Abstract
This paper examines how women seafarers on merchant cargo ships balance work and family life, particularly when they become a mother. Thirty-six women seafarers, including ten mothers, were interviewed. Their biggest concern was marriage and family, and they tend to face the issue of agency—individuals’ capacity of making their own choices freely and acting independently. In other words, when marriage and family issues come into their lives, can women feel free to choose whether they continue seafaring or quit? In the sample, only five mothers either stayed at sea or returned to ship after the children were grown up. Those mothers who remained working at sea tended to encounter new challenges relating to their sense of motherhood, as well as their children’s emotional relationship with the mothers. The study addresses the impact of mother’s absence from home, both on mothers and their children. The paper concludes that it is not totally impossible for women seafarers to continue working at sea after having children, however, women’s agency may be constantly challenged by their domestic gender roles, when they try to balance work and family life.
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- 1.
BIMCO is the abbreviation of the Baltic and International Maritime Council based in Denmark, while ISF is the International Shipping Federation, located in UK.
- 2.
AB stands for an able-bodied seaman who is categorised in rating ranks, not officers. Their jobs may not require them to have a license and they could serve as a helmsman and a lookout, etc. They are often skilful and multi-task on merchant ships.
- 3.
There is a long history in shipping that seafarers’ wives travelled together with their seafaring husbands on war ships and merchant ships (Cordingly 2001). It is hardly heard that women seafarers bring their husbands on board, because it may draw unwanted attention from their male colleagues. Most women seafarers make efforts not to be seen as feminine while at sea, and need to prove their competence as professionals by working twice as hard as their male counterparts (Kitada 2013).
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Acknowledgements
I extend my sincere appreciation to all the seafarers who participated in my research as well as Nippon Foundation, which funded the project.
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Kitada, M. (2015). Absent Mother Sailors: How Possible Is It to Do the Impossible?. In: Kitada, M., Williams, E., Froholdt, L. (eds) Maritime Women: Global Leadership. WMU Studies in Maritime Affairs, vol 3. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-45385-8_9
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