Are We In The Same Boat ?: An analysis of the Gender Bias in the Maritime Industry

Abstract

Ever since the pirating days there has been an inherent bias about women being onboard ships. It originally stemmed from the sailors' lore about women being bad luck on ships because they were distracting and brought uncooperative weather.  The bias has stemmed into modern day seafaring. There is a problem regarding the bias against women in maritime culture. Despite the many efforts made to better support females in maritime there is still inherent bias, which has led to the marginalization of women.  Through an ethnographic study a series of interviews will be conducted to better understand the personal effects of this bias on the women. The interviews will then be coded by common themes that arise. What was found was that many of the women had as equally positive experience as negative experience. There seemed to be more of an issue with female on female support aside from gender bias.