At long last, true progress can be seen breaking through the glass ceiling of yet another reactionary institution as Lloyds List, the world’s oldest shipping industry newspaper, announces that it intends to drop the demeaning practice of referring to ships as she and will, from now on, use the the more gender-neutral and inoffensive word ‘it’.
“Mr Bray, 38, who has been the editor for two years, said: “I decided that it was time to catch up with the rest of the world, and most other news organisations refer to ships as neuter.”
A very welcome, if overdue, recognition of the diversity and multi-navigational reality of modern shipping and another sign of the imminent demise of the white male hetero-sailist orthodoxy which has always sought to marginalise and persecute differently-ruddered ships and hold them back with the anchors of oppressive language.
Not all ships are TransAtlantic; some are TransGendered, cruising the lonely sea-lanes at night to find solace and company in a world which refuses to even acknowledge their existence!
The first faltering steps to their liberation have been taken as ships everywhere find the courage to shout: “I’m coming out of dry-dock. I’m Tran-Sport and I’m Prow(d)”
