Breaking Waves: A Female Engineer’s Journey Through Maritime Prejudice
Editor’s note: According to the Maritime Safety Administration of the People’s Republic of China, at the end of 2023, China had 682,635 registered international seafarers. However, only 44,511 of them, less than 7%, were female. Below, young female seafarers working in international waters share their stories as on-board anomalies in the ocean.
Chen Yu was on the deck of a massive vessel when a Filipino girl asked her, “Have you seen any fish in the sea?” Only seafarers like herself would understand this nuanced question. Spotting fish from a large vessel is rare — the ship towers too high, and the sea runs too deep. What the girl truly meant was: Have you seen fish leaping above the surface?
A young seafarer born in 2000, Chen has already witnessed such spectacles countless times. Off New Zealand’s coast, dolphins had danced alongside her ship; in the emerald waters of bays of the Philippines, flying fish had repeatedly launched themselves from the vessel’s wake. She saw herself in these flying fish — creatures that leap out of water to escape predators, much like how she had spent two years since college graduation repeatedly escaping seas of prejudice and power dynamics.
Navigating prejudice
Before her third deep-sea voyage, Chen had already prepared herself for a uniquely female seafarer’s challenge. The crew list included her least favorite middle-aged training officer — a man who had previously harassed her — and she knew her hopes for a permanent position were slim. Preparing for the battle, she cut her hair short, adopting the mindset of “making herself function like a man.”
On this vessel traversing between Asia and Oceania, Chen stood alone — the sole female engineer. Her job demanded endless hours in the engine room, wrestling with machinery, oil sludge, and even sewage. In an industry where female seafarers are said to be “rarer than pandas,” she was an anomaly — a flying fish among schools of uniformity.
Chen found it challenging to navigate the male-dominated workplace. She avoided facilities such as the changing area in the engine room that was separated only by a curtain, and the unisex toilets. Most of the time, she sat by herself quietly in her uniform while her male colleagues lounged in casual clothes.
Sometimes, conversations with colleagues were inevitable, and they almost always revolved around gender. During one of her daunting tasks — replacing an oil line on a crane towering seven stories high while bracing the relentless sea winds — the chief engineer on her ship asked her, “Why would a girl choose to work at sea?”
“To earn money,” Chen replied, enjoying a view entirely different from the deck below. Her initial fear of being swept from the scaffolding transformed into a sense of serenity. The chief engineer further suggested that women could simply marry for financial security, to which she replied, “I’m not a commodity to be traded.”
“But surely there are more suitable jobs for girls ashore, aren’t there?” he continued.
Many seafarers, despite years of ocean voyages, had never encountered a female counterpart. Chen’s presence sparked bewilderment and conversations that typically concluded with a resigned smile — much like the chief engineer’s that day.
To Chen, this gender prejudice often translated into exclusion. During equipment malfunctions, Chen would repeatedly be ordered to stay put. Left with nothing to do but clean, frustration would consume her, rendering her speechless.
Another female engineer, Zhang Dongtian, around Chen’s age, felt the same way. Her training officer seemed reluctant to assign her tasks, having reportedly stated that he wouldn’t actively teach girls because “they probably won’t stay in this profession anyway.”
“Hearing that made me very uncomfortable,” she said, recalling the many times fellow seafarers asked her: As a university graduate, why not become a civil servant? How would she manage family responsibilities? The irony was palpable to her — while most crew members were fathers, no one ever questioned their ability to balance work and family. “Yet they lecture me, someone who isn’t even married,” she said.
Their experience echoed the conclusion of a report by Global Maritime Forum that “(women) do not have equal access to training or tasks onboard.” To add to their plight, marine engineers can only accumulate experience through repeated machinery maintenance and repairs, and they need their supervisors’ approval to secure a permanent position as a junior engineer, which could quintuple their income. Chen has already accumulated 12 months of sea time. All she needs is more opportunities for hands-on work, but she can only hope that the veteran seafarers would let her someday.
Changing the tides
When Chen graduated with a degree in marine engineering, she found that almost none of her male classmates shared her eagerness to work at sea. What frustrated her most was the perception that “girls couldn’t do it,” which further drove her desire “to prove them wrong.”
Her catchphrase was “So what?”, helping her to shrug off all the obstacles she has encountered in life. When she embarked on this career path by chance, she thought: “So what? I’ll go to the sea. Someone has to be the first. Why not me?”
Chen had been inspired by news of a female chief engineer, hoping to be the next. But once she boarded the ship, she started to have self-doubt. This is a world with strict hierarchies, and she had not made her mark. Her responses were mostly “OK,” and “roger,” while constantly seeking approval from others.
Loneliness also hit her. After over a year at sea, Chen realized this lifestyle here meant she wouldn’t be able to see her loved ones whenever she wanted and would be exposed to constant interpersonal conflicts in a confined workplace. She lost interest in socializing with her colleagues, especially when they shared little in common due to their age gap.
When Chen started to talk like her male colleagues, or attempted to join their outings, they would tell her: “How could a girl talk like that?” or “That’s not a place for girls.”
However, Chen found her way to combat isolation. During breaks, she would rest in her cabin or find a deck to watch the sea and enjoy her solitude. After work, she would either go to bed early or watch TV series. She also shared her life on social media platform Xiaohongshu, or RedNote. While Chen might feel she’s all alone out there at sea, her social media posts have inspired other young girls back home, including Zhang.
When Zhang was a marine engineering student in the coastal city of Dalian, the northeastern Liaoning province, she was uncertain about becoming a seafarer, but then she stumbled on Chen’s posts and found encouragement. “I’m no longer alone,” she said.
It’s only been in the last decade that young women can enroll in marine engineering programs. Zhang still remembered receiving a call from her teacher four years ago to discourage her from choosing this path. “It wasn’t suitable for girls, and employment would be difficult. Are you sure you want to apply?”
Approaching graduation, Zhang had initially thought women couldn’t work at sea and planned to find more conventional work like many of her classmates. But her roommate discovered that some shipping companies were hiring female seafarers, so they attended some job fairs. Zhang inquired with a Chinese shipping company that reportedly had two positions for women, but the company’s HR discouraged her from proceeding.
In contrast, another recruiter who had connections to a foreign shipping giant was enthusiastic to see Zhang and quickly made her an offer. Zhang described landing this job as “catching the right wave.” At her company, only 200 out of thousands of crew members were women. Last December, the company announced plans to recruit 500 additional female crew members globally over the next two years, with an aim to address women’s underrepresentation in the maritime industry.
The unspeakable truth
Before Zhang’s boarding, the shipping company organized a remote meeting for newly graduated female recruits, inviting experienced female seafarers to share their stories. Though brief, a major topic was how to handle sexual harassment. They were given a phone number and told, “Call whenever you feel uncomfortable, and the company will address it immediately.”
Sexual harassment remains a persistent challenge in the maritime industry. A survey of 1,128 female seafarers from 78 countries revealed that 66% of respondents confirmed that their male colleagues had harassed or intimated female co-workers aboard their vessels, according to the Women’s International Shipping and Trading Association, Anglo Eastern, the International Seafarers Welfare and Assistance Network, and the International Chamber of Shipping.
Having risen from a mountain village in the eastern Fujian province to university, Chen had always believed in hard work. Now, aboard the giant vessel, she hoped this same determination would help her climb the professional ranks. However, the first step — securing a permanent position — appeared far more challenging for her than her male counterparts.
Two months after the ship left port, when the junior engineer was due for leave, she saw her best opportunity to secure a permanent position. She approached the chief engineer directly, asking, “Could you write a promotion report for me?” He replied with a blank expression, “Not possible here. Try harder on your next ship.”
Chen suspected this rejection wasn’t about her competence but rather connected to a painful secret: she was subject to sexual harassment by her training officer who assigned her work.
At first, it started with verbal harassment. “Haven’t you ever slept with a man?” he would ask her casually. For several consecutive nights, he messaged her, inviting her to his cabin. Upon encountering him again on this voyage, the inappropriate messages resumed. While she had previously declined politely, this time Chen was resolute — she ignored every message. Onboard, she maintained a professional demeanor, speaking to him only when work demanded and steadfastly refusing to work alone with him.
Chen felt that the consequence of ignoring his messages was having fewer tasks assigned to her. The chief engineer had noticed her seemingly idle presence in the workroom, which Chen came to believe was the reason her promotion was denied.
And her experience is not exclusive. Findings from the survey mentioned above showed that 13% of international female seafarers reported such incidents of sexual harassment, and only 7% were satisfied with the outcomes.
Nearly a month after the chief engineer’s rejection, Chen received a surprise email from the company: management had directly initiated the promotion process for her with the chief engineer’s approval. At the company’s annual meeting, she realized she had “caught a wave” — the company was actively promoting gender equality at sea, stating they needed women at all ranks.
Chen felt she had finally received what she inherently deserved — a standard promotion timeline. At breakfast aboard the vessel, crew members congratulated her alongside a party proposal — a promotion at sea typically warranted a barbecue celebration, but Chen declined, preferring to complete this voyage with quiet contemplation.
(Due to privacy concerns, Zhang Dongtian is a pseudonym.)
Reported by Zhou Hang.
A version of this article originally appeared in White Night Workshop. It has been translated and edited for brevity and clarity, and is republished here with permission.
Translator: Chen Yue; editors: Wang Juyi and Elise Mak.
(Header image: A photo taken by Chen Yu in 2024. From Xiaohongshu)
