Assignment Task: Please respond to each post adding viable information and continuing the conversation
Post 1:
Which military programs are effective in addressing the needs of women in the military?
I believe out of all the programs that has been discussed the breastfeeding program for women has been effective. It gave breastfeeding soldiers a place to lactate as well as the ability to continue the mission while providing food for their child. It has only progressed from when it originally was published. Breastfeeding accommodations can be extended up to two years of the child's life which is the recommended length of time for breastfeeding.
What kind of services do you believe still need to be implemented (consider challenges with services that are already in place) to address the gaps in services?
I do understand the commanders can make final decisions. The military doesn't want to micromanage their leaders, but I do think it's a fine line between micromanaging and ensuring the rights of the Soldiers. "This is to say that military supervisors may be generous and give ample flexibility to breastfeeding servicewomen or provide the bare minimum accommodations according to the policies of that branch" (Murawski, 2021).
While the breastfeeding program exists to ensure the mother has accommodations for them to pump, there are plenty of things that is not discussed when it comes to babies. Again, the military has progressed so much in the 14 years that I have served, but there is more that can be done. Such as babies who refuse bottles and can only breastfeed from the breast. I have seen mothers get beaten down by their units for something they cannot control in that moment.
Post 2:
The military programs that are effective in addressing the needs of all women in the military are the paid parental leave program, which was updated in 2020 (U.S. Department of Labor), the breast feeding program as discussed by Murawski (2021), and the family readiness programs as discussed by Goodman (2013). The paid parental leave program that was updated by the U.S. Department of Labor in late 2020 was a great improvement for parents but especially women in the military as it increased the overall number of non-chargeable leave days authorized from a few weeks to now upwards of 3-4 months between the convalescent leave days and parental leave days women get after birth, the person who doesn't give birth gets 12 weeks for parental leave as well. The improvements made in the breast feeding program for the military have been great as most if not all medical facilities now have a lactation station and all units in the Army have to provide a room that provides privacy that allows women to breastfeed as needed (Murawski, 2021). Lastly, the family readiness program is a great program that helps meet the needs of women in the military, especially when deployed and they need to be able to take care of their families from afar. Family readiness programs are essential, especially since 40 percent of women who serve have children and expect to still be able to care for them when deployed in some way. These programs are great for helping re-integrate women back into their households when returning from deployment as this can have a massive impact on the lives of them and their families (Goodman et al., 2013).
A service that still needs to be implemented to help women in the military would be a service that helps create opportunities with shorter rotations for deployments to women who have families and are single parents. Creating a program like this would be beneficial as it would encourage more women to continue serving and it would help provide the opportunity to fight forward and remain competitive in promotion amongst other things. Additionally, creating a service that would give women the opportunity to serve in positions that are strictly stateside/non-deployable would be beneficial in helping women take care of their families. Creating a program that considers these things would be beneficial to both men and women in the military, and would encourage the continuation of service. The service that needs to be improved within the military is the family readiness program. Though the program does a lot for service members it can still use improvement. One of the issues that were identified by Goodman (2013) was that the program focuses on what female caregivers should be doing to support the father who's deployed and not what the male caregivers or grandparents should be doing while the women is deployed (Goodman et al., 2013). The program doesn't focus on what women who are deployed may need but more of what a deployed man might need for their family. There has been many issues with scheduling deployment related briefings for male caregivers who work during the day and week (Goodman et al., 2013). These issues prevent them from being able to make it due to briefing times. This issue could be resolved by simply pushing the timeline of briefings later in the day to allow more people to make it. Though there has been significant progress in programs designed to help the needs of women in the military, there is still room for improvement. Keeping these improvements in mind should help better the military for all women. Lastly, keeping women involved in the implementation of all military programs should help better the military experience for all women serving.