Why should boys have all the fun

Pic: Women seafarer onboard

After triumphing various sectors like banking, finance, aviation et al, women are now ready to take on the so called male dominated Industry – Shipping. The International Maritime Organisation (IMO) has clearly shown its intention to celebrate and promote the recruitment, retention and sustained employment of women in maritime sector through its Empowering women in the maritime community, which was the World Maritime Day theme in 2019; the first international day for women in maritime was held on 18th May 2022; and this year’s theme Mobilizing networks for gender equality.

In this era of empowerment and encouragement, I was fortunate to sail with number of female seafarers’ onboard ships lately and was also in charge to train and supervise couple of them. During their tenure onboard, I got a chance to work and learn with them. As they say, learning is a continuous process, I would like to share my learnings, thoughts and experiences on topic “Women in Maritime”.

Don’t worry, I am not going to suggest a new checklist to comply or to make a risk assessment while sailing with girls. First and foremost, advice or suggestion is to stop discriminating from your end, try to treat them same like any male seafarer because what I personally practiced and taught them that emergencies and job profiles never discriminate between genders.

But, trust me it is not very tough to maintain. At many instances, I witnessed their thoughts and ideas regarding shipping and really feel happy to share some of them with the readers. They already know that they have taken a bold step, when they decided to join shipping. They have been told and reminded again and again by their relatives, friends and families that “you are entering a male dominated industry” and it will be very tough for you to survive over there. But despite listening to all of this, they have chosen this path. They clearly conveyed their ideas of making a mark in this industry. They want to prove that girls are far much better and superior than boys. Be it academics, hard work or temperament, they can handle all better than boys. And this time, they are here to conquer shipping.

Their inspiration is Capt Radhika Menon who is first female Captain of Indian Merchant Navy and also the first woman to receive the IMO award for exceptional bravery at sea. They just demand equality. They never shy away from any duty or task allotted to them. Best part is they were taking every task or duty as a combo of challenge + opportunity to get better in their job every day. Girl trainees were so far as per my experience are more sensible, loyal and mature than their male counterparts. There were some constant issues I observed which bothered them continuously.

They believe they are not able to convince or manage to win trust of their fellow seafarers that they can handle ships or various demanding job profiles of shipping. On some occasions when a particular task that require strength, hard work and precision allotted to them, they are often side-lined by their colleagues or co-workers and not allowed to attempt or be a part of it. Some colleagues often use to come and request to not to assign work to them with girls. But these young bunch of ladies in hunger of turning the table towards them, were converting these negatives into positives and performing better day by day and were honing their seamanship skills.

Inspiration can come from anywhere; the focus should be on results and they were fantastic. We come from a land where we worship various goddesses. We consider ladies of our house as a form of goddess and often worship or seek blessings from them. Rani Lakshmibai, Smt Indira Gandhi, Ms. Kalpana Chawla or Capt Radhika Menon are all pioneers in their respective genre and are inspiration to not only girls but whole of India. So, in short whenever ladies in general decide to do something, they do it with utmost sincerity and outshine everyone. So, as seafarers we should welcome them on our ships with open heart and also support IMO’s initiative to promote “Women in Maritime” by encouraging them and helping them to adapt this demanding profession.

We should be ready to accept the fact that soon we will be able to see number of female seafarers or “Shefarers” as they say, in our crew lists.

To all the ladies: Sailing on ships or undergoing pre sea training, I take this opportunity to welcome you in shipping. Cheers!

Sharing a tagline from an old advertisement: “Why should boys have all the fun”

Marex Media