by Barbara Bonciani
Sociologist, Vice President of RETE Italia. Lecturer of Sociology of Development, University of Pisa. Livorno, Italy
Abstract
At the industrial level port industry, as well as maritime remain some of the main male dominated. Work in the port sector is still very gendered and the exclusion of women from the related work environment is marked both in operational and administrative work in companies and in the port’s governance and leadership roles.
At the basis of the exclusion of women from the port and maritime sector there is a dense network of stereotypes and social beliefs that identify gender roles, and they attribute women opposite characteristic to the male ideal type. Actually, technological innovation processes have changed the organization, methods and cycles of work with a significant drop in the demand for physical strength. Today ports are fully accessible to women who desire to work there. Furthermore, the green transition of ports requires new job profiles and skilled professionals in area like environmental management, digitalization and sustainable logistic that represent a great opportunity also for women.
Nevertheless, women are still not just underrepresented in the port and maritime sector, but they are invisible in their work. Starting from this, the Project Women in the port and maritime sector, why not”[1] that I had the opportunity and the idea to developed as City Councilor for Port and Port city integration at the Municipality of Livorno intended to represent the female workers in the port and maritime sector by their voice. The voice of the women were told through thematic videos in which female workers talk about their job. A photographic exhibition captures the female workers in different phases of their work in the port and on bord, showing to a huge public women ship captain, women crane operators, drivers of large vehicles, lashing and unlashing. Under this slogan, the work carried out by women in the port sector will be at the center of a vast project. The aim of the project is, first of all to bring attention on women in the port and maritime sector by promoting the knowledge of their work in both sector to a wide public. Secondly the project aims to promote and facilitate a constructive debate among stakeholder to improve women’s work participation in the port and maritime sector. Finally, the purpose is to represent work in the port and maritime sector as a job opportunity for women.
However, much remains to be done to prevent discrimination of women in those sectors and improve women’s participation, both in operational and administrative work and in port’s governance and leadership.
Precisely for this reason, the empowerment of Women in the port and maritime sector must be placed at the center of the European and national political agenda in order to improve gender balanced workforce in those sectors.
IMAGE | The Port of Livorno and women's work. (© Elena Cappanera).
Keywords
Port City, Women in Ports, Livorno
[1] “Women in the port and maritime sector, why not” is a project developed and promoted by the Municipality of Livorno in collaboration with RETE (International Association for the Collaboration between Port and Cities), the University of Pisa and the Institute for Research and Innovation and Services for Development of the National Research Council of Italy (CNR-Iriss).
