Between hard work and a harsh tone: women on the high seas

Female sailors - Between hard work and a harsh tone: women on the high seas

Swetlana Timm-Vengerov is 17 years old when she goes to sea for the first time. She flew from Germany to South Korea. And there, in the port city of Busan, on board for the first time. "Of course, it was a really impressive feeling and experience at first, because you couldn't really know what to expect," recalls the now 30-year-old.

She sailed across the Pacific to North and Central America and then back to Asia. Timm-Vengerov was on the road for six weeks, the entire summer vacation. As a schoolgirl, she took part in the Association of German Shipowners (VDR) vacation cruise program. It was the idea of her godfather, who was the only one in the family with any contact to seafaring.

13 years later, Timm-Vengerov is no longer just looking over the shoulders of the crew. Since 2021, she has been second technical officer at the Hamburg container shipping company Hapag Lloyd. She monitors the technical processes and rectifies faults, coordinates maintenance and repair work as well as the mechanical engineering staff. "I'm a manager," she says - and thus part of a minority.

Women in seafaring - alone among men?

In the higher ranks of seafaring, the proportion of female seafarers is even lower than in seafaring as a whole. At the end of September this year, 3.8 percent of the more than 3,300 captains, officers and comparable employees in Germany were women. This is shown by figures from Knappschaft-Bahn-See.

Female seafarers accounted for 6.7 percent of all 7900 merchant shipping and deep-sea fishing employees subject to pension insurance. This means that the proportion of women is well above the international figure of around two percent, emphasizes Gaby Bornheim, the first woman to head the VDR. Nevertheless, the association is aiming to significantly increase this proportion: "We simply cannot afford to do without half of humanity, especially in view of the shortage of skilled workers."

Technical officer Timm-Vengerov is also usually the only woman when she is at sea with around two dozen crew members. "I had that once, when there were three of us. It was called a women's steamer," says the 30-year-old, who studied marine engineering in Warnemünde. "You don't know any different and I get on well with it." But why is seafaring still such a male-dominated industry? What obstacles are there for women? And what has already changed?

Less physical work thanks to modern technology

"It's not an easy profession and people used to say that women don't have the physical strength for it," says Franziska Eckhoff, German Chairwoman of Wista, an international network of women in the shipping industry (Women's International Shipping & Trading Association). But that has changed: "Whereas men used to carry every piece of cargo over in a sack on their shoulder, today we have cranes, containers, etc." The ships have become more technically innovative and the physical work less strenuous. "That makes it easier for women to be equal and theoretically do this job."

Eckhoff is not alone in this assessment. "Hard work, harsh tone" - prejudices often prevail with regard to the working environment, says VDR President Bornheim. "But thanks to modern technology, the work is no longer as physically demanding as it used to be and the team spirit on board is strong."

"Compatibility of family and career still an issue"

However, technology cannot solve the fact that seafarers are often away for several months at a time. This is also the case for Timm-Vengerov. She has spent Christmas at sea for the past five years - with a communal meal and a Christmas tree on board.

"Balancing family and career is still an issue," says Eckhoff. But there are also areas of seafaring that are easy to combine with family life because they are more or less like day trips or a week's journey - such as ferries that return in the morning and evening. "I'm also a fan of the idea that more women could become tugboat captains."

She also once received feedback from a female captain in liner shipping: "This is the best work-life balance I've ever had. I'm at work for four months and that's my job. Then I come home and I'm 100 percent at home." She has also heard of the occasional model where you can take your partner or child on board with you, says Eckhoff.

Harassment on board - an industry problem?

And what about harassment of women in the shipping industry? According to the network, more than 1,000 female seafarers from 78 countries took part in a survey conducted by Wista International and others. Two thirds of respondents agreed that their male colleagues had harassed and intimidated female colleagues; a quarter stated that physical and sexual harassment occurs on board.

According to Bornheim, discrimination and harassment of women are "not specific to the shipping industry, but a social phenomenon". Nevertheless, the VDR President sees a particular challenge in maritime shipping: the workplace is also the place of residence for some time, and there is a "certain lack of space" on board. In recent years, the issue of bullying and harassment - including sexual harassment - has fortunately increasingly moved onto the agenda of international bodies. In February 2024, the World Maritime Organization (IMO) and the International Labor Organization (ILO) are to hold their first meeting "to jointly develop strategies on how to deal with this issue".

(In)visibility of seafaring and women

Last year, the IMO proclaimed International Women in Maritime Shipping Day for the first time on May 18. "One positive development is clearly that the IMO has the advancement of women in the maritime industry relatively high up on its agenda," says Eckhoff. This means that no one can ignore it anymore.

The Managing Director of the Maritime Vocational Training Center, Sabine Zeller, welcomes the fact that women in the maritime industry are beginning to show themselves more on this day, for example. "We need these beacons," she says. There is a lack of "visibility of maritime shipping as a professional field in general and of women in these professions in particular". Unfortunately, women on board are still largely perceived as unusual - she wants to work towards "making it normal at some point".

For technical officer Timm-Vengerov, working on board large container ships has long been part of everyday life. "I would encourage any woman with an interest to give it a try," she says about working at sea. "You can always go ashore," she adds and laughs.