Women in the maritime industry: How much progress has been made towards gender equality?

How can gender equality be defined and measured? How much progress has the maritime industry made towards this goal, both on land and at sea? And where do we stand compared to the other STEM industries? Dorina Schwartz, Manager Fleet Management Systems at Hapag-Lloyd, recently discussed these issues at the Bremen Shipping Congress. Her conclusion: We need more female role models.

It is hardly surprising that the panel of speakers on this topic consisted exclusively of women – even though women are in no way over-represented in the industry itself. Together with Claudia Ohlmeier, the first chairwoman of the German branch of the Women’s International Shipping & Trading Association (WISTA), and Nathalie Gelder, specialist group manager for field devices at BASF, Dorina Schwartz discussed the topic of gender equality in the maritime industry and beyond.

Claudia Ohlmeier kicked things off by providing an overview of the history of gender equality and current trends. What was particularly interesting about this presentation was how it illustrated the way in which society’s assessment of role models is reflected in the very words we use. For example, while it would sound absurd to say “career man” or “male quota”, such terms are used quite often when discussing women in the workplace.

As a former maritime officer, Donna Schwartz knows about working on both sides of the shipping business – at sea and on shore. She explained that the strict hierarchy, ranks and clear descriptions of responsibilities on board may seem old-fashioned. However, in addition to being necessary given the special circumstances on board – especially with regard to safety – these designations are quite useful when it comes to fostering gender equality. In contrast, the flat hierarchies and looser working arrangements on land have some advantages, but they also create much more room for unequal treatment and less transparency. As a result, we need to pay even more attention to equality-related issues on land.

Natalie Gelder then explained how this can be realized in concrete terms. Just like the maritime industry, other sectors of the economy still have some distance to travel on the road to gender equality. Gelder pointed out structural disadvantages and unconscious thought patterns that we often learn as children and do not question later in life. For this reason, she encouraged her audience to try to change how they look at things so as to be better able to identify and push back against discrimination.

There were some initial doubts about why such a supposedly self-evident topic had to even be discussed at all. But these doubts were quickly dissipated when the audience realized that even though we think of ourselves as being fully aware of these circumstances, we still don’t do enough to counter them in our everyday lives.

What is needed, the panel concluded, is to have more female role models in the senior-management ranks and to cultivate more awareness and visibility of inspiring professional biographies. In addition to general benefits, they continued, this would especially have a positive influence on younger employees. Given these facts, it would also be desirable to have things like more female speakers on panels and at congresses – even when what is important in these cases is actually their professional expertise rather than their gender.