A woman has accused an international shipping firm of sexism after it refused her a job interview and told her she “would be better off working on a cruise ship”.
Qualified deck officer Sophia Walker, 24, successfully served her cadetship on both an emergency response and rescue vessel and on chemical tankers.
But after being invited back to her old campus to interview for a job as deck hand job at Hong Kong based, Wallem Ship Management, Sophia says she was denied the chance to speak to a representative.
She insists an email, sent by Brian Phipps of Wallem, to Sophia’s tutor at Lancashire’s Fleetwood Nautical Campus, Jonathan Ward, proves she didn’t get to interview alongside ten males because she’s female.
The email said: “Wallem is an equal opportunity company but we WILL not offer places for the female cadets [deck officers] because we can’t offer the appropriate onboard environment to make it work.
“In my opinion girls have a place and a chance to succeed, but it needs to be got right from the outset.
“I would suppose the cruise industry is the most appropriate (indeed the Captain of the Queen Victoria, on which I cruised recently, was a lady).”
Miss Walker, of Kettering, Northants., has now slammed the firm for assuming she was not suitable for the job because of her gender.
She said: “Not even getting the interview is blatant gender discrimination and clearly shows that even in the 21st century this kind of thing is still happening in male dominated industries.
“This happened despite all the time and effort I spent gaining my qualification at Fleetwood.”
Miss Walker is now calling for the company and the college to look into the way the matter was handled.
She said; “I am a qualified deck hand and gained all my qualifications at Fleetwood Nautical Campus. I have served on tankers, yet I am not given the opportunity of an interview despite the Wallem representative stating he would see all the candidates.
“A copy of one email was sent by the tutor to the other 10 male deck officer candidates and I sustained deep humiliation – they were being encouraged to view me as inferior to them wholly because of my gender.
“Jonathan Ward in his email stated: ‘Sophia, sorry about the omission’ – meaning the fact I could not have an interview because I am of the female gender.”
But Wallem insists it does not discriminate against women, says it employs more than 50 female staff in various roles, and was only guilty in this instance of a poorly worded email which did not explain the situation fully.
And the company is adamant that it wants to ensure it had a suitable environment in place before female staff were employed.
A senior Wallem staff member said there was no reason Miss Walker could not be employed by the company but in this instance there were concerns because she would have been the only woman taken on.
The company wanted to ensure it had a suitable environment in place before female staff were employed.
Blackpool and The Fylde College which runs the campus says it promotes equality in all forms and has written to Wallem to say it finds its behaviour unacceptable.
In a statement the college said: “At Blackpool and The Fylde College, we work tirelessly to assist and support current and former students to secure employment. This includes offering courses which are fully aligned to employer skills requirements, CV and interview preparation, hosting careers fairs on College premises, vacancy matching service, work placement opportunities and letting companies use our facilities free of charge to undertake their employee selection process.
“Blackpool and The Fylde College actively promotes equality in all forms.
“We are not aware of having had any previous dealings with the company concerned. When the incident was brought to our attention, immediate action was taken to withdraw the use of our facilities for selection purposes. We have written to the company to reinforce that the College finds the shipping company’s behaviour unacceptable.
“We cannot go into specific details concerning particular individuals.”
