"Its an Able Seamans World' - Why the RN is right to change its language.

The Royal Navy has reportedly tried to look at modifying some of its language to make it more gender neutral. This is, according to the tabloids, a bad thing.

It seems that the current intention is to try to use more language which is more reflective of the workforce rather than relying on historical titles, and this may see the rate of ‘Able Seaman’ renamed in due course.

The response in the online cesspit known as the Daily Mail comments page varies from demands to fire the First Sea Lord, through to suggestions that women have no place in the modern armed forces if they can’t adapt to the job title at hand. Throughout it all there seems to be a clear view that this is a mans navy, and that its clearly woke nonsense pandering to a minority here that want this change to happen.

Lets pause and breathe for a moment here and ask what is actually going on, and whether this is something worth getting worked up about or if it is actually a sensible idea?

HMS Kent at Sea - Image by Ministry of Defence; © Crown copyright

The Royal Navy has had women as part of its integral rank structure since 1993. Prior to that female sailors in the most junior ranks were simply known as ‘Wren’ (as in Wren Smith), while male sailors were known as  (Able) Seaman. When the forces merged, the RN naming convention stayed on, even though it seemed nonsensical then, and still does now for there to a female seaman.

Nearly 30 years later, the Royal Navy is in a battle for talent with a huge range of employers and needs to attract people not just for the short term, but the long term too. It needs to show that it is an employer where everyone feels welcome and that their gender is of secondary concern to their ability to do the job.

At this point there is usually a raft of comments and moans going ‘but the title is historical, what next – woperson’ and ‘its only a rank, if they don’t like it then they can leave’. Well the problem is that women can, and do leave and that’s why there is a significant shortfall of trained personnel and gaps. So why not try to take small steps to stop that happening?

Can you imagine the outcry if in 1993 the decision had been taken to rename all AB’s Wrens? Could you imagine how many sailors would have reacted to suddenly becoming Wren Jones rather than AB Jones? The dripping and moaning would have been off the scale as people complained about the fact they were men and not women, so why should they have a womans job title?

Now flip that around and suddenly you’ve got the situation we’re now in where nearly 30 years after the two forces merged, we’ve still got some out of date job titles in use. Why not change it to something that reflects both genders rather than sounding terribly outdated?

There is no doubt that seaman plays a historical role in the story of the Royal Navy, but military job titles can, and do, change on a regular basis. Just because we use it now doesn’t mean that we have to use it for all time.

Its very easy if you are retired or ex RN to assume that political correctness has struck the Navy and its all gone to the dogs. But the fact is that it hasn’t and it remains an employer that needs to attract the absolute finest talent that this country has to offer.

The modern sailor needs to be intelligent, driven, able to operate highly complex equipment and make difficult judgement calls that can have international ramifications if they get it wrong. This is a lot to ask of people and it is often extremely hard to find recruits willing to make the commitment, and then stay for the long term.

In a battle for talent, the modern generation are much more aware of things like language, gender equality and other issues which they passionately care about. In this case, why not make a small change to show that the RN is thinking about this sort of issue to continue to maintain its attractiveness as an employer?

More widely there is also a message to be sent to those already serving that the system recognises and respects gender. This is a big deal to people, particularly women serving in a force that at times can feel like its an overgrown boys school with a very active CCF section, and woe betide you if you have breasts because that means you’re a girl and girls smell (or words to that effect).

There is still an unacceptable level of casual sexism in some parts of the Royal Navy – not necessarily intentionally, but it still exists. People use language that acts as if women are not part of the workforce. There is the slightly patronising, at times overly paternalistic way of speaking to females (civilian and military) as if they are intruders in an all-male world in which some still  think they do not belong. Women are also subjected to double standards, fired from Command for conducting themselves in the same manner that their male counterparts did and got away with.

If you think this is nonsense, then read the comments section of the tabloids or social media about this article and see that these views are espoused on a depressingly regular basis – there is a significant minority of people who genuinely seem to think that women have no place in the military – usually the closest these people have come to service themselves is playing Call of Duty.

There is also a wider institutional challenge too that needs to be tackled head on. It is, frankly, a disgrace that nearly 30 years after the Royal Navy integrated and took women to sea, the RN has yet to produce a female 2* officer.

In an era when women make up roughly 10% of the entire regular Royal Navy, why are there such a depressingly small number of female Captains and above? The system should be generating more and more by now yet the numbers remain resolutely small – this simply isn’t good enough.

This isn’t about meeting some kind of quota, this is about saying that in a workforce full of skilled and talented people, isn’t something going badly wrong if there are only a handful of female captains compared to nearly 200 male captains? Why is the system failing to capture and drag talent through at every promotion point prior to this, to ensure there is a pool of talent able to be considered for promotion at this level?

It isn’t too about quotas for the sake of quotas – the best workforces thrive on diverse ways of thinking and diverse ways of approaching problems to solve them differently. If the overwhelming number of naval admirals in history have been white males, then the system will always look at solutions a certain way, and not be open to new ways of thinking.

Why would you challenge the done thing if in a system where promotion relies on being seen to do the proper thing by your reporting officer, and being written up for promotion rather than putting yourself forward for promotion , so challenging a system that works because its always worked that way is dangerous. This manner of closed thinking doesn’t make the most of talent, and it could lead to dangerous practises.

We fundamentally need to look again at the career model too, which at the moment feels intended to block off the route to the top by forcing women to make a binary choice between the Service and their womb.

With childbirth age rising in the UK increasing numbers of female officers will be having children in their late 20s or early 30s and then stepping back from the career role for a few years while they raise their family.

The problem is that this period is when most of those destined for the top need to excel – as senior Lieutenants and Lieutenant Commanders, they need to thrive now, working in ever more demanding roles in order to get the coveted place on the Commander signal, then to sea in Command or in a Charge job in order to pick up in due course.

The pace is relentless and fine if you are a male working long hours when you can be posted to London and do 3-4 days a week in town, leaving the childcare to your other half. If you are a mother of a young family, that option is usually off the table.

When added to the cultural values that place presence over production, meaning officers feel the need to be seen to be in the office late, ‘just in case’ and an at times incredibly unreasonable culture of expecting people to produce briefs late at night for first thing in the morning, then it can feel that the office culture of the RN is set up to allow mothers to fail.

This makes it harder to get to compete for the best jobs, because your reporting record is that of someone who is doing the ‘easier’ jobs to help you balance home and childcare needs with the needs of the service. This means many women who want to go for the long haul find themselves forced into asking whether they can have children, or if to do so would shut them off from the professional success they rightly deserve.

Male officers are not put in this position. They do not need to choose between two paths in the same way, nor do they need to decide what matters more – they can have the paternity leave, then go on a posting to London or go to sea for 6 months leaving their wife behind to take care of the house and family.

By the time the women who chose to have children return to work, they are behind the curve of their peers, seen as less employable and through no fault of their own find themselves shunted to a second or third rate set of postings by an appointer who controls their career. Before they know it, they are left behind by the next generation of thrusting younger officers, keen to put the long hours in and the cycle repeats itself.

So while the changes like Able Seaman may sound a small thing, they point to a much deeper issue – namely how does the Royal Navy make itself an employer that gives everyone an equal shot at a career.

This is as much about creating career structures that don’t penalise people for having the audacity to have children. This means giving people far more control over their postings, and possibly even asking whether it is time to end the system of naval appointments as it currently stands and instead let people apply for the jobs they want to do – this works well in the civil service, where many senior civil servants are mothers of young children – the system there actively supports them, and because they can choose which jobs to apply for, it is far easier to have the determination to push for posts than it is to be seen off by an appointer deciding on your behalf.

Its about creating a system where the language used reflects the fact that the population is roughly a 50/50 split. Perhaps part of the reason that only 10% of the workforce is female is because the system feels inherently unwelcoming of female staff – when 30 years after integration, the closest the RN has got to defining joint dress codes is ‘female equivalent’ it suggests that perhaps it needs to work harder at learning what it is that women wear.

This may all sound flippant, but ultimately why do we want to make things harder for ourselves? Why persist in maintaining a system of language and challenges that help maintain the perception of the RN as an out of date male dominated bastion of testosterone?

Why not make small linguistic changes that help show its about attracting 100% of the workforce to feel welcomed and valued, and why not change in such a way that means everyone feels they have a fair chance of a good career – not be forced to make decisions that their male counterparts don’t have to make about what their priorities are?

There will be those who think this is all about wokeness – its not – its about listening to our people and reflecting their views. We wouldn’t tolerate job titles that were racially abusive, we wouldn’t tolerate a career system that penalised people because of the colour of their skin, so why do we tolerate it for gender?

The modern world is changing rapidly, gender has quickly moved from being a fairly binary thing to something more complex and evolving and where naval personnel can and do identify in a variety of ways. It is important that the Royal Navy recognises that to the next generation of recruits, this is something that matters in the same way as internet access, being treated with respect and being listened to, and if they feel that they won’t get that, then they will probably look elsewhere.

If you want to help make a difference then little changes do help – think about using non gender words like headcount or personnel rather than manpower. Don’t be afraid to appropriately challenge inappropriate ‘banter’ if you hear it, and do try to actively support groups like the Naval Women’s Network, who are doing great work to help ensure that women are genuinely treated as equals in the modern Royal Navy.

If you think the next generation are snowflakes hellbent on ruining the military, then please reflect on the images emerging from the fire on the USS Bonhomme Richard this week. The firefighters willingly going into this hellish inferno were young, talented and often female – every bit the fighting sailor that their predecessors were.