Naval policymakers felt that the most cost-effective way to use women was to congregate
them in a few locations and limit them to traditional fields, and over the course of the Cold War
the Navy restricted the ratings (job categories) in which women could serve. In 1952, enlisted
women were eligible to serve in thirty-six ratings (about 60% of all ratings). In 1956, the
number dropped to twenty-five ratings, and by 1962 twenty-one ratings could be filled by
women (Ebbert and Hall, 1993:141). During the Cold War, women served overwhelmingly in
the traditional fields of clerical/administration and health care. The Navy, like the other services
at the time, worried about its female members projecting a feminine appearance to the world.
Navy regulations required that women’s hair “shall be arranged and shaped to present a
conservative, feminine appearance,” and when Navy women, following civilian trends, began
neglecting to wear their hats in 1968, they received a reprimand from the director of WAVES
reminding them that “WAVES are ladies first and always…Taking off the hat in public is strictly
a man’s gesture; it is not ladylike” (quoted in Holm, 1992:182).
Many Navy women requested to be sent to Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War, but,
aside from nurses, only one or two female officers were there at one time on the staff of the
Commander, Naval Forces in Saigon, and no enlisted women were allowed to go (ibid.: 217).
In 1970, Admiral Elmo Zumwalt became Chief of Naval Operations. Anticipating
passage of the Equal Rights Amendment and the inception of the all-volunteer force, in August
of 1972, Zumwalt issued a directive, known as Z-116, expanding roles for women in the Navy.
In the past, the Navy had been content to recruit few women, who were held to much higher
standards than male recruits in terms of mental capacity and educational levels, and it wasn’t
concerned when it failed to retain many of its over-qualified female service members. With the
end of conscription, however, the Navy would be losing draft-motivated volunteers, and
Zumwalt wanted to better utilize and retain women. Z-116 authorized limited entry of enlisted
women into all ratings; allowed a limited number of officer and enlisted women to serve on the
noncombatant USS Sanctuary; allowed women to serve as commanding officer of shore units;
opened the Navy’s ROTC program to women; allowed women to attend the National War
College.
Over the course of the 1970s, opportunities for women in the Navy further expanded. In
1973, Navy women become eligible for aviation duty in non-combat aircraft. In 1978, a sex-
discrimination lawsuit against the Navy led the courts to rule that the Navy could not use the
1948 Integration Act as the sole basis for excluding women from duty aboard ships. Congress
18
Convention