Customer Reviews

She Captains: Heroines and Hellions of the Sea

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People may think that the womens' movement began in the 1960s or '70s, but the ladies whose stories are told in this book prove that female empowerment was alive and kicking on-board clipper ships and at the helm of pirate cutters long before Gloria Steinem was a gleam in her mother's eye. This book tells the stories of numerous fascinating female buccaneers who could be just as ruthless as their male counterparts and hold sway over crews of male sailors. Even if you're familiar with Anne Bonny and Mary Read, you will learn about many of their lesser-known compatriots and their world. This is an intriguing study of women in a career that has been generally relegated to the male realm in popular thought.

In general this is a collection of stories of women associated with seafaring. Not all were 'captains', but that's not really material to the focus of the book, which is to provide the reader with ample examples of women who worked in the maritime trade (in one way or another).

The topics range from royalty and psuedo-royalty, to pirates, to wives. For the most part the women are of strong character and know what they want. Druett, writes well and the stories are entertaining and well researched.

I'm still in the middle of this book. The subject matter is interesting, but it skims over the tales too quickly (e.g., how and when were Rackham et al captured?). Druett also jumps around too much - mixing the tales of more than one woman who were unrelated in terms of place and time.

In addition, the book really bothered me for its lack of quality research. The author relied too much upon myths and stereotypes to embellish her story. In particular, the chapter about the Vikings contained a lot of misinformation, most from romanticized tales from the Victorian era. A 30-second web search would have told her that the Vikings didn't wear horned helmets, that they ate a lot more than plain, boiled meat (as traders and farmers, they had access to a variety of fruit, vegetables, herbs, and spices), etc. They were a lot more sophisticated than Druett made out.

It's fine as light reading and a quick overview of the topic, but the devil's in the details.

I have both the hard cover and the kindle version now and I am VERY disappointed that the pictures are all missing what's up with that?

In this book Ms Druett explores the lives and roles of female mariners from the warrior queens of the 6th century BC to the female shipowners who were influential in opening the Northwest Passage in the 19th century. Some names will be known to keen students of maritime exploration and history, others will not.

Not all of the women named commanded their own ships. Consider Lady Jane Franklin: her husband, Sir John Franklin, lost his life seeking the Northwest Passage. Lady Jane used her influence and money to try to find Sir John's lost Arctic expedition. Her persistence resulted in the discovery of relics which proved that Sir John's expedition had discovered the Northwest Passage.

If you are seeking a female captain, it is hard to go past Grania ny Maille (Grace O'Malley). Her life has inspired novelists, musicians and playwrights. An interesting story it is, too: Grania was an Irish loyalist, as well as a pirate. She met with Queen Elizabeth I at Greenwich Palace: each had a list of demands which neither of them honoured completely.
Many women pretended to be men in order to work at sea and obtain the higher wages paid to men. Some captains and other officers took their wives (and others) to sea. The influence of Emma, Lady Hamilton on Lord Nelson is also mentioned.

While I enjoyed this book: it goes some way to debunking the myth that only men were influential in matters maritime, it was in some ways disappointing. I think that this was because Ms Druett frequently concentrated more on identifying the variety of roles women had played rather than detailed discussion. Still, the book has opened other reading horizons to me and I value this.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

"She Captains" is a historical survey of women who have sailed, rescued sailors, or had significant influence on sailing endeavors. Episodes range from Queen Artemisia who contributed 5 ships to battle Xerxes at Salamis in 480 BC to
Beatie Fry's running a training ship for future sailors until her death in 1946. Author Joan Druett presents women sea warriors Atwilda "the Danish Female Pirate" and the Danish raider Alfhild who "exchanged woman's for man's attire, and, no longer the most modest of maidens, began the life of a warlike rover." Included are Mary Read who went to sea dressed as a man and with Anne Bonny had a successful pirate career until her capture in 1720. Druett tells of women went to sea dressed as men out of economic necessity such as Elizabeth Stephens and some to accompany lovers like Jeanne Bare, probably the first woman to complete a world circumnavigation in 1769.

The book provides opens doors into a fascinating aspect of nautical history and includes comprehensive source information on each chapter. Illustrations by Ron Druett throughout add to visualization of the adventures of sea-fairing women.

This book did not get off to a good start, given that it was supposed to be about great female sailors. In the introduction, the author mentions Tomyris, who killed Cyrus the Great in a (land) battle. Also, Hero (of Hero and Leander) who drowned herself, which is sort of like sailing, only without the floating. There were also Chinese Fox Fairies (not so much with the swimming foxes), Valkyries, Amazons, and a missionary princess who sailed to Ceylon to spread Buddhism. So at least that last one rode in a boat once.

The book gets slightly more on-topic after the introduction is over, mentioning famous female pirates like Anne Bonney, Mary Reed, Cheng I Sao, and Grace O'Malley. However, I got the impression that the author didn't really have enough information to write an entire book, and had to fill it out with quite a few stories of women married to or involved with sailors, but who were not in fact sailors themselves. Still, some of the stories were engaging, if thinly researched, and there was some interesting information about women in the whaling industry. This book is of more use as a starting point for research than a reference in and of itself.