The sailor's fingernails are long, tapered and unpainted. Though her handshake suits someone who can tear apart a four-cylinder engine, it can still stir surprise.

Like on the first day of A School at Naval Base Ventura County when one of her fellow students introduced himself.

"He said 'Wow, you shake hands like a man,' " Erika Sherman remembered. "What was that supposed to mean? ... I shake hands like a person. I'm not a female, I'm a shipmate."

But in a corner of the base in Port Hueneme dominated by teen-age men just out of boot camp, gender is as obvious as a wrinkled uniform.

About 54 sailors are here in a 13-week apprenticeship school designed to shape them into construction mechanics and Seabees.

Three are women, or in the sterile jargon of the military, females.

They live in a women-only barracks, along with about 27 A School students from the Air Force, but otherwise hang with the guys. They get up at 4:30 a.m. for calisthenics. Those who can't run a mile-and-a-half in 15 minutes, 15 seconds have to do extra training two days a week.

They march to and from classes aimed at teaching them how to fix jeeps, tractors and bulldozers. They scrub shower doors for room inspections. They smoke cigarettes, cuss and banter about anything from tattoos to Iraq.

They say harassment isn't an issue, though a student who wouldn't stop bothering a female shipmate was kicked out of A School and the Navy last year. They deal with rumors about relationships, flirtation and the perception from a few classmates that their gender means they can't cut it without help.

"They may think that, but then they realize they don't need to," Sherman said. "I'm a confident person. I know what I'm doing. I'm not a prissy little girl who thinks headlights need fluid."

Not easily intimidated

She is a bowler who rolls an average of 170 and regularly competes with her shipmates. In the classroom, she has the highest test scores in her section -- a rank she doesn't plan on relinquishing.

She's here because her life at age 23 wasn't going quite as planned. She was living in Toledo, Ohio, had just broken up with her fiance and felt stagnant in her job as an accounting specialist.

Ten days after going to a Navy recruiting office, she was headed to Great Lakes, Ill., and boot camp. Now she's glad there wasn't more time to think about it.

"I probably would have said, 'I can't leave my mom,' " she said.

Sherman's dad died of cancer six years ago. Almost every night, she makes a cell phone call to her mother. Sometimes they talk about how hard it will be to stay in contact if she is sent to the Persian Gulf.

Sherman has been told she'll probably be assigned to a battalion that isn't scheduled to go anywhere until the fall. But she knows turmoil in Iraq could change those plans.

"It's all a job. That's how you have to look at it," she said of the possibility of working in what the students call the sandbox. "If you worry about where you are, you're not going to get the job done."

She takes a similar approach to A School. Being the only woman in her class isn't a problem. The guys treat her fine. They haven't crossed the line. If they do, she'll let them know.

"I'm a fairly self-confident person," Sherman said. "I'm not intimidated by men."

If you're 21 and in A School, you are old. A year ago, many of the guys were still in high school. Some have photos of girlfriends on bulletin boards in their rooms. A few have wives, and a couple of them have started talking about divorce, frustrated by the barriers of a long-distance relationship.

Many of the students enlisted to broaden their horizons. But they still occupy themselves with Nintendo, bad videos and conversations that almost always center on two anchors.

"If it's not cars, it's women," said a staff member, referring jokingly to the male students as "a pack of wolves just drooling all over."

It's been that way with some of the students since School Director Kathy Keith went through the program herself in Port Hueneme nearly 20 years ago. She was one of two women in the school and felt like an outsider, as if everything she did was magnified by her gender.

She had a rule of not dating any shipmates, but that brought its own reprisals.

"The retaliation is 'Oh, you must be gay,' " said Keith, a chief petty officer who is married to a non-military maintenance worker.

When she was stationed in Bahrain for three years, she'd drive dump trucks and buses off base -- a sight so uncommon to the natives they'd take her to jail.

"They'd call the base and say 'We have your blonde, come and get her,' " Keith said, noting that while she's been a mechanic all her life, some people have tried to fence her into secretarial jobs.

She advises A School students to expect the same.

"I try to tell them that every time you transfer, you have to prove yourself," she said.

Some people on base speculate the reason more Navy women aren't in A School is that the curriculum deals with engines and hydraulic systems. Others talk about the stress military life puts on families and relationships.

The A School is interservice, meaning it has students from the Navy and the Air Force. Of the 130 airmen currently enrolled, 27 are women. That compares to three women out of 54 sailors.

Some women might lean toward the Air Force because they know they won't be quite as alone, Keith said, adding the branch also advertises more for women enlistees.

She thinks many women realize a military life is different for them than for men. More than half the women enrolled in A School tell her they're not sure they made the right choice.

They didn't know there would be so few women. They thought they would eventually blend in with the rest of the class.

"I feel sorry for the females who think the guys are going to treat them like one of the guys," she said. "Some aren't used to all of the attention. Some of them, that's why they come in."

But the female students say they don't encounter anything they can't handle. They say the guys try to protect them. When Nicole Gerde's mother was about to die, her male shipmates gave her money to help her fly home.

"They're like brothers," said Gerde, who graduated from A School in March. "They were just like 'If you need someone to talk to, I'm here.' "

Men can visit the female barracks only with an escort. They have to yell out "male on deck" before coming on board. Couples can't kiss or engage in any other public display of affection in uniform. Dating isn't against the rules but is discouraged.

Gerde dated but said she was selective.

"You get hit on a lot," she said. "The guys flirt."

Keith said the women have to realize the reputation they establish at A School could follow them their entire Seabee career. She said men have to understand that just because a woman hangs out with them, it doesn't mean a relationship is the next step.

Being one of the guys

Harassment is a word that initiates immediate reaction. Keith said that last year school officials received complaints about a student who wouldn't stop bothering a classmate, going as far as to sit on her. He was expelled from the Navy.

"We don't even want the appearance of wrongdoing," said Cmdr. Eduard Gonzalez, the school's commanding officer. "Every case, no matter how serious or small, we dive into it."

The claims are rare. Keith said the school deals with more complaints about bullies than sexual harassment.

Sherman has heard about sexual assault accusations at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo. It makes her angry that such things could happen. But she hasn't seen anything like that at A School and doesn't feel threatened.

Some of the female students say that as long as they act like everyone else, that's how they are treated.

"You have to be one of the guys. You have to drink beer and talk shop," said Sara Maddox of Seattle. "If you're a shy and quiet girl, you're not going to fit in."

The women's stories aren't that different from the men. They enlisted because they wanted change, money for college or stability in otherwise turbulent lives.

"I was 22 and I didn't have a job," said Maddox, who was always curious about the military. "I enjoy doing jobs that are mostly a guy's job or whatever. I like hands-on work."

She has a self-effacing sense of humor and jokes about not having a personal volume control. She smokes cigarettes, chews tobacco, sports six tattoos and is planning her seventh -- a Seabee constructionman logo.

The Navy hasn't changed who she is. But it has made her pay more attention to detail. Maddox wasn't exactly self-sufficient before enlisting -- "I had a mom," she said with a laugh. Now she is.

"I really think the Navy life is for me," Maddox said. "I really do."

Pulling their weight

A recent A School graduate sat alone in the smokers' area outside the barracks and complained about women in the military. They're held to lesser standards than the men. Their gender attracts too much attention. They're a distraction.

Many of the guys say they disagree with him, including Tom Newell of Arlington, Wash. He graduated in March out of a class with two women. One of them was selected to be squad leader, meaning she had authority over everyone else.

It wasn't a big deal for Newell, who says he doesn't look at women any differently than other Seabees.

"If they can pull their own weight, it doesn't bother me," he said.

Adam Lambert is 18 but has already served more than a year in the Navy because his parents signed a waiver for early entry. He got married in December just before entering A School and transitioning from ship duty to the Seabees. His wife, Jennifer, lives in Gulfport, Miss. He thinks about her constantly. He trusts her but...

"I know guys," he said. "I'm in the Navy all day long."

Lambert wouldn't want his wife to enlist because he doesn't want a permanent long-distance relationship. He wants to finish his stint and be together forever. He wants a family with one son and one daughter.

But as far as other women enlisting, it doesn't bother him.

"I'm all for it," he said. "Just make sure they know what they're getting into."

On a Friday night after uniform inspection, Ashley Harless is getting into a hard time. She has just changed into her civvies and is on her way to a tanning booth.

And while loose-fitting, brightly colored pajama pants decorated with smiley faces might be the height of fashion in Harless' hometown of Tuscaloosa, Ala., they are not exactly standard wear at Naval Base Ventura County.

So her shipmates and a petty officer roast her. Harless gives it right back.

"I would say I'm one of the guys," she said later, looking to a shipmate who nods.

Harless is here because her dad thought it would help her. He's in the Navy reserves, a corpsman headed for Kuwait. She wishes they could swap places.

"He's doing what we both always wanted to do -- fight for our country," she said. "I'm ready to go in there, kick ass and go home."

But in the meantime, she has to survive A School. She doesn't like the tests. It's hard competing with all the guys. Sometimes she thinks other students look at her differently like "What is she going to work on? A hair dryer?"

Other times, people don't seem to think a man and a woman can just be friends. If they're hanging out together, it must mean something more.

So ask her if she likes A School.

"If it was not a predominant male society, I would love it," she said.