From Yeomanettes to Fighter Jets : A Century of Women in the U.S. Navy

From Yeomanettes to Fighter Jets addresses a major element of twenty-first century sea power—the integration of women into all military units of the U.S. Navy. Randy Goguen delineates the cultural, economic, and political conditions as well as the technological changes that shaped this movement over the course of a century. Starting with the establishment of the Yeomen (F) in World War I and continuing through today to address the current arguments over the registration of women for Selective Service and the reform of the military justice system, Goguen describes how changes in civilian society affected the U. S. Navy and the role of Navy women. She highlights the contributions of key women and men in the military and civilian spheres who were willing to challenge convention and prejudice to advance the integration of women and make the U.S. Navy a stronger institution.  

Today women in the U.S. Navy have proven themselves essential to the mission success of the service. They are forward deployed around the world, sharing the same risks as their male counterparts. Some have commanded logistics and combatant ships, including aircraft carriers. They fly and maintain combat and patrol aircraft and serve as crew members on ships and submarines. Some hold major commands ashore and have risen to the highest echelons of navy leadership.    

Integrating women into the U.S. Navy has been a long and often contentious process, as women strived to overcome resistance imposed by prevailing cultural and institutional norms and patriarchal prejudices. Goguen, a retired naval reserve officer who holds a PhD in military history from Temple University, has written a comprehensive and up-to-date history of women’s integration into the Navy. She argues that throughout the process, the decisive force driving progress was exigency. That exigency took various forms: two world wars, communist expansionism in the Cold War, the ending of the draft and the establishment of the All-Volunteer Force, as well as the political pressures posed by social change, especially the mid twentieth-century feminist and contemporary “Me Too” movements. Despite a deeply ingrained institutional resistance cultivated within an insular, often misogynist, sea-going subculture, today’s U.S. Navy could not meet its mission requirements without women. Goguen asserts, “Exigency is the mother of integration.”