Problems in the construction of gender and professional identities for women in a United Kingdom merchant navy training school

Abstract

The United Kingdom Merchant Navy has a very poor record on access and training for females in terms of marine careers across all levels. Furthermore, it is a world where equity and equality are often simply overlooked, partly because the difficult and harsh realities of ‘normal’ working conditions effectively marginalise both women and men. In this article, the authors explore the female mariner culture that struggles to survive within a Merchant Navy Training School of the United Kingdom. Their research indicates that the construction of identity of the female mariners depends heavily on the presence or absence of critical personal, career or situational incidents of certain types, within the Merchant Navy Training School setting. They conclude that the School currently does little to challenge the gender regimes and sustained masculine structures described within this study. However small and fragmented the collective voice of female mariners is at the moment, it is, nonetheless, vital for it to be listened to and incorporated into a new way of working and understanding.