Female sailors aboard HMAS Success faced sexist slurs, insults

SYDNEY - The Australian warship HMAS Success has once again come into the spotlight with an inquiry being told that female sailors aboard the ship faced repeated sexist slurs and insults.

The incident had taken place last year when the ship was deployed to southeast Asia and China, and one particular episode had even reduced one of them to tears, the inquiry, headed by Roger Gyles, QC was told, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.

“I have just been with a prostitute. Maybe I should f— another prostitute, which is you,” the inquiry was told one sailor told a female colleague he approached during a stopover at Manila.

Leading Seaman Sarah Jane Akil said she had drunk excessively and had become involved in a slanging match with a chief petty officer in Manila. She said she had been provoked.

“You are a f—ing shit communicator. You are a damned bitch. I don’t know how you got into the navy,” Akil said a male leading seaman had said at the LA Cafe in Manila.

He had called her a “f— dickhead”, and later a “f—ing Lebanese dickhead”.

She had screamed at him that he was “a loser, a f—ing insecure dickhead” and Petty Officer Thompson had told her she should leave the bar. But it was only she who had been told to leave.

She had called Petty Officer Thompson “a f—ing shit regulator” and he thought his department was “untouchable”.

The hearing into the matter is still continuing. (ANI)