The article is aimed at identifying the role of women in the gender structure of the Soviet merchant marine and reconstructing gender stereotypes about women seafarers within and outside the professional community in the 1960s and 1970s. To reach the goals the authors employ the approaches of microhistory and oral history. The main primary source for the research is the series of 19 interviews with the veterans of the Far Eastern Shipping Company collected from June 24, 2019 to January 20, 2020 as a part of the research project “Marine Vladivostok: Daily Practices and Professional Culture of Merchant Marine Seamen of the Late Soviet Period”. The interviews were supplemented by a wide range of published sources such as statistical data, regulations, press, memoirs, fiction, and films. The authors characterize the range of positions occupied by women on merchant marine vessels most often and the responsibilities associated with them as well as analyze the motives for choosing a seafaring profession. Special attention is paid to identifying scenarios for the formation of stereotypes about Soviet women seafarers placed against the wider background of the gender order of post-war Soviet society and its transformations. read in PDF>>>
