On this IMO’s International Day for Women in Maritime, I was putting in order in my notes a list of panel members for an event to be organized during this Posidonia in June. Realising how the number of names of women from the industry (and academia) was securing – through no additional effort – a fair panel gender balance, I remembered that about 30 years ago I had found myself the only other woman among an audience in the three digits gathered for a Transport and Shipping international event organized in some EU (then EEC) building in Brussels.
I knew I belonged to a gender minority among people in academia in my field,  but being only the second female present, together with an administrative assistant,  made me think I could have had more female company at a conference for astronauts (which was not a very gender balanced profession at the time). What a change do I see around me now… I was extremely happy and proud to participate in the days just before the pandemic in a 2020 event organized by the IMO and the Korean Ambassador in London with so many other women Ambassadors like her –  representing countries across all continents –   in attendance,  in a panel with other women from academia and industry to discuss ways to further the impressive work done by the IMO for promoting a fair gender participation in the maritime field.
Being a proud honorary member of WISTA Hellas for many years I remember informing our President and the President of WISTA International and realizing how many of us were anymore everywhere. We still have some way to go; but we are on our way. And so many women before us paved the way, pioneers in their field during so much harder times along with the open-minded men who stood already by then with them; and with all of us. We salute them.
*Dr. Helen Thanopoulou is a Professor at the Department of Shipping, Trade and Transport (Chios island) of the University of the Aegean
