Harassment and bullying aboard: Impacts of gender inequality on ocean professionals

Abstract

Harassment in the workplace and in the academic environment impacts the victim's physical and mental health, which in turn affects the person attacked, the organization, and the progress of science. The present study aimed to analyze situations of sexual harassment and bullying reported by people who work aboard vessels in Brazil, with emphasis on gender, seeking to quantify and characterize inequalities. This was an exploratory study that used a semi-structured form with a total of 33 questions (29 closed-ended and 4 open-ended), aimed at ocean professionals in Brazil. The online form was broadly shared and made available for three months in 2021, yielding 260 responses. The results demonstrate a greater participation of women in the research, who were also the majority of the victims in terms of both sexual harassment and bullying. The most common scenario reported was that of predominantly male coworkers and the most common aggressor profile was that of men in a superior hierarchical position. Only 35 people (18.0%) made formal complaints of harassment, although 195 of them reported experiencing harassment aboard. Results demonstrated that sexual harassment and/or bullying are a social problem in the field of environmental sciences and marine sciences, which mainly affects and harms women. Thus, a broad discussion of this reality is necessary, in addition to preventing and combating harassment on vessels.