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New London goes coed
On Oct. 7, 1975, President Gerald Ford signed an Act of Congress requiring that the armed services admit women to their service academies the following year. The academy, to the accompaniment of despairing howls from some of its alumni, had already announced that it would accept female applicants for the class entering in July 1976. Female cadets would receive the same training as males - including summer cruises aboard the training barque Eagle, which had a compartment designated "Woman Cadet Quarters" added to its lower deck.
The first-generation female academy graduates tell diverse stories about their experience. Some describe the academy as a "bastion of male chauvinism" in which sexism lurked just below the surface in every realm from athletics to uniform design. A female instructor describes a survey that was taken among female cadets in the early '80s, when several new uniform options were being considered. The majority of fourth-classmen preferred a style that looked decidedly feminine, whereas the first-classmen, having concluded, the instructor suggests, that "the way to get ahead was to look like a man," opted for a uniform that differed only slightly from the men's. Other female cadets assert just as emphatically that the only women who found sexual discrimination were those who looked for it. The key to success at the academy, says one successful graduate, was "not to get wrapped up in being a female Coastie. Just be a Coastie."
Sea duty at last
In the spring of 1977, under the urging of Secretary of Transportation Brock Adams, the Coast Guard decided to conduct an experiment by assigning women to sea-going ships. The high-endurance CGCs Morgenthau and Gallatin were selected to receive 10 enlisted women and two female officers each.
The concept initially got a cool reception aboard the vessels in question. Legend had it that the Morgenthau's radio call sign, NDWA, meant "no damn women aboard." The crews of the two cutters were put through extensive briefings regarding the conduct that was expected of them, and their families received a newsletter detailing the arrangements that would be made to accommodate the "mixed crews." Some of the most vocal opposition to women's presence aboard ships came from the sailors' wives.
Women reported for duty aboard the Morgenthau and Gallatin late in 1977, to the accompaniment of considerable media attention and a couple of seamen commenting "there goes the neighborhood." Those who expected the two cutters to either sink or turn into nautical dens of iniquity were disappointed. As had been the case when the Coast Guard set up its first racially integrated ships' companies during World War II, the "mixed crews" quietly settled into a working routine and went about their business with little if any commotion.
CAPT Alan Breed, commanding officer of the Gallatin, acknowledged a year later that some of his male crewmembers had experienced "apprehensions, reservations, concerns, and, in some cases, frustrations" when they were told that women would be joining the ship, but he asserted that "there have been no major problems to date ... . Today, I doubt that there are over two or three who retain such hardcore opposition."
In sending women to sea the Coast Guard was steering toward a collision with the Navy. By congressional law the Coast Guard is transferred from DOT to the Department of the Navy in wartime, and the high-endurance cutters were designed for double duty as anti-submarine warships. Navy policy, based on the long-standing congressional law banning women from combat, excluded women from most seagoing billets. For a few years the Coast Guard maintained a contingency plan to replace each seagoing woman with a man upon transfer of the Coast Guard to the Navy. The Navy's "no sea duty for women" rule, however, was negated in 1978 by the Owens vs. Brown federal court decision, and the plans to remove women from Coast Guard cutters in wartime were eventually scrapped.
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of Chanel No. 5
On April 1, 1979, LTJG Beverly Kelley, who had been part of the Morgenthau experiment, took command of the CGC Cape Newagen, a 95-foot patrol boat operating out of Maui, Hawaii. Kelley, who came from a seagoing family (her father was a captain in the merchant service), emphasizes today that she got the command "through natural progression," but she immediately became a media celebrity.
The announcement that a woman had taken command of a United States ship of war spawned newspaper headlines ranging from "Female skipper likes Coast Guard challenge" to "Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of Chanel No. 5."
Kelley, who now holds the rank of commander, recalls that the biggest challenge she confronted came from the media. The Cape Newagen's 14-man crew adjusted relatively painlessly to the fact that their CO was a woman (though several remarked that the female voice on the PA system sounded "strange"), and the cutter, once the media attention died down, carried out its duties in exemplary fashion. The Cape Newagen received a Meritorious Unit Commendation for its search-and-rescue work during a major Pacific storm in 1980.
In 1979, RADM William Steward, then chief of personnel for the Coast Guard, testified before a House of Representatives subcommittee reviewing the Defense Department's policies regarding women. When asked about the Coast Guard's experience with women aboard ships, Steward replied,
"There are times when obviously a 200-pound pump may not be able to be lifted by women; however, that same pump may not be able to be lifted by all of the male population of a particular unit as well. We have exposed the women to the gamut of our missions: law enforcement; marine environmental protection; aids to navigation; all of the other missions that we have. I can categorically state, sir, that their performance has been outstanding."
During the next few years women were assigned virtually every duty to which their ranks entitled them. In 1983, LCDR Melissa Wall, then a LTJG, took command of Loran Station St. Paul, Alaska, with a complement of 26 - all males - serving under her. By 1983, of 129 women officers in the Coast Guard, 35 were serving aboard seagoing vessels and five were aircraft pilots. Female enlisted strength in the same year stood at 1,747, including 85 enlisted women at sea.
By the late 1970s, the course the Coast Guard had charted was clear: women were in the service to stay. Official distinctions between men and women dropped away one by one. The practice of discharging pregnant females was abandoned, and the Hollywood costume designer Edith Head provided a female version of the new "Bender Blues" uniform.
Coast Guard women continued, however, to encounter discrimination in more subtle forms.
"I'm not sure I really want sea duty," said a reserve officer. "If the men hear that I'm having dinner with the captain, they think I'm bucking for promotion. If I have dinner with the exec (executive officer), I'm asking for favoritism. If I hang out with the enlisted men I must be giving it away cheap, and if I stick with the other women I must be a lesbian."
Coast Guard women in the '90s
Coast Guard women still make headlines whether they want to or not. When LT Sandra Stosz took command of the icebreaking tug CGC Katmai Bay in 1990 she was featured in People magazine and National Geographic, and made an appearance on the television show "To Tell the Truth." She accepted the attention because, "it was a good thing for the Coast Guard," but "I can't wait for the day when I'm thought of as the seventh captain of the Katmai Bay - not the first female."
LCDR June Ryan, formerly an enlisted woman who is now military aide to President Clinton, recalls that when she took command of the icebreaker CGC Neah Bay "they (the media) were so focused on my being a woman that my crew took a back seat. I didn't care for that." "I'm not a women's libber or a bra burner," said Ryan. "I try to keep a low profile. I just want to be a Coastie."
Wall, now executive officer of the 210-foot CGC Courageous, expresses a similar view. "I'm no longer a 'female officer;' now people just say, 'okay, she's an officer,'" she said.
Coast Guard women acknowledge that a gender gap still exists in the service, but many of them see that gap as no wider than the one that exists in civilian life. "It's okay for guys to have wives on the pier waving goodbye," said Wall, "but it doesn't work the other way around."
BMCS Diane Bucci, who became the first enlisted woman to command afloat when she became officer in charge of the tug CGC Capstan in 1988, says she has noticed a subtle but significant change in the relationship between Coast Guard men and women in the past decade.
"Being 'one of the guys' used to be the key," she said. "You had to not only listen to the dirty jokes but tell them. That's not so any more."
A 1990 study entitled "Women in the Coast Guard" led to a systematic effort to identify gender-related concerns and problems. The Coast Guard now has a Women's Advisory Council consisting of nine officers and senior enlisted women who advise senior officers and civilian administrators on policy matters. The Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services, or DACOWITS, addresses the concerns of the Coast Guard as well as DOD's.
The Care of Newborn Child Program gives new mothers and fathers the option of taking a year off with the assurance of retaining their ranks and ratings when they return to active duty. All Coast Guardsmen watch films designed to define and discourage sexual harassment. Friction continues to exist between genders, but most Coast Guardsmen have found that creating the diverse environment called for by the regulations isn't as hard as they expected. Bucci recalls that when she reported aboard her first ship, she ran into an enlisted man who had the right idea.
"He just shook hands and said, 'we're glad you're here,'" she said.
International events of the '90s have put the military's new policies toward women to the test. Three reserve port-security units, all with women among their members, were sent to the Middle East during Operation Desert Shield. Cutters with women crewmembers have taken part in rescue and migrant-control exercises in the Caribbean, and a PSU was sent to Port au Prince, Haiti, during the 1994 intervention there. All the members of that unit were housed in a warehouse whose amenities did not include bulkheads.
The women consulted during the preparation of this article were unanimous in their assertion that the Coast Guard is ahead of the other armed services in its policies toward and treatment of women. Another consistent theme among Coast Guard women is an intense dedication to their profession. Splaine, who retired in 1971 as a CWO4 after a career of 28 years, summarized her attitude toward the Coast Guard: "I love it, love it, love it, love it, love it."
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