Blake Hall
Female sailors shouldn’t get too attached to their new Dixie cup hats. If Congress has its way, the effort to make Navy uniforms gender-neutral will halt in its tracks.
At the behest of Navy Secretary Raymond Mabus, the women’s Navy uniform is being restyled to appear more similar to the men’s uniform. Members of the House Armed Services Committee are adding an amendment to the defense authorization bill to slow down the change.
Here’s what the committee members wrote in their review of the defense authorization act:
The committee is concerned that recent changes to Navy female service dress uniforms, uniform covers, and other non-operational uniform components were not consistent with the Navy’s standard processes for evaluating uniform items, including user test groups that represented a broad spectrum of service member locales and operational specialties, out-of-pocket expenses to service members, including members of both the Active Forces and Reserves, and the inability for the Navy to identify an operational necessity driving this uniform change during a time of fiscal constraint.
Basically, Congress thinks it costs too much to change the Navy uniforms under such short notice.
In a way, the committee does have a point. Female officers will be forced to pay for a whole new set of uniforms out of their own pockets. If Congress gets its way and delays the move towards gender-neutral uniforms to October 2020 instead of October 2016, sailors will have more time to get value out of the uniforms they already purchased.
When Mabus first announced his push towards gender-neutrality in November 2015, a sailor told the Navy Times exactly how uniform costs add up.
To replace her five-year-old dress whites for the new ones with a high Mandarin collar will cost about $300 for the coat and skirt, extra for tailoring, and as much as $100 for shoulder boards and sleeve stripes.
To replace her year-old cover, complete with scrambled eggs, will run about another $145.
“It’s a good chunk of change for stuff I have that is not worn out,” she said. “My cover is in perfectly good shape and it’s practically brand new.”
This issue ultimately comes down to whether or not the principle of a gender-neutral military is worth the immediate costs. What do you think?