Yes! There absolutely IS a reason to have women in the astronaut corps. For too long the astronaut corps has been dominated by military types and not enough civilians have been allowed to fly. (Note: NASA’s official policy is that civilians are not allowed on the shuttle, but what do you call teacher turned astronaut Barbara Morgan, or Canadian astronaut Dave Williams? Neither is in the military.) It is true that the requirements to fly the shuttle are mostly amassed by military pilots but there are many talented scientists from which to pull the mission specialists from.
If you read her bio, she is a Navy Pilot. That means that when she joined the corps, before Columbia, she was on track to be a shuttle pilot and then a commander. But she flew (like many other pilots before her) as a mission specialist in order to get her into space before Shuttle goes down for the count. NASA has too many pilots and not enough missions left for them to fly.
“Nowak, a 44-year-old Navy pilot”
She was a Naval Flight Officer (NFO) not a Pilot
First let me say, having read you bio, you are correct in your opinion concerning some of the “reasons” and “reasoning” that show up on FR.
I am not sure that I caught your reason why we need women in the astronaut program. If the basis is that she is a Navy pilot, that would not carry much weight with someone who believes that women should not be navy pilots, or in any other position that might bring them into a possible combat situation. As I stated before, having men and women, thrown together in (especially) very stressful situations, leads to complications that are unnecessary. I take the defense of this country very seriously, which leaves social experimentation out, way out.