IN her veteran marine career, which includes being the first - and so far only - female harbour master at the port of Newcastle, Jeanine Drummond faced repeated bias.
"The most common one was people misjudging your role or your title or job, so they assume you are doing something different," she says.
"For example, coming onto the bridge of the ship, and seeing me and the person in question would talk to the chief officer when I was the captain - that happens a lot.
"My way of dealing with it was to say 'My name is Jeanine, I am the captain, or harbourmaster', so very quickly being assertive and correcting it and hopefully imparting education, so on the next occasion when that person sees a female in that role they don't make the same mistake."
Ms Drummond, now general manager of her consultancy business Integral Maritime, is a keynote speaker at HunterNet's International Women's Day Luncheon on March 8 at Merewether Surfhouse.
The "break the bias" IWD theme resonates for Ms Drummond, whose former Port Authority of New South Wales roles include harbour master of Newcastle and Yamba and general manager (operations) and deputy harbour master of Sydney port.
"The maritime industry is so male-represented it is often hard to see the women in the higher roles," she says, noting that less than two per cent of seafaring or mariner roles are filled by women, who represent up to five per cent of shore-based, operation roles.
Ms Drummond's move into consultancy work has offered her opportunities to mentor women both formally and informally.
"I've been able to look for opportunities to raise more awareness of gender diversity, particularly in the heavy industries that are male-dominated, including maritime, construction and mining," she says, "where there is work still needed to break down barriers."
She believes diversity in in the workplace, "doing the right thing socially and ethically and giving all people equal opportunities to succeed", is vital.
"Having people who think differently and have different backgrounds, skills or views of the world - when that is truly effective in a business work sense in an environment where people are working together, you deliver better results," she says.
"It's challenging people's ideas and thoughts when people don't all think the same but you have to have an inclusive culture for that to work well, where views are respected and you can have robust conversations in a respectful way."
A truly diverse and inclusive work culture, she says, reduces the likelihood of sex discrimination, harrassment and even sexual assault, and it was important that companies invested in targeted education to support that outcome.
"Sometimes I feel like we leave it to the marginalised groups to hold others accountable for improving workplace behaviour and culture and that can be an intimidating world so we need more education and tools for everyone," she says.
HunterNet industry advisor Boris Novak said there were many employers across the Hunter, including many large employers, that do have a progressive approach to diversity and inclusion.
"HunterNet's IWD event seeks to shine a light on just some examples of those, to inspire not only women and school leavers into non-traditional roles, but also to increase the number of employers to considering that greater diversity is not just nice to have, but essential to capturing the full scope of capability availability to them from within society," he said.
NBN newsreader Natasha Beyersdorf will lead the HunterNet luncheon, with businesswomen Ms Drummond, Clare Sykes and Sonia James speaking. Tickets are available via TryBooking.
