Paper short abstract:

Seafaring as a male profession has long traditions and is well known especially for its hierarchical and masculine nature. Although women have gradually invaded the field starting from passenger ships, on a cargo vessel female crew is still more or less invisible.

Paper long abstract:

Practically most of the cargo ships sail under command of male captain and operate with solely male crew. However, considering Finnish seafaring, during last decades there have been other changes within manning of ships. Since 2009 Finland has agreed to accept mixed crews onboard merchant ships. In practice it means that at least half of the crew on board a bulk carrier or a container ship can be non-EU members, in most cases Filipinos. Filipinos are worldwide the biggest nationality working onboard ships and have been that for several decades. Still, co-existence with Finns and Filipinos is a new phenomenon and therefore fruitful to study.

When scrutinizing contemporary Finnish seafaring one can make observations on e.g. crew's orientation as a sailor. For Finnish sailors the profession is still more or less masculine but how it is with Filipinos? As it is disclosed in some international studies, dominant figure of a Filipino male from western point of view is rather feminine. However, Filipino seamen seem to consider themselves merely masculine. For my doctoral dissertation on cultural factors behind marine accidents I have conducted three ethnographic fieldworks on board Finnish cargo ships with mixed crews. I have spent some four weeks living with the crew on each vessel. In my presentation I'm going to examine how biased masculinities emerge in reality onboard a Finnish ship with mixed crew. Have invasion of Filipinos changed the performance of a sailor in the light of gender and if so, how?