WA Women’s Hall of Fame inductee Carol Dooley has been in male-dominated environments since she was a teenager, experiencing first-hand what it’s like to be an anomaly in the workplace.
Cpt Dooley grew up in South Hedland, hating school with a passion. In Year 11 she told her parents she wanted to leave school, and they gave her an ultimatum: finish Year 12 or get a job. Cpt Dooley chose the latter.
In her mid-teens, Cpt Dooley did an electrical apprenticeship at the Mt Newman Mining Company in Port Hedland, which was a daunting prospect for her mother.
“Mum was not keen because she knew I’d be the only 16-year-old girl on the site with 500 men, and no other women,” Cpt Dooley said.
“But Dad said ‘fine, if she wants to, give it a go’.”
Six years into her career, Cpt Dooley got to sail on the Leeuwin II for the Bicentenary Tall Ships Race, where she fell “in love” with the mariner’s life.
Cpt Dooley quit her electrical job six months later to work on tall ships.
“I started to build up my seat time and my qualifications for seagoing,” Cpt Dooley said.
“After eight years I had enough sea time to go for a deep-sea ticket called second mates.”
From there, Cpt Dooley began working on liquid natural gas tankers which took her around the globe.
While crossing the seas, she was also climbing sea-faring ranks: promoted to chief officer, international ship master, and then foreign-going unlimited ship master.
Cpt Dooley says she was “probably one of the first, if not the first” female master on an LNG ship, once again finding herself the only woman amongst fleets of men.
“It’s all very ranked, and structured,” Cpt Dooley said, “so mostly I had no trouble with the people I was sailing with.
“Because if you’re the captain, people can’t really question that because rank has its privileges.”
However, there was always an extra wariness around Cpt Dooley, as there were so few women in the industry, and she felt an intangible barrier between her and the crew.
“You never got to be ‘one of the team’ or ‘one of the boys’,” she said.
“Traditionally masters and chief engineers are the top two in their ranks and they become like family and friends.
Distance
“But I always felt there was a little bit of distance between me and the chief engineers.
“…except I did marry one,” Cpt Dooley laughs.
It was a different story, however, when Cpt Dooley and her husband decided to retire from sea.
Cpt Dooley joined the maritime piloting industry, guiding and assisting large ships in and out of port.
It was here she encountered intense sexism and misogyny, unprotected by the rank she had worked so hard for in her previous job.
“Some pilots only get to the rank of second or first mate and then they go into pilotage, whereas I’d sailed as a master,” Cpt Dooley said. “I think they felt threatened by that, and about women being in authority as well.”
Being the only woman in a position of power amongst thousands of men is tiring because the scrutiny of your ability is constant, Cpt Dooley says.
“You’re seen as a figurehead or a representative of the gender,” she said.
“You’ve always got to keep up that image of ‘you’ve got to be perfect or above perfect’, even beyond reproach.
“You feel you’ve got to go harder, further, be smarter and do a better job than the blokes just to prove that women can do this and that there’s nothing wrong with us.
“You’re carrying a load as well as trying to just do the job.”
After a brief stint in pilotage, Cpt Dooley changed tack completely and became a motorcycle postie.
“I was just totally over men and marine,” she said with a laugh.
“Right up to my eyebrows, I’d had enough.”
She only stayed off the boats for three months though, and Cpt Dooley was soon back working for a company piloting ships up and down the WA coast.
Cpt Dooley also joined the board of the Australian Maritime College and the National Maritime Training Centre at the University of Tasmania, the first woman to do so.
She has recently retired.
Despite the tribulations, Cpt Dooley says her career was “great”: a rich and fascinating combination of skill and environment.
“It’s a fantastic job,” Cpt Dooley said.
“You’ve got this huge vessel under your responsibility, this fine-tuned control of a huge site.
“It’s like controlling a block of flats around: if it hits the wharf too fast, it’s going to take out the wharf.
“You don’t want to mess it up at all.”
Cpt Dooley says the maritime industry is becoming more welcoming for young women.
“When I first became a marine pilot, there were two of us in WA, and about three on the whole of the east coast,” Cpt Dooley said.
“Now there must be more like about 20 Australian female pilots.”
by KATHERINE KRAAYVANGER