“Never paint over rust, it doesn’t solve the underlying issue — the rust. It may make the ship look better but only for a very short time; it fixes nothing; and you will only be fooling yourself.” — XO, USS Ramsey (DEG-2) to Ensign Crowder circa 1974.
Wow, I haven’t seen the defense and Navy blogosphere light up like this in a very long time. Print newspapers, such as the Annapolis Capital Gazette are running daily front-page stories. What’s gotten everyone so worked up?
Well, according to numerous media sources, the Secretary of the Navy has directed his two service chiefs to look at dropping position titles that end in “man” as a way to further fully integrate the force. Quoting the letter to the CNO, Navy Times reported that Secretary Mabus wrote:
“Lastly, as we achieve full integration of the force … this is an opportunity to update the position titles and descriptions themselves to demonstrate through this language that women are included in these positions. . . . Ensure they are gender-integrated as well, removing “man” from their titles, and provide a report to me as soon as is practicable and no later than April 1, 2016.”
So, I picked up the somewhat dog-earred Merriam-Webster Dictionary on my desk to investigate why the “man” in titles and positions was potentially offensive. The first definition of the word man was “an individual human” and the second was “the human race.” Neither appeared to describe a specific gender. Then I looked up the word seaman, ostensibly one of the naval titles that some might find necessary to change. Again the dictionary’s first definition of seaman was “sailor, mariner” and the second was “any of three ranks below petty officer in the Navy or Coast Guard.” Again, there appears to be no gender bias.
As previously mentioned, the Annapolis Capital has had a field day getting readers’ input on the possibility of dropping “man” from midshipman. For etymology fans, the study of the origin of words, the term midshipman dates from around the year 1600 to describe a sailor’s watch station amidships. The title or position of midshipman has thus endured for more than 500 years.
So I decided to do a little research in the commercial world to see if there has been movement to change titles and job descriptions by “removing ‘man’ from their titles.” I visited the official websites of the following Fortune 100 companies: Xerox, Coke, IBM, General Motors, Lockheed Martin, and General Dynamics. In each case, the senior official at these giant firms held the titles of Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Chairman. And in each case, the CEO and Chairman is a woman (gender specific). My experience working at a giant Fortune 30 company tells me that if the Chairmen listed above thought that the Chairman title hindered gender integration at their companies in any way, they had the power and mandate to change the title, yet none was.
So, before we tackle a valid challenge such as better gender integration, let’s make sure we are developing real initiatives that will actually do so. As I harken back to my ensign days, it doesn’t make any sense to simply paint over rust — then or now.
