Fishing, Masculinity, and Gender

Fishing narrowly understood is a masculinest occupation. Crews and skippers are overwhelmingly men, not just in my homeport of Prince Rupert, but globally. That does not deny the fact that the wider social world of fisheries is a human multi-gendered social world. Donna Lee Davis and Jane Nadel Klien were among the early cohort of researchers who documented the integral role women play in fisheries communities (1988). Much of the focus of the work that preceded Davis and Nadel Klien highlighted the crew at sea (see, for example: Orbach 1977; Zulaika 1981; Cohen 1987). Other approaches retained an anthropology of the village and wrote about peasant-like settings (see, for example: Firth 1966; Faris 1966). The turn to view fisheries within a wider gendered lens developed through the1980s; one important result of which is the normalization of an approach that assumes gender is relevant as opposed to merely something to add after the fact (Neis et al 2005; see also, Menzies 2011:99-110).

The social world of fishing communities is not a homogenous space – it is riven by class and gender just as aspects of the wider society are. While the early maritime anthropologists (such as: Orbach 1977; Zulaika 1981) focused on the crew at sea as the sum total of the fishing community as an occupational culture, this paper zeros in on how aspects of onboard work are implicated in the reproduction of gender, specifically masculinity while appreciating this occurs within a wider social field than the boat itself (Davis 1993; Yodanis 2000; Power 2004; King 2007).

In a paper explaining why women don’t fish, Carrie Yodanis argues, “women are women because they do not fish” (2000:268). She found gender to be defined in relation to the at sea practice of fishing. Yodanis’ study was based in a Maine lobster fishing community. Her observations are similar to my own among British Columbian fishermen (Menzies 1991). Yodanis goes on to say “‘Man’ is defined as one who fishes and ‘women’ is defined in opposition to that which is a fisherman” (2000:268). This echoes Nancy Chodorow’s1978 observation that gendered parenting –motherhing and fathering (as opposed to simply an androgynous parenting)- is at the root of societal gendered inequalities. In her rendering girls simply grow into women while men are made as their masculine identity is severed from their mothers as they become ‘not women’ (Chodorow 1978). There are, of course, women who fish (Wilson 2014, 2016). Yet their presence on the boat is constructed in such a way as to maintain normative hegemonic masculinity (Menzies 1991; Meyer 2015; McMullen 2018).

Julianne Meyer explores the question how women who fish are gendered and asks what does this say about masculinity on boats (2015). She does this through a study that combines active participation in two seasons as a Bristol Bay setnetter and at fisherpoet festivals in Oregon where she spoke with women about their experiences, ideas, and performances as fishermen and fisherpoets. Meyers notes that women fishermen and fisherpoets “must show they are prepared to engage in the hypermasculine culture of commercial fishing” (2015:18). While they are not explicitly excluded, “women have a difficult time breaking into and remaining in the occupation” (Meyer 2015:19). She further notes “working in a male-dominated industry, women often struggle to keep their jobs if they are not involved in a relationship. Women often find work in industry through familial or romantic relationships and those women who chose to enter the occupation without relationships face additional struggles. … Men in the occupation occasionally expect women to have sex with them, based solely on the demographics of the occupation. … In addition to this, women must also be ever vigilant in their activities in the industry because of the looming threat of sexual violence” (Meyer 2015:22).

Building off of Meyer’s work with women, Bradford McMullen explores the ways in which male fishermen who are also fisherpoets define masculinities. He too notes the overtly masculinist tone of commercial fisheries as a contemporary occupation. While observing a variety of masculinities at play among fishermen (even a variant that includes women as masculinized) he locates them all within the wider sense of hegemonic masculinity – straight, androcentric, and valuing competency and credibility. He defines these last two attributes as follows: “Competence in the context of the fishing industry is the ability to perform well succeeding as a fisherman by doing one’s job and surviving the stresses that accompany it. Credibility in fishermen speak could also be called trustworthiness: one’s credibility resides in other people’s belief that fishermen will live up to their promises and accomplish the things they are expected to do, no matter their difficulty” (McMullen 2018:17). Becoming a man, in the eyes of the fishermen’s world, is all about demonstrating one’s ability to do the job and do it reliably. That women might also do the job doesn’t necessarily take away from this masculinist conception as they either aren’t there (Yodanis 2000) or they take on the masculinist attributes (while remaining female) that reinforce the idea of the maleness of the world of fisheries (Meyer 2015).

In the early 1980s I had been part of an anti-pornography campaign to remove magazines like Hustler from the campus bookstore. Our campaign was inspired by writings in the edited collection Take Back the Night (Lederer 1980). Thinking that this might be a good way to approach the onboard pornography and sexist attitudes pervasive on many coastal fishboats of the time, I made copies of several chapters of Take Back the Night to use as educational materials during the herring season that year.

In the 1980s commercial herring seining lasted from late February into early April. There were a hundred or so boats in the fleet. We would travel from opening to opening, waiting for a week or more at remote fishing grounds for a chance to load up that might last a little as a few minutes. A season could be made or lost in ten minutes after having waiting for weeks on anchor. Aside from waiting there wasn’t much to do but socialize, do a bit of sport fishing, share food, booze, and other stuff. Pornography was a major item circulating amongst the fleet. So, I thought I might do a little bit to change things.

I had periodically been placing the copies of Take Back the Night chapters onto the galley table in the boat that I worked on. It looked like other crew members from our boat and visiting boats had been picking them up and reading them. But I was soon disabused of any positive interpretation. About three weeks into the season our boat cook sat down at the galley table across from me. He seemed to be reading one of the pamphlets. He glanced over at me, looked back at the pamphlet, then asked me:

“So, Charlie. What is this miss-ogg-ah-knee?”

“Misogyny, I corrected.”

“Hmm.” He said.

“It means women hating.”

He looked me directly in the eyes

“So, what man hates a women.”

He tossed the pamphlet onto the table and returned to his cooking. It was then I realized two things: (1) the cook was the sole person (not the crew) who was using the pamphlets (and not as I had anticipated), and; (2) I had really misunderstood my audience.

Male centered ideas of sexuality, as presented by the onboard pornography, were a physical manifestation of the definitional masculinity of the space on the ship. Unlike the more polite and public spaces ashore, the display of pornography and sexualized images of women were explicit boundary markers. These spaces were felt to be private male worlds within which women were not expected to enter or to participate in. Shoreside, when wives, girlfriends, or daughters were expected to visit the boat the skipper (or more often, the cook) would make certain the most explicit materials were swept away out of sight – though the calendars of partially glad women would almost always remain untouched. This ideology of sexuality and gender undergirds the working world and the ways that one learned the fishing trade. The inclusion of a few women in the occupation served to underscore, rather than alter, the masculinity of fishing labour and the process of becoming a fisherman (Menzies 1991, Meyer 2015, Yodanis 2000).

A Father's Day Reading List

When my own sons were young my partner gave me a copy of Patrimony by Philip Roth for father’s day. A little while later I came across an unexpected book by ecological anthropologist Ben Orlove, In my Father’s Study. These are books that have stayed with me.

The first is a tale of a son’s journey with a father at the end of his life.

The second is a story of a son coming to learn about his father, to come to an adult appreciation of him, after the father’s death.  It’s a touching memoire.  I’ve used it a few times in my teaching but my 20/30-something students respond to it rather differently than I. For them it is simply one more book on a reading list while for me it led me to think about my life as a father and as a son.

I’ve spent a great many hours with my own father. As a child following him around as he worked on his fishing boat. As a young adult working with him on the same boat. And later in life visiting with him, keeping each other company sometimes talking about the past, often about his health, and occasionally about my own work. Coming across Orlove’s book, almost by accident, has led me to gather over the decades an eclectic little library of books reflecting upon fathers and sons. Here, in sense of order, is a selection of my favourites.

• In My Father’s Study. Ben Orlove. U.Iowa Press. 1995
• A Life in the Bush: lessons from my father. Roy MacGregor. Viking, 1999. A loving tale of a northern Ontario father by one of Canada’s favourite journalists.
• Waterline: of fathers, sons, and boats. Joe Soucheray. David R.  Godin, Publisher. 1996(1989). A memoire about restoring a boat, but its far more than that.
• For Joshua. Richard Wagamese. Anchor Canada. 2003(2002).
• To See Every Bird on Earth: a father, a son, a lifelong obsession. Dan Koeppel. Plume. 2006.
• Lost in America. Sherwin Nuland. Vintage. 2004.
• Patrimony. Phillip Roth. Touchstone. 2001.
• My Father’s Wars. Alisse Waterston. 2013.
• Fatherless. Keith Maillard. 2019.

There are more – but this is more than enough for a start.

My Mother was a White Women

Shirley Marie Menzies, née Naud.  Born Sept. 13, 1932. Died April 18, 2013.

My mother was a teacher, that was her vocation, as much as it was for moments in her life also her occupation. She brought teaching into all aspects of her life and ours. She delighted in teaching my siblings and I how to read and do math before we entered school. Her teaching expanded to many realms - most importantly our history. She would regale us for hours with stories of our family's history.

There was the story of the little girl who slipped into the water cistern and drowned trying to pull a watermelon out. Then there was the story of three waters, a dog that licked dishes clean. Or the story of how great grampa Brown was adopted by missionaries after his parents perished on a trans-Atlantic crossing. Or how our Quebecois ancestors had come to New France to be farmers but the land they took up had no soil so they became stone masons instead of farmers. On and on these stories went, each attached to names and peoples, strung into a one large interwoven historical narrative about becoming Canadian.

My mother firmly believed that to go forward in life we needed to know where we came from. She was proud of her family history, rooted in lines that traced back to the late 1600s in Quebec, the 1700s in Nova Scotia and pre-revolutionary continental USA. For her, not knowing this meant one really had no foundation to stand. My mother knew she was white but thought of herself as Canadian first and foremost.

We didn't just learn her family history from her.  She also learned, and then taught us, our father's family history as well. As a child one didn't appreciate how this was happening, we just heard the stories. She would tell us about our grandmother (who passed away before we were born), about our great grandfather and our great grand mother and their lives growing up on the north coast. 

My father would tell stories about his mother and grandfather to us as well.  About spending time in Grassy Bay each summer. About fishing in McNichol Creek in the fall. About his grandfather's visits to his house when he was a child. To my mother fell the responsibility to tell us the stories my aunt and great aunt taught her about the deep history of my family on my father's side.

I think it was my mother's deep interest in history and storytelling that brought me to anthropology. I certainly never had the desire to chase the exotic, that so many anthropologists of my generation seem to have. When I read Walter Benjamin's "The Storyteller" for the first time I could see my mother as much as I could see a Marlow like figure telling tales on the deck of a boat. 

Marrying across racialized lines is fraught with all kinds of overt and tacit expressions of disapproval. As a child I sensed my maternal grandmother's disapproval of my father.  It was confusing then. Today, it remains unsettling, even if the adult me can understand her fears and prejudices fit within a wider racialized social order. Understanding it doesn't excuse it, but it does help. 

My mother understood the prejudices of families and societies. She spoke often about what she thought of as the 'errors of their way' when explaining her family's prejudices. It wasn't the kind of intersectional critical race feminist of today, but she was remarkably progressive for her time and place. She considered it within all people to be able to make the choices that respected difference. At the same time she had her own strong values on civility, proper manners, and respectful behaviour. She could be strict! 

This was the women who taught us our family history. She offered us context to this history. She inspired a delight in detail and nuance. She made it possible for us to challenge norms. But most importantly she brought us into the history and life of our complete family in a way that was encouraging, non-discriminatory, and life affirming. 

"You Don't Look Indian."

Detail of painting by Greg Deal

During an American Anthropological Association meeting in Denver, Nov. 18-23, 2015, I took some time to visit the Denver Art Museum.  Leaving aside the touristic complements - it is a great museum- I was struck by the Native American art section, tucked discretely to the edges of the main complex. It is striking in its breadth and force of the works on display.

What caught my eye was the active installation by Greg Deal. He wasn't there during my visit but the studio and works underway touched on troubled issues of identity and who is the arbiter of our Indigenous identities.  This was an installation that gave me serious pause for thought.

All throughout my personal and professional life matters of my own social identity have lurked and disrupted. What child wants to be confronted with racialized slurs on the playground? More disruptive are the stories in families hidden in the background. It is as though they wait, like a malevolent being, for that moment to derange our sense of well being. Most people are familiar with these sorts of stories. Yet there is something about racialzied stories that intersect with and become entangled in the struggles of working class lives that feel heavy, they adhere to our own lives even as those childhood memories fade. One can close our eyes to these injuries but they adhere nonetheless.

It wasn't until I was in my late teens that my mother told my why it had been important to my father that I participate in Scouts. She told me this after some friends and I challenged what we felt was a racially discriminatory plan by our Scout Group's advisory committee.

My father sat at the dinner table saying nothing as my mother said "When your father was a boy his father took him up to the church to sign up for Cub Scouts. But within a few minutes of arriving your grandfather stormed out and took your father home saying that was  waste of time."

"Didn't want any half breeds," my father said.

"That's why we wanted you join Scouts," my mother said.

That was it. That was the story. There is so much more.  If only racial violence and discrimination was about joining or not joining Boy Scouts. As I grow older I have been able to review in my mind the many stories told to me, the things I have witnessed, the half finished accounts, the fragments of thought and see in them the violence of self doubt and self hatred engendered by the settler. Writing about this past, especially as it intersects with my present, is one way to excise the ghosts of racism and violence.

Several decades later I was sitting down with an uncle of mine. We were working together on a project concerning aboriginal rights and title in the Prince Rupert area. In preparation for a series of interviews with elders and hereditary leaders we were discussing the various questions we wanted to ask, how to best phrase them in our Indigenous language, and what issues best left to another time.

"Can you think of any special places, areas of town important to know about?"

"Well, my father always told us that when we got off the boat here at Cow Bay, to walk straight up town along 3rd. He told us about places not to go, where we need to keep away from. Some parts of town you had to stay away from. It wasn't safe."

From a conversation about traditional territory we shifted seamlessly to a story about navigating a dangerous settler landscape and keeping safe.

Racism is more than discrimination, it's a transposition of the landscape that we have sprung from. Racism is about challenging our right to name our places and to name ourselves. In the same manner that a new grid of markers and names have been laid overtop of our Laxyuup (land/home), so too settlers are constantly trying to lay new names and markers upon our very bodies.  "You don't look Indian. . ."

Greg Deal's art confronts playfully, sarcastically, pointedly, ironically, the hypocrisies and violence of the settler and their society.  Coming across his installation in Denver was a breath of fresh air that took me away from the injuries of race and class and allowed me to laugh with him at this common pain we feel as Indigenous people today.