The American novelist Fannie Hurst once said that “A woman still has to be twice as good as a man in order to get half as far.” And, certainly, when she said it back in the 1940s, it was likely not far from the truth.
The point Hurst was making is that when you have to defy expectations, you have to work that much harder. When you want to succeed in a profession, you have to not only be good at that profession but also look the part. You have to walk a certain way, talk a certain way, and work a certain way. Make small talk, maintain eye contact, give a firm handshake, and flash a toothy grin. As the philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre put it, a job “is wholly one of ceremony. The public demands of us that we realize it as a ceremony.”
It’s true in maritime, it’s helpful to look and act the part.