Women Pilots: Dr Jo Stanley

March 26th, 2014 by JCB
Posted in Articles, Technical and Training | No Comments »

 

Dr Jo Stanley

Very few people know the UK has only four women marine pilots. Still fewer know what it took for these few women to achieve their senior position. The Sea is still almost wholly a male business. By contrast, the experiences of pioneer US women pilots are quite well-publicised. One of the first, Captain Wagner of San Francisco Bay, in the late 1980s said that the occasional startled captain asked ‘Where’s the pilot?’B She told him: ‘I’m here, Captain! My boat says ‘pilot’ on it. My coat says ‘pilot’ on it. My radio says ‘pilot’ on it. I’m the pilot!’

In Maryland, some time in 1999, the Greek captain of a cargo ship, full of sugar and bound for Baltimore, exclaimed in surprise, as Captain Elizabeth Christman prepared to steer his ship for him: ‘I’ve been a captain for 50 years, and I’ve never seen a woman pilot.’ Christman’s response was quick and confident: ‘Well, captain, this is your lucky day.’I She guided the ship safely through 150 miles of Chesapeake Bay, one of the longest and most difficult piloted runs in the country.

I should be glad to hear from British women pilots or from those who know about their careers, to help me remedy the all-male image of sea workers. I am preparing a book about on the history of women at sea (Women at sea: from cabin ‘boys’ to captains, History Press, Stroud, forthcoming) and would love to speak to female pilots.

My research in aspects of the gendered sea is internationally acknowledged as path-breaking and has been recognised by the Society for Nautical Research by an Anderson grant, to help with travel expenses incurred when interviewing female deck officers, engineers and ROs, as well as croupiers, stewardesses, nurses, pursers, etc. I have a Liverpool seafaring background and am interested in the sea as a result of Merseyside Maritime Museum travelling exhibitions. My books include Bold in her Breeches: Women pirates across the ages: Pandora, London 1995, 1996 (with Paul Baker), and Risk! Women on the Wartime Seas, Yale University Press, 2014.

Dr Jo Stanley, FRHistS, is Honorary Research Fellow at the Centre for Mobilities Research (CeMoRe), Lancaster University.

See her website: www.jostanley.biz 

and blog: http://genderedseas.blogspot.com. 

 

She can
be reached
by phone
01422 823 389
or email: j_v_stanley
@hotmail.com