August 1, 2018 — Women comprise roughly half of the world’s seafood industry workforce, yet a report released in July revealed that 61 percent of women around the globe feel they face unfair gender biases from slime lines to businesses to company boardrooms. The women’s overall responses cited biases in recruitment and hiring, in working conditions and inflexible scheduling.
The findings were based on 700 responses gathered in an online survey for the International Organisation for Women in Seafood the from September through December of last year. Thirty percent of the respondents were men; 27 percent of the total responses came from North America.
In my view, Alaska doesn’t fit the picture.
Based on “empirical evidence” spanning 30 years as a fisheries writer, I always have encountered women at all levels of seafood harvesting and processing, business, management, education and research, as agency heads and commissioners and in top directorships in industry trade groups and organizations. While women may be outnumbered by men in the state’s seafood industry overall, they are highly visible and valued throughout the workforce hierarchy.
Maybe Alaska’s small population levels the playing field and smart, talented women are not so easily overlooked. But that’s clearly not the case elsewhere.
In the survey, 33 percent of women said they have faced discrimination at work, 49 percent said there are unequal opportunities for men and women; 12 percent of women cited sexual harassment.
Read the full story at the Cordova Times