They accused her of being responsible for the blockade of the Suez Canal while she was not on the ship

Marwa Elselehdar, 29, is the first Egyptian ship captain, and when Ever Given blocked the Suez Canal, she realized that people were pointing to her as the main culprit … but she wasn’t sure the boat.

Many netizens were using social media to share a spoofed screenshot of a fake Arab Times headline claiming she was in command of the ship when it got stranded.

The news surprised Elselehdar, who was working as a first officer on the ship Aida IV near Alexandria, hundreds of miles away. And that was not all. People started creating Twitter accounts with his name claiming responsibility and then spreading the false rumors.

“I felt like it could be a target maybe because I’m a successful woman in this field or because I’m Egyptian, but I’m not sure,” she told the BBC this weekend.

The International Maritime Organization notes that only 2% of the world’s seafarers are women, and 94% of these women work in the cruise industry.

So it makes sense, unfortunately, that Elselehdar had a backlash for his very presence. She was the first woman to enroll in the Egyptian Naval Academy and was captain of the Aida IV when it was the first ship to cross the newly expanded Suez Canal in 2015.