Women on Board: A Research on Problems Faced by Women in the Maritime Sector

Abstract

Nowadays, women have started to work in the business areas that were previously open to male employment, and maritime sector is one of these business areas. The most prominent attribute of the maritime sector is that it is maintained in an international environment, under natural conditions and specific rules. These challenging conditions and their impacts in maritime business are felt more physically and mentally on women compared to other sectors. In addition, the fact that professional conditions, work environment and expected outputs are arranged especially for men causes women to face many problems in the maritime sector. Except physical conditions, defining the profession as masculine causes negative effects and pressures on female employees. Under the influence of general attitude, prejudice against women, gender discrimination, mobbing, glass ceiling syndrome and inequality in salary may be faced. The validity of this situation in the maritime sector in Turkey as in many countries has also proved as a result of various researches. In this study attempted to determine, the priorities of the problems faced by women in the maritime sector in Turkey. As a result of the survey conducted to determine the problems faced by women in business life in maritime sector, the most common sexist problems faced by female employees were mobbing, different credentials of male and female employees, and male employees rising faster in careers than women. Keywords: Maritime, Women, Gender Discrimination, Mobbing DOI: 10.7176/JSTR/6-09-12