Acadia

'This was the first wartime deployment of a mixed male-female crew on a U.S. Navy combat vessel with just over one-third of her crew being women. During this time, the ship was branded as the "love boat" when 36 of the crew's women (about 10%) discovered that they were pregnant.'

Navy boats have been "love boats" the entire time. Only difference now is some of the crew can get pregnant.

Pregnancies become a bigger problem on submarines because of the limited space for medical facilities and the difficulty of transferring crew on/off the sub.

Not just Navy ships. What do people think happened on sailing ships when they were gone for over a year trading or whaling?

Butt stuff. We always thought butt stuff.

What are the traditions of the Royal Navy? "They are rum, sodomy and the lash." - W. Churchill

The US Navy on the other hand is a temperate organization that doesn't believe in corporal punishment.

We also didn't believe in alcohol, at least not as part of the official ration. The Royal Navy "tot" was not abolished until 1970.

(The US actually had one, too, until 1862. The Kiwis kept theirs until 1990.)

Is that the one where, when you dig into the details, you find that most of them were either pregnant before they joined, or became pregnant while on leave with their spouses/boyfriends and only a small percentage actually became pregnant while aboard?

The Wikipedia article says 22 of the 36 became pregnant with a fellow crew member during the deployment. All of them had to be transferred off the ship so they could be closer to an obstetrician in case of complications.

OK. I must be thinking of a different ship then.

I think you might have misread that, it says 22 with a fellow crewmember or while on shore leave in Hawaii/Philippines/Singapore/Thailand/other ports (and the source [1] doesn't mention crewmembers but it's implied).

[1] https://archive.md/eFVKi#selection-255.0-255.204

Does China have mixed gender submarine crews? Does Russia?

No, it is mostly western countries. US, UK and Australia are the only ones I know of top of mind.

Gender neutral is not really how I would describe this? This is equivalent to a coed dorm, or you could say mixed gender.

At first I thought this was talking about how ships are traditionally referred to as “she” in English.

The coed dorms I stayed in didn’t have all spaces designed for a man. They didn’t even have mixed bathrooms.

I don’t think this is quite describing mixed bathrooms, it seems like they are addressing the issue by making bathrooms unisex single toilets, which is hardly a radical concept in public facilities.

"For example, adjustments have been made to increase privacy in washrooms and sleeping areas and improve access to top bunks and overhead valves."

The privacy aspect makes sense. I've stayed on a carrier with a LOT more space and things were.. close.

But "improve access to top bunks and overhead valves" implies some sort of size, strength, or ability difference between men and women.

As a submarine veteran, I can already tell the U.S.S New Jersey is going to get the nickname “U.S.S Jersey Shore” by the crew one of my shipmates was on an SSGN and he said there was always some kind of intersex drama when there’s both male and female on a boat

Previously submitted: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41542748

I can just imagine the drama. I know from experience in STEM circles at uni, the gender imbalance caused a lot of drama. The relatively few girls would basically be kingmakers, crowning the couple of guys who were handsome enough. That caused a lot of drama because as you can imagine, each girl had a whole entourage of guys all of which were secretly in love with her. We were of the exact same age as the people serving on this sub.

I can just imagine that drama but 200 feet under the sea.

Now we can sleep well.

Our country and our families and our future are well protected by gender-neutral submarines.

Putin and Xi are going to die from laughter at this point.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com