There are two tags that I use a lot
And they are 'unexamined-assumptions' and 'facile-preconceptions'.
Because, really, there are a lot of these among people who should really know better, such as women who write and review books about women and the sea: Salt on Your Tongue: Women and the Sea by Charlotte Runcie - review.
Which includes the memorable claim: In the way of generations of women past, her relationship with the water is primarily shore-based. Ships may be universally female, their prows even adorned by bosomy figureheads, but in many traditions, it’s considered bad luck to have an actual woman aboard. Female sailors have only grown common since the mid-20th century. Previously, “women of the sea were, instead, women of the shore”, Runcie notes.
Send in a swathe of cutlass-wielding lady-pirates, women naval commanders such as Manto Mavrogenous and Artemesia of Caria, and on the lower decks, women such as Hannah Snell (and other women who similarly cross-dressed to pursue a maritime career e.g. Mary Talbot, Ann Mills, Hannah Whitney).
Not to mention the women who accompanied their husbands on their voyages, have these people never read any Jane Austen ahem ahem.
I knew most of this off the top of my head, and a little light googling filled in the details that I couldn't recollect. I had to spend a little more time on Cranogwen, whose Wikipedia entry may mention her 'romantic friendships', but not her master mariner's certificate (as at date of writing this...). And I depose that when there are significant numbers of women whose names survive in an area, there were probably even more whose names are lost to history.
And, a similar phenomenon which was on the opposite page of the Observer New Review yesterday: 'Despite a Quaker bent, George Lakey’s updated version of his 1960s manual is stuffed to the brim with practical advice on nonviolent campaigning' (scroll down, it's the 'In Brief' section): thank you, I will take the practical advice on non-violent campaigning from people who have been in that business for several centuries. (Boggle my inner light, srsly.) This entry was originally posted at https://oursin.dreamwidth.org/2871262.html. Please comment there using OpenID. View
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