Rewriting Women into Maritime History initiative goes global

The Lloyd’s Register-backed Rewriting Women into Maritime History initiative to uncover and showcase the critical role of women in the maritime sector, past and present has entered a new, international phase.

Launched in the UK and Ireland in 2023, the programme uses archival material held by maritime organisations, as well as oral histories to piece together their stories, showcasing them publicly through the SHE_SEES exhibition. SHE_SEES debuted at the home of the International Maritime Organization (IMO) during London International Shipping Week 2023, and is currently on tour, with a residency at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard until August 2025.

By highlighting the expertise, experience and leadership of women, the programme helps reframe the narrative of a predominantly masculine industry and encourages more people to take up the opportunities offered by a career in the maritime sector today. Figures from the IMO show that women currently account for 29% of the overall industry workforce, and just 2% of seafarers in the crewing workforce.

Now, Rewriting Women into Maritime History and the SHE_SEES exhibition are looking to expand their impact internationally, by telling the stories of women working in the maritime sector in another nine countries around the world. These stories will be captured over the next three years, starting in 2025 with Greece, the Netherlands and India.

The contemporary component of SHE_SEES is led by portrait photographer Emilie Sandy who is encouraging more women to get involved and share their own stories via the participatory photography element, SHE_SEES HER VOICE. This will enable a broader range of women in the sector to connect and be represented, working with a photographer to empower them to share their own stories, and to shape and control their own narrative.

Dr Jo Stanley, a maritime historian specialising in gender and diversity, commented: “Women have been contributing to maritime life for centuries. Seagoing doctors and pirates, laundresses and captain’s deputies, navigation teachers and cartographers. They’ve been overlooked. But from the 1970s, they really took off. And they’re making progress fast. This project encouragingly connects past, present and future.”

Linked to the initiative, a new film – Women in Shipbuilding – has been produced in collaboration with Historic England uncovering the history of women in shipbuilding in the UK, viewable below.