Women at sea

The issue of women at sea has aroused emotions for centuries. One superstition states that a woman on board brings bad luck to the ship and crew and it was believed that a woman possessed power over the sea.

The Egyptian goddess Isis was the goddess of sailors according to the ancient Greeks. This belief came from the days when sailing was considered typically to be a male occupation, "indecent" for women who, in contemporary opinion, would only disturb the work on the ship. In the eighteenth century, most English-speaking sailors, when talking about the ship, would use a feminine pronoun "she", and in some languages "ship" is feminine. Seamen personified the vessel as a woman.

Therefore it was feared that the presence of another woman on board would provoke the ship’s jealousy and anger bringing about imminent disaster. Psychologist Ewa Woydyłło believes that this superstition is, however, based on common sense. In the days of wooden ships and "iron sailors", a presence of a woman amongst a testosterone-driven male crew, who were ship-bound for months on end, with falling levels of personal hygiene, may have caused some 'trouble'.

E. Koczorowski, "Zwyczaje i Ceremoniał Morski", published in Gdańsk, 1972, by "Wydawnictwo Morskie" Publishing House
E. Woydyłło, "Odpukaj w Niemalowane", Twój Styl, 1993 Issue 9