I left the RAN about the same time women first began SM training and so have no first hand experience of a mixed gender ships company, however I remember the several years worth of briefings, meetings, opinion polls etc. that led up to the decision being made. One which I was in favour of, as much of my time as an SM Coxswain was taken up with finding enough warm bodies to keep my boat at sea, and anything that widened the available pool of qualified manpower (or womanpower) was fine by me.
I have spoken to lots of people since who have first hand experience of female submariners and the responses range from 'bloody excellent, should have done it years earlier', to 'absolute ******* disaster, a waste of time training and effort'. The truth no doubt lies somewhere in the middle. Some females adapt well and pull their weight, others don't. Just like male sailors really.
Someone who was part of the initial selection process for the first female SM trainees told me that they were on the lookout for anyone who seemed to be there only to make a feminist statement or merely to prove something to their male shipmates. As far as possible any woman with this attiude didn't get a run. While there have been complications of the sort found in the surface navy, this is an unfortunate trade off for getting a larger pool of personnel to select from. Its worth noting that RAN submariner recruiting and retention is still in a crisis, more to do with inept personnel magement than mixed gender ships companys, athough its possible this has had some effect given that the eccentric behaviour accpted as normal amongst all male submariners is now offcially outlawed and miscreants will be sacrificed on the altar of political correctness.
As the first English speaking navy to do this there was lots of interest from the USN, RN and CAF however so far only the Canadians have tried it themselves. I think it is more entrenched attitudes than any concern about residual radiation effects on pregnant females that have stopped the USN and RN from follwing suit.