I Thought I Had Landed My Dream Job. Then Brutal Sexual Harassment, Bullying, and a Culture of Indifference Forced Me Out of the Maritime Industry

*This account was submitted to MLAA by the victim, a maritime academy graduate. She first posted her story in August 2020 and added updates in December 2021*

In 2019 I landed my dream job as a training mate. I got out there and was absolutely stoked to be working, and for the first 4 weeks I had so much fun. Our crew was typical in that there were a few non-friendly assholes, but I never let those people bother me. At the start of my 5th week on the boat things began to change.

I asked a crew member a clarifying question on how to run a piece of machinery, because I hadn't used it before and safety is huge for me. That crew member then told the captain I was completely incapable of working on a boat and should be removed. For that entire 5th week the captain completely ignored me until the day of crew change. That day he approached me when I was alone and working out. The captain was 65 years old and married. He told me I was a “real catch” and that l'd find a husband soon because of how attractive I was, and then he asked me if I was ready to return for more "abuse" the next hitch.

I returned to work 2 weeks later and the moment I stepped on the boat the harassment and belittling started. I had been warned that two of the mates hated women and were thoroughly convinced that a woman had no place onboard a vessel. But I held my head high despite their constant rude comments, because honestly I’m used to silly men and their stupid words towards women on boats. That wasn't what bothered me. What bothered me was the captain berating me loudly on a daily basis, attacking me for every single possible thing he could—from how something wasn't painted while I was home off the boat to how I didn't order supplies when I wasn't even on the boat, etc.

The asshole captain had HORRIBLE memory and almost zero recollection of how to operate day-to-day jobs. I was dumbfounded that he was even allowed to keep his license. The mates all knew he was awful at his job, that his mental health was gone, and that he had signs of early onset dementia. But the mates covered for him and said that as long as he could dock the boat, they could get us “from point A to point B.”

For weeks he actually thought I was an entirely different person. There had been another girl before me who had requested to be transferred to another boat because of how horrible he was to work for, and the captain confused me with her. 

Because of the one question I had asked the previous hitch, the captain told all the mates that I was incapable of doing the job. At the start of my 2nd hitch the one mate who I was friends with warned me that the captain was out for me and the only way to succeed was to put up with the non-stop harassment and belittling. It got so bad I found myself in tears every day, and I'm not a weak person. 

It wasn’t even the first time I had been sexually harassed at work. I've dealt with harassment on multiple different vessels. I once worked with an older Turkish man who would always touch my legs and grab my thighs, and he would come right into my stateroom and corner me with demands. But on previous boats the harassment was always taken care of by the Captain. Some of those vessels even had cameras, and the captain could see first-hand what was going down. I've never had an issue like I did on that boat. The harassment was on a completely different level. 

The mean mates would yell at me for having to use the head instead of being able to pee over the side of the barge like they did. I was embarrassed and humiliated in front of multiple men when a mate told me that having my period was not an excuse to use the head because "men have periods too and don't complain."

I obviously couldn't follow the chain of command with my complaint, because the complaint had to do with my captain. At dinner one night he slammed into the galley and screamed at me.  He yelled at me that I'm “no good to work on a boat, would never make it at sea, and belong on a ferry or on land where women should be."

Finally I went to the shoreside HR manager who was the only woman in the office. She confided in me that she dealt with sexism in the office all the time, to the point that the company’s human resources lawyer would slap her on the ass and demand she bring him coffee during morning meetings.

After I went to HR, I was removed from my vessel and an "internal investigation" took place. No one spoke up for me because everyone was either scared of the captain and losing their jobs or honestly didn't believe harassment was anything to be bothered by.

The company was hiring crew on their other vessels and I asked to be switched to a different boat. I was told NO by the owner of the company. He said he acknowledged that I felt unsafe and acknowledged I was being harassed, but he told me I needed to “suck it up and deal with it or go home.” 

So I went home.

A lawyer took my case pro bono, but he quickly became super flaky about helping me. He told me that "without a witness no one will believe a woman." Later that same lawyer told me that since the captain harassed everyone on the boat and belittled different crew members on a daily basis, he couldn’t be held accountable for his behaviors because that's just his normal “functioning level.”

My lawyer also warned me that if I made a fuss about the incident with the asshole captain that I would be "blacklisted" by the industry. I'm not fearful of being blacklisted, I'm fearful of women being harassed, raped, put in danger, etc. while onboard vessels in this industry. I’ve been overwhelmed with emotions reading some of the stories posted on the site. And multiple girls have shared their own personal stories of harassment with me over the past two years, and yet NOTHING IS BEING DONE. I'm so beyond fed up and disgusted. I am so in love with the maritime industry, but that love has been replaced with fear.

Besides a 10 day tug boat delivery for a small ma and pa company back in 2020, I haven't returned to a boat since I was forced to quit. And even on that 10 day job I was removed from my vessel by the operations manager. He made a surprise visit to the boat and was so bothered by how the wheelhouse crew were behaving and talking about women that he flew me home that day. He told me that even though I felt fine onboard, he wasn't comfortable with how they were talking about me.  So I got sent home instead of the crew that was causing issues. Again.

After that experience I passed up another job because it was with a crew known for poor treatment of women, and I was scared to travel overseas with them alone. I had what I thought was my dream job where I was able to finally work under my license, but that was taken away from me. And no job means no income. I’ve been working small side-jobs ever since, but that doesn't pay my ridiculous school loans I have from the highly ranked maritime academy I graduated from.

Last year I asked the one mate I had been shipboard friends with if he would come forward to support my claims about the harassment I had endured working for that asshole captain. He said that "after much thought" his answer was “no,” because he didn’t really see anything wrong with it since the captain harassed everyone. That mate pointed out that I was harassed the most, but since I chose this career I needed to suck it up. He then added he would never allow his daughters to work in the maritime industry because of how horrible it is for women, which I found unreal. 

The maritime world is functioning multiple decades behind the rest of the world, and it's repulsive. Why are things that are illegal on land allowed at sea? In one of the last conversations I had with my “lawyer,” he told me that when it comes to sexual harassment “even if there is proof the man did something wrong, if he says he didn’t do it, then it’s his word against hers, and his word will always be honored.” After a year of giving me excuses, he’s ignored my messages for the past 8 months. 

The man who owns that company is a bully. And I think he assumed I would just go away on my own. He thinks I just gave up, but I'm still not done fighting. Somehow, I will get justice.

It's 2021. Women have rights.