Peter’s July 2026 Blog

Amidst the multiple challenges of decarbonisation, digitalisation or geopolitical risk, the maritime industry would do well to continue to reflect on another challenge – one that is quieter, deeply personal and proving remarkably resistant to change.

A young female seafarer recently shared a conversation she had with a pilot as her vessel approached port. He observed that a woman, her in this case, who spends five years at sea without having children has “missed sixty monthly opportunities to fulfil her proper destiny in life as a mother.”

The words, and the shock at hearing them, have stayed with me.

She recounted the exchange without bitterness. If anything, she described it with a generosity of spirit that said as much about her character as it did about the pilot’s assumptions. There was no suggestion that he intended to wound; rather, he appeared to be expressing what, from his perspective, seemed an obvious truth. That, perhaps, is what makes the story so striking.

For all the industry’s public commitment to diversity, women still make up just under 2% of the world’s seafarers, with most serving in the cruise sector rather than on cargo vessels. Year after year, we hear pledges to improve those figures, yet progress remains painfully slow.

It is tempting to conclude that the answer lies in better policies, recruitment campaigns or corporate targets. These all matter, of course. But there is an old saying that “culture eats strategy for breakfast”, and the maritime world is no exception. Strategies can only achieve so much if they encounter deeply held assumptions about who belongs at sea and who does not.

In reflecting on this conversation, I realised that views similar to the pilot’s are not confined to older men or to particular parts of the world. Even in societies that would outwardly reject his remarks, there are many – women as well as men – who quietly sympathise with the underlying sentiment. If those assumptions remain widespread, perhaps it is less surprising that the statistics barely move.

Why, then, should the industry continue to pursue greater gender diversity? There are at least two compelling reasons.

The first is one of fairness. Unless there is a genuine and demonstrable reason why a role cannot be performed equally well by women and men, excluding half the population from pursuing it is both an injustice and an extraordinary waste of talent. Individuals may decide that a life at sea is not for them, of course. That is very different from feeling that the door was never truly open in the first place.

The second reason is about the strength of the industry itself. People do not all experience the world in the same way. Our backgrounds, cultures and life experiences, including our experience of what it is to be a male or a female in a given society, can shape how we solve problems, lead teams and respond to crises. Shipping faces extraordinary complexity, and it is difficult to argue that it becomes stronger by drawing on a narrower rather than broader range of human experience.

Yet neither of these arguments would necessarily persuade our pilot.

Facts and policies rarely change minds on their own. If anything, repeatedly confronting someone with arguments they reject can simply harden their position.

What seemed more powerful in this story was the response of the young officer herself. She neither accepted the comment nor turned the exchange into a confrontation. She met it with patience, dignity and quiet confidence. None of that excuses the assumption she encountered, nor should anyone have to shoulder the burden of educating others simply by existing. But lasting change often comes not only through policies and campaigns, but through thousands of ordinary human encounters that gently expose the limits of long-held assumptions.

Of course, it is easy for me to write that. I am not the one living with these conversations. Most readers of this blog are probably men – the maritime statistics being what they are – and aren’t directly experiencing such interactions either. That leaves us with an important question.

If we genuinely want a more diverse maritime industry, how do we behave to enable that?

The answer begins with being allies. In relation to gender diversity within the industry, we can question assumptions respectfully when we hear them. We can mentor and encourage talented colleagues. We can ensure that opportunities are genuinely open, that achievements are recognised on merit, and that we remain willing to examine our own unconscious assumptions.

Culture changes slowly. It changes one conversation, one decision, and one relationship at a time.

The maritime industry has never lacked resilience. Perhaps now it also needs the courage to ensure that every talented person who feels called to a life at sea knows they truly belong there.