Segregated Flights for encampment

[swamprat86]

I am curoius if anyone has ever attended an encampment where they segregated the male and female cadets into seperate flights?  In all of the encampments and other activities that I have attended since I joined CAP I have never seen this.  It has been discussed as an idea for this year's encampment in my wing and I would like to look at all the positions before I make a decision on whether I agree with this or not.

[Ned]

I have been to many encampments with gender segregated flights and many with co-ed flights.

The short answer is that it is a bad idea, unless you have no choice due to facility limitations.

As you correctly point out, this is pretty much the only time cadets might run into a gender segregated situation.  We do not separate cadets at any other type of activity. 

It is a bad idea from a couple of different viewpoints.  First, it is an artificial and unrealistic environment that a cadet is unlikely ever to experience again.  Single gender flights have different personality dynamics than regular co-ed flights.  And in terms of learning generally applicable leadership techniques, different is not good.

Second, because of the CAP gender ration of about 75/25, gender segregated flights tend to artificially limit the upward mobility of female leaders.  IOW, if for no other reason than there will be comparatively few female flights, the number of female flight staff is limited.  And the limited female flight staff pool will be disadvantaged when it comes to picking squadron and group commanders in later years.

Third, the single gender flight group cohesion dynamics are skewed in favor of the females.  Based on 30 years of encampment experience, I'm here to tell you that female flights will excell in tasks requiring teamwork and cohesion; especially early in the encampment.  They will do better on inspections, invent more jodies, have higher morale, etc.  Don't ask me why -- but it's true nonetheless.

But having said all that, sometimes you don't have a choice.  If all Uncle Sam can give you for encampment this year is a bunch of old WWII open bay barracks (think Biloxi Blues) with "open-bay latrines," then you just go with gender segregated flights and do the best you can.  "Beggars can't be choosers."

But if you can avoid segregated flights, by all means do so.

Ned Lee
CAWG Encampment Guy

[lordmonar]

Even with open bay sleeping arangements....you can still integrate the flights.

Let's say you have a good 75/25 ratio...200 cadets at your encamepment.  You can put all the female cadets into the same bay but...they are group by flights.  The males can do the same.  There is no rule that says you have to have 1 flight to a bay.

It makes some things harder (like dorm inspections for honor flight) but with a little effort these can be overcome.

[Eclipse]

Ned & Lord  are spot on - bad idea.

edit: for clarity, at iLWG Spring, we integrate the flights, segregate billeting.  The "problem" of having flights seperated for inspections, etc., is something brought up every year, and worked through by every staff - just one more challenge.

[NIN]

I've been in both environments. 

Unfortunately, due to the facility restrictions placed upon us at the Alpena Combat Readiness Training Center and the layouts of the barracks, it makes the most sense to "segregate" the flights.

Ned is correct, it tends to limit the "upward mobility" of the female cadets into staff positions (even in a good year, there are only two female flights out of potentially 9 flights, yielding two female cadet staff members per flight.   That's a horrible ratio, I agree), and it always skews inspections.

Those are the breaks. That's how it happens. If someone would like to build us a barracks facility that would allow gender integrated flights, I'm sure we'd take it.

In NH, we gender integrate the flights, even though the female cadets sleep in a separate area that is adjacent to the male areas.  Its a MUCH smaller encampment, with fewer female cadets (ie. we have 4 flights, not 9, and thus we couldn't even field a full female flight), and the facility is such that its "easier" to house female cadets closer to the male cadets without much concern for fraternization, etc.

[Becks]

Yup, Ive seen it quite a bit.  When I was a cadet our encampments were set up that way.  Now as a senior it seems to be the same.  At the last CTW I was at A,B,C,F,G were male and D,E were female.

[Ned]

Even with open bay sleeping arangements....you can still integrate the flights.

Let's say you have a good 75/25 ratio...200 cadets at your encamepment.  You can put all the female cadets into the same bay but...they are group by flights.  The males can do the same.  There is no rule that says you have to have 1 flight to a bay.

It makes some things harder (like dorm inspections for honor flight) but with a little effort these can be overcome.

Patrick,

FWIW, I've never been able to make this work well.  While it is certainly possible to do it as you've described:  "OK, the Alpha females are in racks 1-4, Bravo in 5-8; etc."  I think you underestimate the problems that creates.

As you acknowledge it becomes difficult to do inspections.  It isn't just a matter of adding the points for racks 1-4 to the Alpha totals, it's the problem that the inspection itself necessarily takes place at a different time and place.  The inspection is not in any sense a shared experience for the flight.  Similarly, accounting for the common areas in the two barracks is very difficult.  The females normally don't help clean the male bay's latrine, and the female latrine is shared amongst many flights.  And shared activities (and adversity) is an crucial part of building a team.  And building a team is a crucial part of the encampment experience.

But even beyond these mechanical problems, the larger issue is that the cadets must, by necessity, spend significant time apart -- just when they need to be working together.  If the flight commander wants to do some quiet team building or mentoring during barracks time, she/he has to be in two places at once.

And little things like the formation location being invariably closer to one barracks than another and the flight is always waiting for one one part (usually the females) to show up.  This makes it even harder to build an effective team.

Maybe someone with greater skills and abilities can make it work.  But I have tried it on multiple occasions in slightly varying ways, and I have never been happy with it.

And I don't think it is just me.  When I went through Army ROTC Advanced Camp many years ago, they tried a similar experiment at Ft Lewis.  Each otherwise all-male platoon staying in those lovely WWII barracks also had 4-6 female nurses for the duration.  Except the women slept in their own barracks.  Even after 6 weeks of our best efforts, they never really felt part of the team.  (Of course it didn't help that we were mostly combat arms guys and the women were . . . well, nurses.  Who didn't really want to paint their faces green and attack while running uphill with the M60.    But the principle is pretty much the same.)

YMMV.

Ned

[ZigZag911]

As a cadet in the early 70s my experience was gender segregated flights.

As a senior at encampments in the 80s & 90s, all we ever had were mixed flights....took a little forethought in terms of inspections, making sure the females could spend 'flight time' with their flights in public areas....but it generally worked   
out pretty well....a much more realistic working & training environment than what I had experienced as a cadet, when the female cadets could just as well have been attending a different encampment, or living on another planet!

[lordmonar]

Of course the most important thing to remember is that any thing that gets in the way of the mission should be dropped.

It is important to avoid segregation to insure everyone is getting the same training and no one has any advantage or disadvantage base on races, sex, national orgin or religion.

But as Ned said....if it's not working.....segragate and be extra careful about not treating one or the other flights differently.

[ZigZag911]

One of the advantages of 'integrated' flights was the possibility of integrated staffing, which in turn spread the opportunities out more evenly for female & male cadets.

When we started this, we were running an outdoor encampment (bivouac site on a military base, field kitchen, GPS/GPM (General Purpose Small or Medium, depending on availability for loan from the Guard) tents....so no flight had it's own squad bay anyway, made things seem a bit less awkward.

Also, we made sure female trainees were spread as evenly as possible through the flights (though always with two at minimum) to make inspections and such equitable.