USNA ‘89 here. Am I understanding you correctly when you say “My Academy class graduated a bunch of female OODs, and they all had to pass the same classes and boards the men did. “
Are you saying your class got their OOD letters BEFORE being on a ship? Or are you saying that a bunch of same class graduates eventually got their OOD letters in the fleet?
In my time OODs were required to be on the ship for a period of time and once the CO was ok with them - then and only then did they get an OOD letter and it was only for that specific command and that specific CO. Prior OODs were more quickly qualified than new JOs of course (which could take up to 3 years depending on the CO/command)
No.
They got their letters out in the fleet, but the ladies in our class had no problem with it for the most part.