Being a Woman in the Male-dominated Navy through the 1990s. Interview with Melissa Ashby, History 150 Spring 2024, Conducted by Shannon Ashby on March 19th, 2024.

Overview:

In 1976, women were first allowed to attend the Naval Academy, which to many men currently serving or retired was a point of contention. Women faced sexism and violence during this transitional period where men continued to limit their potential within the military Throughout the 80s and 90s, violence and sexual harassment within the Navy was prevalent. Along with this, women’s opportunities were limited due to the 1988 Risk Rule, which prevented women from working combat roles and significantly cut back the ships they could be assigned to.

Melissa attended the Naval Academy around this period from 1989-1993, during a time when she was one of only a handful of females attending the service academy. She would serve in the Navy for the next 15 years in active duty and in the reserves. This came with its own number of obstacles separate from those men faced. During this interview, she discusses her experience at the Naval Academy as a woman, the struggles she faced, her deployment, and how she’s seen the Navy change over the past decades with women’s involvement and presence. Many women have gone through this same experience as heard in other interviews, touching on the difficulty of breaking into a male-dominated work force, and how this has changed over the last several decades. In 1960, 70% of households had a stay-at-home parent, typically the mother, whereas today 70% of households have 2 working parents. Women have worked hard to push past the gender roles and work for equality for their own futures, and their children, just like Melissa did when serving her country.

Biography:

Melissa Ashby was born on March 23rd, 1971, to Mr. And Mrs. Gerace as their firstborn outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Later, they had 3 more daughters in 1972, 1978, and 1981. Growing up, money was tight. Both of her parents worked at the local hospital, and she often found herself taking care of her younger sisters while they were gone. Eventually, they moved to South New Jersey where she grew up. Melissa graduated from the local high school in 1989 and went to her Plebe summer at the Naval Academy that year. First year Naval Acadamy students are called Plebes and must attend an early summer program that puts them through physical and mental training in preparation for their first year. She graduated from the Naval Academy in 1993 and was deployed 2 times flying Seahawk helicopters for the Navy. During this deployment she spent most of her time in the Mediterranean but has gone all over the world.  

Melissa married Dave in 2002 after they met through a mutual friend from the Academy 2 years previously. She would later leave active duty to join the reserves in January 2003. Melissa and Dave would move to Northern Virginia and have 2 kids, Shannon (the interviewer) in 2005, and Daniel in 2008. She left the reserves in 2007 and became a stay-at-home mom in 2008. Currently, she is working part-time at a scuba diving store, volunteers as an EMT, is active in the Scouting community as a Scoutmaster for her daughter’s troop, and still flies planes when she can. 

Research:

It has only been in the past 50 years that women have been allowed to join the Navy. In 1976, the first women were accepted into the Naval Academy, which since its creation in 1845 had been all male. As it usually goes, this type of transition was not an easy change, and women continued to face challenges as men tried to hold them back and silence them.  

The Risk Rule of 1988 was a ban on women serving in combat roles in every military branch, and significantly limited the opportunities available to them. Along with this, women were often the target of sexual assaults and beatings that often went overlooked. In August of 1992, a female navy recruit in Florida reported an assault by 3 company commanders that when informed, upper officials failed to take actions prior to an investigation. This was preceded by an event referred to as the Tailhook Convention. This convention was an annual event Navy jet pilots attended that unfortunately included drinking and inappropriate actions which included sexual assaults that occurred without consequences. After the events of September 1991, this discredited the Navy and fueled new investigations into sexual misconduct within the military branch. There was even an assault involving a female midshipman being tied to a urinal. The male midshipmen involved were only given demerits and loss of leave time, and it was swept under the rug. A survey around this time found that 75% of women and 50% of men have witnessed sexual harassment in their companies. Since this period of repeated sexual harassment, the Navy and federal government has been working to crack down on hazing, harassment, and expanding the opportunities available to women. In 1993, the Risk Rule, which previously prevented women from working in combat roles, was reversed to allow for women to serve in these roles. 

Since this time period, women have become a fixture of the Navy. In 2021, women made up 17% of active duty, and 21% of the reserves. Although women still face sexual harassment that comes with a male dominated industry, strict consequences now protect all midshipmen from the things that may happen behind closed doors.  

Transcript:

Shannon Ashby 0:01

Okay, we’re now recording. So this is a digitally recorded interview via zoom with Melissa Ashby. This interview will be conducted by Shannon Ashby on March 19 2024, at approximately 8pm. So I hope you’re having a good day. We’re just gonna start with something simple of can you give me a brief biography of your life.

Melissa Ashby 0:25

A brief biography of my life. I was born in outside of Philadelphia. I was raised in South Jersey. I attended the United States Naval Academy, I graduated in 1993. I went on to fly helicopters um was active duty for 10 years, followed by the reserves for something like three or four years, and then met and married my husband and have been in Northern Virginia for the past 22 years. I have two beautiful children. One is at JMU and one’s still in high school here at Lake Braddock. I’m a professional volunteer and I don’t know how to say no. I have been a Girl Scout leader. I’m currently a Boy Scout Scoutmaster for a female troop. I volunteer as an EMT at the local firehouse. And, um, I was working with the Naval Academy to help folks come in so I’m a slightly different role now. And yeah, I work at a dive store. So I’m a dive Pro. And a mom. Oh, yeah. And I’m still a pilot.

Shannon Ashby 1:56

Great, thank you. So why did you decide to join the military?

Melissa Ashby 2:02

I don’t know. I always wanted to be in the military. Some of it was the see the world some of it was the excitement of just what they did, and I wanted to be an astronaut. And the only way I was going to get to do both was to go to a service academy. So…

Shannon Ashby 2:26

Cool. So that’s, like, really exciting. During this time, I understand that there was still, not a lot of women present at the military academies. So, did you notice a difference between the number of men and women present at the Naval Academy?

Melissa Ashby 2:48

Oh, yes, yes. There was less than 10% of us. So seeing a female midshipman usually meant somebody was running down the sidewalk screaming there’s a female one, for pictures and a meet and greet. [There were very few women at the academy when Melissa was there, so when people would tour there was often an added interest in seeing and talking to the few women who were attending. She has mentioned in previous discussions that this was a regular occurence]. There was very few of us to lean on very few women officers there on the staff, to see and get help with so, pretty much we were at the pointy end of the spear.

Shannon Ashby 3:30

Okay, so was there like a sort of community among the women that were there?

Melissa Ashby 3:36

Oh heck, no. No, no. We all knew we should help each other but it was each to your own. As much as we were sisters banded together, we were struggling to be a part of an all-male community. And woe was the woman that looked like they were banding too much with the girls? I got most of my female bonding on the rowing team, But yeah, in the hall itself, it was very hard to be supportive of each other because there were very few combat opportunities for those that wanted it so we were all pitted against each other. On top of we were still not able to service select combat options, so we would hear it a lot from our classmates we were just taking a spot from a male, there was a lot of angst still while we were there, from 89 to 93.

Shannon Ashby 5:01

Okay right. So what sort of challenges do you think you face that was different to the men there?

Melissa Ashby 5:12

lack of a support structure, both with your classmates as well as female officers present. Lack of a support structure in the overall Navy community. Uh cause it just, we just weren’t there. And without Congress freeing up all the options to go into combat, we were stuck in support roles. And your typical 18 to 22 year-old male brain knows it all. And, you know, are very egotistical to deal with.

Shannon Ashby 5:57

Yeah so like, what is it was, like 15 years into women being in the academies, they still had a lot of restrictions on what they could do?

Melissa Ashby 6:08

Oh, yes, yes, it was called Combat exclusion laws, women were not permitted to be in combat. Period. We could serve as select support roles, and flying roles, but those were never in combat. Women selecting ships would select noncombatant ships, so support ships. There were no… You could select Marines but again, you couldn’t be a combat Marine, it would be support, logistics. So that held us back a lot. Don’t get me started on the uniforms they weren’t designed by women. And there was a lot of talk, while we were there to try to get that accomplished, but that didn’t happen for years, if not decades.

Shannon Ashby 7:21

So, so there was like, the social challenges, but also just like the physical challenges and being in a male prominent field?

Melissa Ashby 7:32

Yes.

Shannon Ashby 7:35

Okay. What was like your usual day or week like at the Naval Academy?

Melissa Ashby 7:41

Get up at five or 6am, we’d have morning quarters go for breakfast, which was always mandatory if you were a Plebe, but not always mandatory if you’re older. We have four classes in the morning, noon meal formation, then noon meal, and then two classes in the afternoon. And then you had your sports period. Varsity athletes, we met pretty much year-round, in the afternoon, and sometimes in the morning before breakfast. So you might be up at four AM. And then evening meal formation, I can’t remember if that was around six 630, evening meal. Then it was study hall. For the Plebes that ended at around 10. Bedtime and taps is around 10. However, everybody knew they were up till midnight. And generally, I would struggle through trying to study till about two in the morning. I’d get a few hours sleep. And then if we had morning practice, I’d be up at four in the morning to go to morning practice and then start my day over. You didn’t always have classes, you know, like college, you may only have your chemistry Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, but first session and maybe something you know, on the second session, but not the third and so on… We didn’t have night classes, we didn’t have weekend classes. It was just in those those periods that you would have your classes. So we started at the midpoint of August we went till Christmas had about, I dont know, three weeks off for Christmas break. Had a spring break, and we had graduation ceremonies, mid May. In the summers, we were obligated to training. So out of the three blocks you had to do…. um. Two of those blocks were mandatory training. What you did for training depended on your year.

Shannon Ashby 10:24

Okay. So, um… was there anything like, you think like looking back, you would have wanted to change about your time at the academy?

Melissa Ashby 10:39

Oh, yes! I was an aerospace engineer, I really should have looked at other degrees to make sure I got one that fit me better. I wish I had looked at other degrees. I wish I had taken off from rowing competitively, at least in the fall timeframe to see what else was out there at the Naval Academy. I didn’t get to experience everything because I was always rowing or studying. So.

Shannon Ashby 11:18

Yeah. So then you graduated, and you ended up being deployed, so can you describe your time deployed?

Melissa Ashby 11:29

A typical deployment, you have a workup. So once you’re assigned, and I should caveat that today’s squadrons that I was at, do not deploy like I did. They do it differently. But generally, all deployments have a workup cycle. You start with three weeks, and we weren’t on a ship, so we had to deploy to a ship. We had to bring the helicopters, bring our gear, bring our people. You’d spend three to four weeks on a ship, you know, off the coast down in the Caribbean, doing stuff, come back, then go out for two months, come back, then it would be like four months and come back. And then you would disappear for six to eight months, depending on where you were and what was happening in the world. Um… And then you come back, you’d be home for a year, maybe two years, and then you do it again. So um, you know, depending on where they sent you, I was east coast, so mainly the Mediterranean, the Persian Gulf, sometimes North Atlantic, sometimes down to South America, for us, but depending on what was happening in the world and your timing is what you got.

Shannon Ashby 12:59

How many times are you deployed?

Melissa Ashby 13:01

Twice.

Shannon Ashby 13:02

Twice, okay. Um, and then what was like the usual crew made of when you were deployed, like… people.

Melissa Ashby 13:12

Depending on how many helicopters we would take one or two, you always have an aircraft. You would take a lead officer who is the OIC and he would have a operations officer and a maintenance officer. And then you would take one or two Junior pilots who are just learning to be, um… We call them H2Ps; helicopter second pilot. You would take an entire maintenance complement so you would get a chief and then anywhere from eight to 10 Guys… guys and gals that would maintain the aircraft and you would take anywhere from two to three enlisted guys that were your SAR swimmers aka also the um your daily would ride in the helicopter and be your um… oh I’m forgetting the name of it. Um they work like the sonar systems and all of that their AWS aviation warfare specialists but call them AWS but they would also jump out of the helicopters and shoot the guns.

Shannon Ashby 14:52

So um, how many women do you think we’re on like the aircrafts?

Melissa Ashby 14:57

So generally, by the time I got to the fleet, every ship I was on was integrated with women. but not every ship in the fleet was. So they would never send a woman alone. I always went with at least two women each cruise.

Shannon Ashby 15:27

Okay.

Melissa Ashby 15:28

So, and then I, we would room with the ship’s complement, so we would be in with the officers and we would just mix in with the women there.

Shannon Ashby 15:40

Is that cause they didn’t really have better accommodations?

Melissa Ashby 15:44

Well, on a small ship, destroyer and cruisers, there’s only so much room. So you would…

Shannon Ashby 15:51

Yeah.

Melissa Ashby 15:51

Based on your rank is who you would bunk with. So in the military, you do not get individual rooms. The only people who get individual rooms is the CO, the captain, and the XO, executive officer. Everybody else gets a roommate. And if you’re Junior enough, you get a whole room of roommates, depending on the size of the birthing. Enlisted are all in birthing below decks. So I couldn’t even tell you, they could have 10 to 20 people in a birth.

Shannon Ashby 16:28

Mm, okay.

Melissa Ashby 16:30

And everybody pretty much sleeps in a bunk, except the CO on the XO.

Shannon Ashby 16:35

Okay. So how do you think that women’s presence in the military has changed between your time in the military and now?

Melissa Ashby 16:45

A lot. The military can’t work without women now. We are ingrained everywhere, in all job types. Combat and non-combat. You will find women do very well in the military and are scoring and staying at the top of their schools/classes. It’s not without issues though. High stress deployments, long work hours, away from home things happen in dark corners but for those wanting to make a career the world is their oyster. Women are doing amazing in whatever they’re doing. We have ships commanders now, admirals, generals. By opening up all aspects of the military’s fields, if they’re qualified, they’re there.

Shannon Ashby 18:03

Well, so I’m kind of going back to your time. Like, why did you transfer to the reserves?

Melissa Ashby 18:14

Why did I transfer… because my husband convinced me I wasn’t ready to get out of the Navy completely yet. So I went over to the reserves, and was able to keep doing stuff.

Shannon Ashby 18:31

What’d you do?

Melissa Ashby 18:33

I was in… It was supposed to be a Space Command. Well, my first, um, thing was I was in charge of prepping civilians for bootcamp. So I was the pre-prep program of getting them ready to go to boot camp, and it was a ton of fun. And then I moved over to a Space Command, but unfortunately, that one moved out of the area, and it became an IT command and at that point, I decided to get out of reserves for a variety of reasons.

Shannon Ashby 19:20

So do you think the pre-boot camp type of thing, um, led you to wanting to do some of the recruitment sort of things for the Naval Academy?

Melissa Ashby 19:32

Um, I… that was my last active duty job was working at the Naval Academy in the admissions office. So I really enjoyed that, that position. So…

Shannon Ashby 19:50

Mkay… cause I know you did that for a while into while I was growing up.

Melissa Ashby 19:55

Right. I mean, I worked in that field for 20… 20 years and I’m still doing it I just, I don’t interview anymore or at least not right now and I will occasionally go to Naval Academy, you know the military nights and stuff. I was just looking online to see if anything fit with my current schedule but right now nothing does.

Shannon Ashby 20:27

Okay. Well so what impact did being a woman in the military, do you think had uh, have on your life as a whole?

Melissa Ashby 20:39

It set me up, um… I mean definitely… much more um like going to the military and graduating, I did not graduate with a bunch of college debts. The only debt I had was my credit card and my car payment. Which wasn’t much. I had an instant job. I had instant medical and dental. I got to see a large portion of the world and, um, you know really got to grow up. Yeah, let’s see what else… I mean. It’s definitely… the pluses outweigh the minuses most days. It wasn’t an easy life. I think it’s harder as a single person. Um… But, um, you know, it was it was well worth it.

Shannon Ashby 21:55

Okay, so that’s kind of all the questions I really had. So thank you for spending time, spending time with me tonight.

Melissa Ashby 22:07

Oh, you’re welcome!

Shannon Ashby 22:08

Going to pause the, or stop the recording now.

Bibliography:

Derochi, Kerry and Dorsey, Jack. “Instructors Beat Her, Sailor Charges \ Navy Memo says Officials took no Action Despite “Zero Tolerance”.” The Virginian Pilot, December 13, 1994, https://infoweb.newsbank.com/apps/news/document-view?p=AWNB&t=&sort=_rank_%3AD&maxresults=20&f=advanced&val-base-0=Women%20in%20Navy&fld-base-0=alltext&bln-base-1=and&val-base-1=1980-2000&fld-base-1=YMD_date&docref=news/0EAFF7FE03D12776 

Schafer, Susanne. “Tailhook report tarnishes brass.” The Tampa Tribune, April 24, 1993, Tailhook report tarnishes brass, Tampa Tribune, The (FL), April 24, 1993, p1 (newsbank.com) 

Author Unknown. “This is a School for Leaders? Incident is Poor Reflection on Naval Academy.” The Buffalo News, June 5, 1990, THIS IS A SCHOOL FOR LEADERS? INCIDENT IS POOR REFLECTION ON NAVAL – ACADEMY, Buffalo News, The (NY), June 5, 1990, pB-2 (newsbank.com)  

Jordan, Phyllis. “Navy Panel Urges Steps for Women.” The Virginian Pilot, April 4, 1991, NAVY PANEL URGES STEPS FOR WOMEN, Virginian-Pilot, The (Norfolk, VA), April 4, 1991, pA1 (newsbank.com) 

Author Unknown. “A First for Women in the Navy – They start getting permanent assignments to combat ships.” San Francisco Chronicle, March 8, 1994, https://infoweb.newsbank.com/apps/news/document-view?p=AWNB&t=&sort=_rank_%3AD&maxresults=20&f=advanced&val-base-0=Women%20in%20Navy&fld-base-0=alltext&bln-base-1=and&val-base-1=1980-2000&fld-base-1=YMD_date&docref=news/0EB4F5C0FB5FB763  

Author Unknown. “Department of Defense Releases Annual Demographics Report — Upward Trend in Number of Women Serving Continues” U.S. Department of Defense, December 14, 2022, Department of Defense Releases Annual Demographics Report — Upward Trend in Number of Women Serving Continues > U.S. Department of Defense > Release 

Hauser, Susan. “The Women’s Movement in the ’70s, Today: ‘You’ve Come a Long Way,’ But…”. Workforce.com, May 15, 2012, https://workforce.com/news/the-womens-movement-in-the-70s-today-youve-come-a-long-way-but

Interview and Transcription Process:

This interview was recorded via zoom, which the recorded audio was then transcribed in Otter AI. It was then edited to clarify information including spelling, words, speakers, and punctuation. This transcript was approved by Melissa on March 23, 2024, after some minor edits to filler words and misinterpreted words.