Talk:Women in the United States Navy

Pregnancy and ship duty controversy

I've got serious concerns about this section. Much of the fuss about women sailors getting pregnant to avoid sea duty appears to be hearsay or one-off correlations. The fact that most women in the military are in the age where people have children means that it's hardly unusual that they fall pregnant. If male sailors weren't allowed to deploy if their partners were pregnant I'd imagine that a lot of them would have to stay on the dock at the start of each voyage as well. Nick-D (talk) 10:55, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

I have no opinion on it myself, but in reading books in preparation to begin work on the Tailhook scandal article, I found a lot of discussion concerning the perception among personnel in the US Navy, both men and women, that women use pregnancy to escape sea duty. I'll probably be adding more to the section over time, because as I review sources for the Tailhook article I'll probably find more coverage of this topic. Cla68 (talk) 12:19, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Is there still a desire to leave the NPOV tag in the article in the pregnancy section? It seems to me that the information in the section is clearly attributed and reliably sourced. Two contrary opinions are included, including Zimmerman's that the pregnancy rate should not have a big impact on a ship's readiness and the Virginia Pilot article that states that men have a higher rate of non-deployment than women. Cla68 (talk) 05:29, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Numerical listing (leftmost column) seems arbitrary or even idiosyncratic

Concerning Section 9 "Admirals," I do not understand the logic of the first column, the numerical listing. There are seven columns that can be sorted. None of these sorts matches the numerical arrangement of the first column, which, therefore, makes this numerical listing seem purely arbitrary or even idiosyncratic. Perhaps the list is just the order in which the compiler of the list entered the names, but, in my opinion, that is inappropriate, since, any time the page is pulled up anew or refreshed, the list is always confusingly sorted by this arbitrary number. Because the list is one of admirals, it probably would make sense if the "numerical" listing were identical to the sort by Rear Admiral, lower half (RDML), since everyone on the list has reached at least that rank. A numerical listing corresponding to the alphabetical sort by name would not be a good idea because it would require frequent renumbering. I wouldn't do away with that first column because it's useful to know how many are on the list, or, if the numerical list corresponded to the sort by RDML, to how many reached that rank before a person the reader is interested in. Wikifan2744 (talk) 15:11, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

@Wikifan2744: I believe first column is ordered by highest rank and then date of promotion within that rank. However, as that's not clear at all I suspect people have been added to the table without understanding the numbering.

Mhjohns created the table (and the original article) but that user seems to have stopped editing on WP in late October 2015. The first version of this article used the numbering. I used the e-mail-this-user feature to ask Mhjohns about the first column to confirm my guess.

If it turns out the first column is in bad shape then I'm in favor of sorting the list by the RDML date meaning newly promoted people would get added to the bottom of the list. Initially I was ambivalent on keeping the first column but I like your idea of "how many reached that rank before a person the reader is interested in." We would only need to renumber if a new person was discovered. There are two people, Patricia Ann Tracey and Roseanne Roberts where the RDML promotion date is not listed. I did some hunting for Tracey's promotion without success but added notes to the talk page of that article. --Marc Kupper|talk 23:06, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

While looking at the table again I realized that the numbering makes sense if you look at the RDML, RADM, VADM, ADM columns. The row sorting order is by those columns from right to left. All of the ADM first by date of promotion, then all of the VADM by date of promotion, then the RADM, and finally the RDML. I saw that row 78 Raquel C. Bono was out of order as she's now a VADM. I moved her up to row 10 and renumbered the rows 10 to 79 each increased by one. Renumbering is a somewhat painful process. --Marc Kupper|talk 07:12, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

Prominent mention of SEALs never having a female member

Why is it mentioned in the second paragraph even before the Contents that no woman has become a navy seal? It seems political and not fitting Wikipedia's goal of objective information.

Hello

Let us discuss the reason for having the second paragraph on the page on women in the US navy arbitrarily mention that no woman has become a navy seal. Can someone justify mentioning it that prominently? That historical information more appropriately belongs in the History section or Career section. Imagine a person wanting to join the US navy looking up the Wikipedia page for women in the US navy and one of the first things they read is "No woman has ever become a Navy SEAL." before they even get to the first proper chapter. I speculate the motivation is political and not objective or neutral; there is no reason to arbitrarily mention it unprompted in such a way unless it is to maliciously influence the readers on the page and that is not what Wikipedia should be about. It could for example deter women from pursuing a career in the navy which is contrary to US national security because it can reduce the pool of service members and it could hinder the process of achieving gender equality through discouraging women from joining the navy in general. Please let me know if there are legitimate reasons for placing that information so early, otherwise I volunteer to find a more suitable spot for it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pasquino17 (talk • contribs) 14:17, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

Perhaps you're looking at this as a negative when it's not necessarily so? I am referring of course to the prominent mention of SEALs never having a female member, not the fact itself. The Navy is completely open to women now, and they serve everywhere in every capacity. The lead makes note that a woman has reached the highest rank possible, full or four star Admiral. So really, the only thing left for a female to achieve is to successfully become a member of the SEALs, (I say "successfully" because the teams are open to females and females have attempted to join). So in an article about "Woman in the US Navy", perhaps it is not only worthy of mentioning that there has yet to be a female SEAL, but prominently so? This isn't done out of derision (or "political" motivation, or to "maliciously influence readers"), it's just simply noteworthy as the final achievement yet to be had. I believe there will be a female SEAL one day, and when that happens, that will so be prominently noted, (here and in several other WP articles). While I didn't write that particular entry, it is a reliably supported fact, and relevant to thr topic of the article. There doesn't appear to be a policy-based reason to suppress this information by burying it somewhere deep in the page. I don't see how this would affect any potential recruitment of females readers, but neither is Wikipedia censored to help convince, or dissuade, females from joining the Navy, nor is it obligated to help protect US national security interests. (jmho) - wolf 18:15, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

Pasquino17 (talk) 14:51, 4 October 2021 (UTC)

You counter a few of my points well but I maintain that the bit about women in the navy seals belongs in a categorized chapter on the page and not in the introduction. I will fully grant your point that US national security is outside of the concern of wikipedia pages. I also agree that it is only a question of time until there is a female navy seal. The reason I argue for relocating the sentence because of conciseness and certainly not for burying it - is all the information on wikipedia pages past the Contents "buried"?

I still do not think we have found sufficient reason for arbitrarily mentioning that "fun fact" in the second paragraph instead of the history section. Do we have reason this is a frequently asked question if someone is looking up the topic "women in the US navy" (general terms and not specifically the seals). You argue that it is simply a noteworthy final achievement in the history of women in the US navy and that alone warrants the placement. Maybe you are right that is the consensus view - I'm not going to insist on any changes until this has been discussed further. Pasquino17 (talk) 15:33, 4 October 2021 (UTC)

I don't think the issue is really should that fact be re-located to the article body from the lead, but that is should a actually be co-located in both the lead and the article body. The purpose of the lead is summarize the article, especially noting key points that will be discussed in more detail in the article's prose. The female-yet-to-be-SEAL item is a key piece information that belongs. I wouldn't support removing it from the lead (though that is not something I decide on my own), but if you wanted to propose re-writes for how this issue is introduced in the lead and then expanded upon in the article, I would be interested to read whatever you come up with. If you would like to give that a go, then I guess we'll take it from there, and wait to see what you come up with. There is no hurry, take your time and also consider searching out new sources as well, for detailed info and more currently up to date info. Good luck - wolf 01:24, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

Lead Image

The confirmation of Lisa Franchetti is a pretty important development in the context of this article. Do we think her photo/caption should be first per MOS:LEADIMAGE? Not to downplay the significance of the current first image - becoming the first woman to achieve 4-star general status is significant - but is a re-order warranted given recent events? Schwinnspeed (talk) 15:49, 4 November 2023 (UTC)