How did women manage to hide their gender at sea?

That is a really interesting thing when you consider that there were some who pretended to be men in order to be able to serve on a ship and even managed to remain undiscovered for a longer period of time. Certain circumstances played into their hands. For one thing, the crew, many of whom were boys or young men from about 9 to their mid-20s.Together with the clothing, which consisted of a loose shirt, a waiscoat or jacket, baggy trousers or petticoat breeches and a handkerchief around the neck, made it easy for the women to hide their curves. And since everyone wore their hair tied up long in a pigtail or ponytail, it wasn’t very noticeable either. But what many had to do was, if their breasts were too big, to tie them flat so that they didn’t stand out. So they were just mistaken for a young man in his teens or early twenties. Like Ann Johnson, the daughter of a shoemaker, who even served as Able Seaman in 1849. Her appearance was described as that of a handsome boy aged 16-17, even though she was already in her twenties.

Mary Ann Talbot (1778 - 1808) donned male clothes and enlisted as a sailor during the Napoleonic Wars; she was wounded in 1794 and later captured by the French. She returned to London in 1796 but the following year was seized by a pressgang, shown here, and was forced to reveal her gender (x)

A much bigger problem was the daily need to go to the toilet. Because these facilities were more than primitive on a ship and rather practical in nature, because if it was necessary, well, then they just peed over the railing or used a urinal. Otherwise the men went to the head. The area in the bow behind the figurehead that served as a toilet. Many probably always went to the head, but it is also known that some used a small tunnel made of horn or metal as an aid to avoid attracting attention.

You would think that the ladies would have one more thing that would expose them. Because a comrade who bled once a month for a good week was something unusual. But there are no notes in historical writings about it. According to historians today, there are three theories. One is that the women on board lived such ferociously active lives that, like modern athletes in training today, they may have ceased to have periods. In case of prepubescent girls, the hard life and poor diet could have delayed the onset of puberty for several years. Another theory is that so many seamen suffered from a range of diseases and ailments including piles and gonorrhea that they were not likely to comment on one of their number having bloodstained clothing on occasion.

Considering these points, it was quite possible for women to pretend to be men and hide their true gender in order to serve as sailors at sea.

every day. I get so close to screen capping something stupid I wrote and posting it for attention

i will say, it is turning out really fluffy. thanks to a certain James God damn laurie

This will never NOT be funny

I’m so glad this is on tumblr

My favourite thing about this is, he didn’t even have to call him ‘Captain’ he could have used the screen-name but he was SO MARRIED TO THE IMMERSION that he DID.

Passenger: CAPTAIIIIN!!!

Captain: y-yeah?

Passenger: LOOOOOOOK!

(FULL BLAST PIRATES OF THE CARRIBEAN MUSIC)

my fav.

Fun fact, the developers of this game loved this video so much that they made it an official advertisement of the game

Who is it?💕

Aaaaaa obsessed with him

fair enough!! personally I’m planning to use it as a motivation to write lol. you don’t have to do a ton; some people just do a few drawings and leave it at that. but if you do join, that would be so fun!

OK…..here we go https://artfight.net/~Ganymedian