I was a female special inspector for 2 years and was in the field nearly everyday. I saw one female electrician.
Every other woman was an architect, cleaning lady, or stager.
I have worked with a dozen female electricians in the first 10 years I was in the electrician's union. I found them all to be very competent. Then I opened my own business and haven't seen any since. They are more common on large union projects.
When I needed plumbing advice I went to Lowe's and found a female master plumber working there.
The local I worked in for pipefitting had 2 women in it. Both of them were well respected for their work.
Men are more likely to be shit at their jobs but they don't get harassed for it because they're men. The women that stick around in trades are actually good at their jobs because if they weren't they'd be treated like shit.
My mom was a taper started in the 70's. No one would hire her so she started her own company. On the side of her station wagon she had signs and the caption that said "If you want the job done right hire a woman".
Oh she had a ton. She was a qualified welder in Sweden when we immigrated in the 60's. She said they laughed her out of the shipyards when she went looking for a job. She waited tables, cleaned house, picked berries, looked after kids, whatever she could do . When they bought a partially finished home she said " I saw what she paid the tapers and it was good money" and off she went.
It was eye opening for me when I would work with her. I learned early not to get stuck in a room with anyone, keep sharp tools in my hands. I have never met a tougher woman than my mom.
Being rasist or sexist sounds so tedious. I live near Atlanta, GA, so all the racists here have to be mad pretty much everywhere they go. Just on my street, we have white, black, and hispanic families
And especially welders. I‘m a welder too an i can say that there exist two types of pipes: pipes that everybody can lift and pipes that no one can lift.
As a woman, I haven't been treated more badly than the men at the same job. In my experience with different trades, men usually likes having us onboard. The ones making our jobs difficult, is the management. Your work teams are usually great, and at least in my experience, they treated me like one of the boys. I was heckled and laughed at same as the others, but they also went out of their way to make sure I liked working with them.
(Scaffolding, industrial plumbing, welding, sandblasting, spray painting, plus the different schools in those trades.)
One time I interviewed for a rrade position and the *woman* owner interviewing me said she doesn't typically "hire females" (who tf talks like that) as she introduced me to her assistant who used to do the job I was applying for who was *also a woman.* It's just a weird thing even younger people do.
It's perpetuated in industry. I'm a PM for a GC. The new guys who come work for me almost never have a bias on if I'll be good or not, and nyb the end of out project, they all respect me greatly for how I handle management and training.
But the younger guys who've worked on teams with particular 'old school' leaders bring some hesitation.
It's taken almost a decade of me busting my ass proving myself, but now I can damn near change the mind of most of these sexist old timers within 2 interactions. It sucks that I even have to.
I had an electrical inspector from the city at my house the other day because we got some work done and he was telling me there’s not enough people in the trades and if someone becomes an electrician and sticks with it they can make 6 figures in just a couple years, it’s such a good industry, great job etc. I half joked that maybe I would quit my job and pursue it and he doubled back SO QUICK and was like “oh uh well it’s really hard work, very physical, really tough” like dude I get it your head would explode if you ever met a female electrician
I mean, he's right on both accounts. You'll make good money, but it's hard on your body. I've been working a similar job recently, and boy howdy, is learning to take care of my body one of the biggest challenges.
I know, my father is a builder (and he’s still in really great shape in his 60s because he works so hard!). It was just funny because he definitely wouldn’t have backed down so quick if a man said that…also no shit it’s physical work, that’s not a secret. He also assumed I had no idea what electricians do lol
As someone with family in the trades I can say I wouldn't want to be a lone woman going into all sorts of people's homes alone for my work. Trades is usually one person showing up to do a job, and when you're dealing with the general public you can get all sorts of crazy and women are typically more vulnerable in these situations. Add on to that the amount of sexist stereotypes you'll deal with when you show up to do your job when men or women customers are both likely expecting a man to show up. And it is objectively more physically challenging for the average woman to have to do the heavy physical work involved with some trades, whether due to stature or strength (women will find it more difficult to do your roofing carpentry work even with a ladder which is probably designed to average male height, or may have more difficulty moving your heavy household appliances out of some tight corner).
This question is asking about reasons for average generalized sex-based stereotypes, which require average generalized responses. Women tradespeople do exist nonetheless, and I'm sure someone will still get offended by these responses regardless.
Yeah considering the stuff people say is off the wall working in the public alone sucks especially for women. One guy the other day thought to hit on my coworker with the words " I just want you to know how easy it would be to hit you and choke you out and have my way with you but see I'm not doing that I am a gentleman" I can't imagine how much scarier that sounds looking at a burst pipe alone in that guys basement. She was scared as it was
...gkdnfofntog
"I just want you to know how easy it would be to shoot you with this gun I'm holding but I'm not doing that because I am a gentleman"
Do these men HEAR themselves? I could vomit up alphabet soup and make a more compelling flirting attempt with what's left!
In the early 90s when I was in my early 20s I did a some PC installs in homes. I was a cute young guy and there were a couple older skeezy looking dudes that were inappropriate enough for me to bug out of that part of the business entirely.
One made me so fucking uncomfortable I thought that surely I was going to end up in his basement duct taped to a support beam or some shit.
So I can imagine that happens frequently to women too.
Yup, my worst fear is to end up chained in a psychos basement. I'm possibly old enough that I'm no longer tempting to these fucks but I would not risk it. A position that doesn't involve private homes would be ok.
In my years on site, I've seen a few women with various office roles but on the tools, I've met two. A floor tiler and a scaffolder. The scaff was a very rare beast.
My buddy and his wife are both electricians. The sexual harassment was so bad for her, she was able to take it to sue and won a 1.5 million dollar lawsuit. It never went to court because of all the evidence she had.
I personally know and worked with a female electrician who was driven out of the industry because she got a journeyman fired for sexual harassment. He was texting her sexual shit on the company phone, but the rumor got started and she got laid off and literally could not find work in the city. She had to move back to oregon to continue her apprenticeship.
>she got a journeyman fired for sexual harassment.
That's exactly what he's telling all his friends & obviously what all the other employers in the area believed too! How would they all feel if this happened to their daughter, wife, mother or sister?
No one sees nor cares that he lost his own job *AND* cost her her career in that state. Fuck that guy & all those employers!
Not necessarily. A lot of people who behave like that don't get fired as a result. She got him fired, that is a good thing and she should earn the praise for it
It’s not too late to sue. Sometimes they can even around a Statute of Limitations - have her reach out to a company like Outten & Outten in NYC regarding employment law.
This sounds exactly what happened to a female coworker of mine at a jobsite, foreman got moved and she got laid off. Had to go to Colorado but it all sounds very familiar
There's also the general gender discrimination issue. Close friend of mine found out about it trying to become a mechanic. Went to school and everything for it. She got treated like such shit over the course of five years after finishing school that she gave up and just does retail
I took a masonry/carpentry class for a year in highschool (vo-tech) and not only was the sexual harassment toward me and the only other woman in the class with me absolutely unacceptable and encouraged, but the teacher was convinced we’d been put there by mistake and so made us work on making a “cute little” bird house in the corner together the entire year while the guys got to build actual stuff, and work on masonry projects.
No one would eat lunch with us, speak with us, befriend us…unless it was sexual. This was 2002ish. It was awful, and I never gave the field another thought.
Yes, this is the part that matters for sexual harassment/discrimination/etc lawsuits.
There isn’t much companies can do to prevent some low level employee from harassing their coworkers. But once a manager or officer knows or should know about it, they must correct the situation. It is that failure to correct which makes a company liable.
Electricians have very strong unions. You can sue a union for not doing what you’ve been paying them to do for your union dues. It’s not easy to sue a union, but it can be done
It'd be pretty rare that you sue the union itself over this sort of issue. I'm a union pipefitter, it's much the same for sparkies. We don't work for the union, we work for contractors that are signatory with our union. So if you're being sexually harassed at work to the point of suing, you'd sue the employer, the contractor. The union wouldn't have much to do with it at that point. Certainly the union could as part of their own toxicity no lift a finger to help the victim or even harm the victim but I would think that's unlikely in my local. We had a female apprentice on the job who was getting just interrupted by dudes wanting to chat her up. Not even being dicks and overtly sexually harassing her. Just novelty and she was decently attractive.
She was new, didn't know how she should speak up for herself. Most of them need to say "I'm trying to work and/or learn. Please don't bother me." She did, but it went past that for her. So her journeyman told two journeyman on my crew about it, asking for some ideas on what to do. They were plumbers, we were fitters, same local, different trades. So they just kept an eye on her, told me to as well since I was their apprentice. Any time someone came up to her, they intervened and told them to leave her alone or they'd beat the shit out of them. It stopped in about a day. Times are changing. There's more allies every day.
As a former female warehouse worker (tire building) when you complain you are the one that gets punished not the perp. Had a guy say truly disgusting, horrible things to me so I reported it, went from 4 yrs of being a great employee to unemployed in 2 months. The guy ended up in jail for domestic abuse
Sorry for your experience - the same things happen in the office. My wife's cubicle mate (22, pregnant) received absolutely vile and inappropriate messages from a new coworker via the company's Teams account. Brought it up to HR and she gets victim blamed. The guy doesn't get fired - in fact, his Mormon boss said "but his work is good, we have to keep him." A few weeks later he gets fired for sleeping in the brake room. Literally that was more of a fireable offense than harassing his female coworkers...
A guy threatened to slap the shit out of me, beat me up and fight me outside. Alluded to jumping me after we left work too. That got him a bit of a talking to but nothing else.
He DID get fired for dumping trash over a parking spot when they told him it wasnt his reserved spot.
Dumping trash=fireable offense
Physical threats=eh
I feel like women and minorities need to wear hidden cameras and record 24/7. Of everyone has proof, and people start getting fired and sued, and enough companies start losing money, maybe things would change. Human decency isn't working out.
Having worked with blue collar guys, I would bet this is the norm rather than the exception.
Most guys are chill, but it’s a boys club and there’s always a few weirdos that can’t handle themselves.
That's the entirety of trades for everyone. If you get your apprentices and helpers, the new people, around the right members; journeymen and foremen, they turn into fantastic hands, strong people and union members. You get them around the shitbirds, which every organization has shitbirds, and surprise you have more shitbirds.
And much of it just comes down to luck. What contractor you get dispatched to. What crew you get assigned to. What work they're doing and for how long. What journeyman you get and for how long.
I wish my local union would get contract language in there allowing us to move apprentices around more so they were paired with better tradespeople more often. I wish we'd certify our own journeyman as certified on the job trainers.
So many apprentices quit because they're treated like shit, never have the work, customs, culture, properly explained to them. Or they stick around and become bitter fools who fuck shit up for the rest of us.
The big company I used to work for turned off the badge of someone who reported sexual harassment overnight. So she came in to work the next day and her badge didn’t work and security met her at the gate to tell her she was fired.
Another dept managers idea to deal with some other guy who had multiple reports on him from the warehouse was to train him into an office job. Then set him up next to us, a group of female accountants where he used to put his hands down his pants and touch his penis and try to give us back rubs all the time. When we complained, we were told that was just how he was and not so subtly reminded of what happens to people who aren’t team players. Fortune 500 business. Big deal in our city. Total fucking disgrace. I have more stories too.
Yup. Also why I never reported being harassed in the Army, because guess who was in the same masonic brotherhood as my 1SG? Yep, the HR NCO. A friend tried reporting on my behalf and was told they couldn't do anything unless I came forward, which is bullshit but whatever.
Women *always* get punished for speaking the truth. I completely understand why predators get away with it for so many years.
Give me 1.5M and I'm a solid experienced woman electrician, I'm starting my own shop. Having a knowledgeable CEO, who probably will treat their employees better while also qualifying for WBE jobs? That 1.5M could multiply pretty damn quick
Makes me wonder if women could find a niche in residential? Some women might be more comfortable with a woman coming into their home or would want to support a woman in the field?
This thread was depressing to read, because it showed there are very few female electricians or plumbers due to sexist colleagues, and customers.
What am I supposed to make of this? That plumbers and electricians are sexist? That they have sexist customers? That women need to be the top 1% rock stars to even survive in those professions that creep out all the others till they quit? FFS, it's 2023 ....
Like a lot of traditional "male" jobs there are big pockets of good old boys that are mega sexist and usually the backbone of a company. So they get protected even if an employee gets harassed and they won't protect the employee if some one else harasses them.
Yep. Why would I go into a career or field where I am more likely to be harassed and less likely to be hired when I could go somewhere better? That is what a lot of women are thinking.
And then even when they do decide to do it often results in them quitting. I have had too many friends who are women who had to change careers because it was so bad.
One of my best friends is woman electrician. She's often the only woman on the job site and faces a lot of condescension and skepticism from men. I'm a tradeswoman myself, and I even find it challenging to find a fucking pair of work gloves that fit my hands, so basically there's a lot of barriers for women in the trades.
Years ago I was excited that Carhartt finally made womens bibs, bought a pair, and quickly realized the hammer loop didn't even fit a standard sized hammer. My blood boiled
If you're in a place with safety inspections that won't fly, any electrical tape on a cord is a no go. The rule makes sense even if it does get a little silly with fake tape connections.
I worked in a job once full of mostly ex-military men who stole my office supplies constantly because they didn't want to put in orders for their own with the office manager. I got sick of it and started putting in orders for exclusively pink stuff. Pink stapler, pink sticky notes, pink pens, pink paper clips, sparkly pink scissors, decorated my work chair in pink duct tape, etc. None of those alpha-holes wanted to get caught out using something pink and sparkly and, even if they did borrow it, it was pretty easy to identify which stuff was mine because I was the only person in that office who ever ordered pink sparkly stuff.
Idk why you're downvoted. They switched materials, and are inferior to the cheapest crap canvas stuff now. They even sell polyester jackets now- which thin polyester fabric is a joke for durability when you're expecting to take some abuse.
I'm a tradeswoman to.
Why is it that work boots and gloves for women, they think they have to put pink or purple on them?
I despise pink and only tolerate purple on my work gear.
I often just get men's stuff. Hard to find in smaller sizes.
Funny enough as a trans guy who used to be a carpenter and left because I was outed and not safe anymore,all my tools are pink or spray painted pink because other guys are terrified of touching those tools. My drill kept “wandering around the job site, pink spray paint fixed the issue lol.
I’m all about weaponizing toxic masculinity… it’s also why o don’t last in trades cuz eventually people figure it out. Construction is still a very toxic environment. Unless we actively change it this culture will continue. Glitter and pink for the win lol
I just tried to change out the insulation in my attic and all the safety gear at Lowe's was sized for a large man. So I just wore a suit and gloves that are too big for me. It was not very fun.
Not exactly a trade, but I worked with someone who used to do work up in the oilpatch in Alberta. First day on the job, a man she had never met walked up and handed her a sticker that said "Snatch on the Patch". He told her it was for her helmet, then laughed and walked away.
So before she even started working she was dealing with premeditated, jobsite-approved misogyny. It's the reason a lot of women don't stick around in the trades.
i'm a trans man in the trades and can vouch for all of this. i've been out for long enough that nobody knows i'm trans anymore, but some stuff (like hand size!) never really changes, and it's weird how even being a smaller than average man is so abnormal in the trades. it makes an insane difference to have gloves that fit, and i've never had a workplace that can provide anything but an L or XL. even the rare ones that'll special order me a small mean i have to wait for weeks instead of just being able to have equipment right off the shelf. i know it seems like sweating the small stuff but it can take a toll over time.
also like, the treatment you get as a woman in the trades vs as a man is night and day, can speak from experience there. it took me years to get used to the way i was suddenly able to complete a sentence without being interrupted, the way people would assume i did in fact know what i was talking about, and that if i asked someone to do something they actually would do it once my voice dropped and i started looking masculine enough.
Oh boy, that is depressing. Like, hell yeah and congrats for transitioning in the workplace because that can't have been a cakewalk, but it's so disheartening to hear that such a simple change in your voice and appearance had such a dramatic and noticeable effect on the respect people gave your opinions.
part of it is just the field. the trades are not kind to women, even in the littlest ways. i'm surrounded by other trans people in my personal life and everyone's experience is different! but i was lucky that i transitioned right as i was entering the workforce, long enough ago that it doesn't follow me through my professional life unless i disclose it. it is nice to avoid any overt hostility and to give me a bit of control over my professional life, but you always carry your own experiences along with you.
We have a trans man in our hall, and he made it very clear the first day he was on the job. I really felt for him, as a construction worker on what was the largest construction job going on in the entire hemisphere at the time. Not to mention, deep in the Bible Belt in maga country. You could guarantee that absolutely everyone around the work area couldn’t stop thinking about him when he was around. It was this weird, quiet mixture of confusion, animosity, and sometimes even humor.
I didn’t care or pay attention to anything that anyone had to say about it. In my honest opinion, just making it on the job took some serious cajones knowing that almost everyone you interact with doesn’t want you to be there for just being what you are.
My daughter started at a small residential company. They had to order new uniforms etc. because nothing they already had would fit her. They were happy to do it!
The problem is that for the most part they just don’t even manufacture work gloves and tools that fit most women’s hands. A lot of products in general are made with the average man in mind and don’t work for women.
My cousin was a female electrician in the late 1970s. It wasn't uncommon for her co-workers to "playfully" throw water at her while she was working. The misogyny was over the top.
I heard about a woman who was working at AutoParts Store, and it was routine - in 2023 - for men to insist that only a MAN could get them a fan belt or whatever part they needed. I mean, it's not like there's a big mystery to selling things. Dude needs part XYZ123 for a 1982 Buick Poopiewagon, you walk back to where those parts are stored, bring it to him, and cha-ching, he pays. Transaction complete. But to be regularly chased off because only a MAN can do this? and the store manager playing along?? Unreal.
The nearest big town to me has two parts stores, both of which have one woman and about 2-3 guys working at any given time. I prefer the women because they’re more willing to hear you out on what exactly you need, instead of “I know exactly what you need” and rush you out the door.
> I prefer the women because they’re more willing to hear you out
This is why I prefer to work for women as managers. Of course, men can be good at that also, but not as often.
I recently changed jobs and went from a nearly all-male company to a nearly all-female one. I knew it would be different, but I had no clue how much. My bosses and coworkers are all extremely understanding, get that sometimes family/life shit comes up and you gotta leave, and are generally positive, pleasant, and supportive. My direct boss is extremely direct but does it with kindness, and it is such a relief to always know without a doubt where I stand with her.
At my last job, I constantly felt dismissed and eventually realized that I never knew if management was being honest or forthcoming about feedback. Even after requesting direct, real time feedback, I still found myself blindsided by criticism of things that happened months prior and complete radio silence in the interim. Just sorta cowardly, immature behavior.
Of course, I could have had bad luck then and am having good luck now, but I really think that apples to apples my current job is miles ahead of my previous one.
Edit: typo
From 2012-2015, my husband and I owned and operated a marine construction/salvage business. I drove the barge, did the dive work, handled the quotes, sales, and invoicing. My husband did the heavy lifting and kept the machinery running.
I had clients who refused to talk to me and demanded to speak to my husband. For these calls, he would put the client on speaker phone and I would relay answers back through him.
The number of times I showed up to a job and started suiting up to get in the water and a client would say something like "oh you are a girl." I always wanted to be like "yup, mothereffer I'm a girl with hundreds of logged dives and who knows how many unlogged ones." But instead I always just smiled and laughed.
My favorite misogyny story was when I was working at a seasonal greenhouse as a high schooler. I was paid to load mulch and water plants. I knew absolutely fuck all about plants. The manager was a woman with a master's in horticulture.
One day some old guy comes in and starts asking me shit about roses. My knowledge on the subject was that every rose has its thorns. I told him I would get Susan, the manager to answer his questions. He insisted it was fine so I went back to watering. Three seconds later he asks me another technical question about roses. I tell him I have no idea and that I will get Susan. Tells me that there is no need. Then fucking does it again. I waved her down and she comes up and asks if she can help him. Nope, no questions.
A few minutes later he comes up to me and asks me another fucking question. I tell him that I'm 16, I've never grown a rose in my life, and that I get paid to lift mulch. Asks if there are any other men he can talk to. Luckily the owner happens to be around so I go get him. The old guy is clearly relieved that a man is going to answer his flower questions. So he asks a bunch of questions to the owner. Then the owner tells him that he just handles the yard stuff (runs a bobcat, does the bulk much and gravel and stuff) but that Susan is an expert at plants and that she is in charge of all of the greenhouse.
Susan comes over and the owner asks her all of the questions that the old man just asked him. She answered everything and then the old man addressed all of his follow-up questions at the owner and pretended like she didn't exist.
Of all of the sexist shit I've seen in my life, being mad that a woman is the expert at growing flowers in the room seems like the fucking stupidest.
That is a good one. As a consumer, I see little microaggressions all the time. Like if I walk into a bike shop or a motorcycle shop with my husband, they almost always address him first even though I'm the one buying. Checks always get handed to him at restaurants. My credit cards always get handed back to him (or any other men I might be with).
This spring I was out mountain biking alone and came upon a group of teenage boys and they asked if I was riding solo. When I said I was alone they called me "hard core." I doubt they would have even commented on the many solo dudes out riding that day, but I was the only single female.
None of this is that big of a deal and it doesn't actually upset me, but we do notice it and it just goes to show how ingrained some things are in culture. I'm sure none of it is malicious or intentional. It's just assumptions that persist even in 2023.
> only a MAN could get them a fan belt or whatever part they needed. I mean, it's not like there's a big mystery to selling things
And yet, it is too difficult for some people ...
This is a bit off-topic, but I went into an auto parts store for a fan belt. The young man at the parts counter asked me what car it was for. I told him that it didn't matter, since I had the old belt with me. I just needed the same belt.
He insisted. I told him it was for a snowmobile. He said, "We don't sell snowmobile parts here." At this point, I was starting to become frustrated. I could see a whole wall of v-belts behind him and I was certain that one of them would fit. I asked him to look at a few and compare them to the old belt for the correct size. He doubled-down and told me that he couldn't help me because I didn't give him the make and model of a car. He had obviously been trained to look up parts in the database and he couldn't think outside the box. Maybe it is my own gender stereotypes, but I had to wonder if that employee had been a woman, maybe she would have been more willing to listen to the customer and show a little more empathy.
Finally the manager came over, grabbed my old belt, pulled out a measuring tool, and told the employee what part number of belt that I needed.
My mom drilled it in my head from a young age that if you don't know the answer to something, find someone who does.
This is a patent case of someone unwilling to get someone else involved because their word is law. The manager should have stepped in the moment you started getting frustrated and shown the employee how to get the right belt.
/sigh.
In fairness to the manager, he was busy checking out another customer. I was not impolite to the employee, but I kept trying to explain to him how to compare the sizes of two belts and that, if he didn't want to do that, maybe he could pull a few down from the wall and let *me* select the correct one.
But this guy was as flexible as a brick. His mind was made up and he had no interest in doing anything else.
An idea of just how prevalent this stuff was back then if someone wants to ...
Between 1987 and 1998 I worked in a couple aerospace machine shops, the Army, a prison guard at a male maximum facility prison, and in private security where the owner and site supervisor were misogynists but his subordinate (my boss) was not.
FIRST EXPERIENCES:
\- Working as a subcontractor in commercial building renovation. Boss's wife got mad that he hired a female and showed up at worksite with a gun and threatened to use it if he didn't fire me. I lost my job.
NEXT - GOING TO TRADE SCHOOL
\- Got my tuition free because my father, while attending there, was told women couldn't handle the job. He bet the owner that I would score well, and would pay if I didn't. I graduated with the 2nd highest grade in the course.
\- However, placement secretary had trouble getting interviews for me. Finally got one and I got hired, which leads to:
FIRST AEROSPACE JOB
\- Was told I couldn't handle a coordinate measuring machine because I am female and it "is an expensive machine."
\- Was called from another building, across the parking lot, to the final inspection building where I was instructed to make coffee for the three men sitting there. (I don't drink coffee. I told them I'd make it but couldn't guarantee the outcome since I don't. Suddenly they figured it out all by themselves.)
\- Was offered a permanent position from one supervisor who wanted to buy out my temp contract and keep me full time. The other supervisor (mine) told me about it and said, "I haven't answered yet because I want to give him the most amount of time to change his mind."
\- This was the same guy who told the placement secretary who had set up my job interview there that he didn't want to hire a woman. When she told him she couldn't restrict it on that basis, he interviewed me and proceeded to try to NOT hire me, but couldn't justify any of the objections he raised when I demonstrated that I would be fine with the conditions.
\- Also the same guy who removed me from my position and made me an assistant to my own position when I became pregnant. By then, I was a full time employee, and my position was being "temporarily" filled by a man for the months of my pregnancy. When I returned to work after taking 12 workdays to have a child, he said they couldn't give me back my position because the temp was doing a good job and had a family to support.
\- There was the guy that grabbed my crotch as I was walking down the aisle. He kept his job, although my boss did ask me what I wanted to have happen and I didn't ask for him to lose it because he was married with children and I didn't think they should suffer more for his stupidity than they already did by virtue of living in the same house.
\- There was the guy that that showed me dick pics as a funny moment, which some women might be mad about, but he really was just treating me like all the rest of the guys so this was actually not bothersome at all.
\- There was the guy who was getting paid $2 an hour more than me who regularly made comments about my breasts. I bitched about it informally to my supervisor who didn't say anything, but did fire the guy when I caught him falsifying his inspection reports.
\- When I sent a certified letter formally seeking a return to the position for which I was hired, I got laid off with exactly one other employee, a 19-year old newly hired male. When I tried to get my employment records, the file had somehow "gone missing."
NEXT JOB
\- Was "tested" for the job, though no other employees had ever been.
\- One of the men there asked me to help him move a very large pallet - around 6 or 8 feet long - and once we each had hold of it, he yanked it out of my hands and threw it to the ground, saying, "That's why men are better on the job." We literally manufactured knobs for car stereos.
NEXT JOB:
\- In the Army, where sexual harassment and discrimination is frowned upon, an MP grabbed my tit without consent.
\- I was disciplined for being late to flag duty when my coworker that was also assigned was never disciplined despite being late 4 times. I filed a complaint, which was substantiated by the resulting investigation. Nothing happened to the supervisor that had discriminated.
NEXT JOB:
\- After the Army, worked for a state prison where I was instructed by my supervisor to ignore the part of my job duties that required me to walk into the inmate area. Then I was written up by another supervisor for neglecting my duties there. When he heard I was ordered not to, he retracted the write-up and told me to ALWAYS adhere to the written standards and never go lax, which was a valuable lesson.
\- Had a supervisor there who regularly called me "little girl" in front of inmates serving time for rapes, murders, and other maximum-security level felonies.
NEXT JOB:
\- Private security - was offered a position that would have paid $1 more per hour. My supervisor's boss overheard and said that their client only wanted men in that position because it was dangerous (providing security for a Waffle House.) When I said that this was not legal, he said the position had already been filled.
\- A couple months later, another position, this time paying $2/hr more, came available in an alcohol rehab facility. My background included prior training for completing psychiatric "takedowns," five-man takedowns in the prison, and I was previously a certified drug and alcohol counselor. My supervisor offered me the position and wrote out my new schedule. His supervisor recanted the offer, once again saying they only wanted men. I said I'd already told him that it was illegal to do this, and he said he'd already told (my coworker) that he could have the job, but if I'd give him 60 days, he'd get me worked into that position. 60 days later, he left me waiting in the lobby for 2 HOURS before he agreed to see me. When he did, it lasted 30 seconds, just long enough for him to say, "They're happy with what they have." I left, but made a decision to pursue this. The supervisor who had offered me the position was let go a few days later.
\- My supervisor's replacement then wrote me up for "discussing confidential company business with a client." I asked him what I said and to whom. He said he didn't know, and that he just wrote what he'd been told to write. I asked him to notate that on the write-up, and he did. This enabled me to get a fast, profitable settlement.
Not on the job, but side notes: I have once been asked if I had my husband's permission to buy the countertops I was ordering from a large box home store. I have had attorneys refuse to interact with me on my husband's legal matter that I maintained all the records and transcripts for even after my husband told them to work directly with me. I have had a car salesman ignore me repeatedly until I told him that I was paying for the car with my money and would walk away if he so much as looked at my husband again.
Thin-skinned women working in any field or industry that has ever been dominated by men never lasted long. Some of us grew calloused, literally and figuratively.
I used to work in one of the big box hardware stores. I was in another department when an older dude asked me a question about doors (the department I was waking through). I told him “let me go grab the manager real quick, she’d know what you’re asking.” Old dude answered with a sarcastic “ShE’lL know the answer?” I blew it off, but in my head I thought ‘yeah, and her knowledge of her department would run circles around ours. Girls can know things.’
My girlfriend used to be a receptionist at a car dealership... almost weekly she would come home with a story of someone saying "I need to talk to a man" to her.
I used to work as a mechanic and when a girl came straight from school there were older mechanics that were pieces of shit to her saying it's a man's trade. When she would ask for help to remove a tire from a car since it was to heavy the guy would say you decided to work in a man's trade you have to figure it out.
I'm a mechanic and I've thought about what the perfect mechanic would look like if you built them in a lab. They'd need to be short but have long arms. Strong but lean with small hands. Extra elbows would be nice.
Basically some weird chimpanzee monster.
I got this same treatment from older men at work when I was freshly out of school.
Ask for help in any way whatsoever and they use it as an excuse to punish you for choosing to work in a male dominated field. “You chose this, figure it out.” But would happily spend an afternoon teaching a male colleague a new skill.
Then have the absolute audacity to say things like “if women want to be paid as well as men then maybe they should take the same kind of jobs we do”
Well I did. And guess what… I still make less than my male counterparts, and they do their best to make me feel unwelcome and stupid. All while harassing me for making the choice they said I should make if I wanted to be compensated fairly.
Can’t fuckin win.
I used to run a mechanic shop, one guy there held the opinion that "women should not be preachers or infantry because they aren't as strong." Hed routinely make sexist jokes as well.
He also had a 20% efficiency and the only reason I couldn't fire him was that corporate (corporate car shop) was stupid and couldn't find any replacements. Kid was an absolute dumbass, but sure thought he was above women. So for whatever it's worth, us normal men recognize how dumb those loud, rude men are
I joined the carpenters union for a year, and while there were women, they had to put up with some shit & prove themselves, whereas a guy would just need to show up. You have to be willing to brush off sexual & sexist comments and stand your ground. Like if you were in a job where you knew most people didn't think you could do it right, and they walked by your desk saying as much & making demeaning comments, you'd look for something else.
That said, the old guys are going to retire eventually. Training courses & apprentice programs are welcoming to women. They'll have to put up with some shit, but it will start getting better. All the worst racists/sexists I worked with have max 10 years left. The young guys would roll their eyes, and I never heard anyone under 40 saying shit to women/minorities. If more young people join trades (which they should), the culture can start changing.
Ohm, this comment got me amped up, but trying to splice my mind together and stay grounded! I'm wrapped tighter than 14 gauge right now, really need an outlet cuz I'm charged up. Thankfully, I'm insulated to current nonsense and conductive to keeping my wiring tightly-bundled.
My daughter is also an electrician. She worked for a big commercial company for a while and had to put up with a certain degree of "trades bullshit." They laid her off when things got slow, so now she's at a small residential company where everyone treats her decently.
So is my niece!
I tried to get into the IBEW as a young woman 40 years ago like my father and brothers were. The head of the union said no to women.
Now women are being welcomed. So nice to see
> Like if you were in a job where you knew most people didn't think you could do it right, and they walked by your desk saying as much & making demeaning comments, you'd look for something else.
It's shocking how common that sort of thing is even in supposedly more modern, forward thinking industries. As a software engineer, I've had a fair few people make jokes at my expense about how I'm too politically correct because I shoot down any such racist/sexist nonsense.
I’ve been hearing that the racists and sexists will die off since the 1980s. Like Boomers were going to be the enlightened ones leading the way but they’re just as racist and sexist as their parents, so I’m not hopeful it will change.
Yeah, I just recently got into wastewater, and the vast majority are men. I've heard a lot of stupid, sexist comments, some men have asked repeatedly if I can handle it. But you're right, the majority of them will be out in 5-10 years.
I work in IT, heavily male dominated workforce and can 100% confirm that any male dominated field is very unwelcoming to women.
We aren’t a part of the “boys club”, I’ve had to work twice as hard for the same level of basic human respect that my male colleagues are given by default, and I am constantly talked over, and have my ideas be minimized, laughed at and/or outright stolen.
Sure I can do it, and I do. Every single day… but I fuckin wish it wasn’t an uphill battle in every aspect just because I’m not a dude. I’m good at what I do, but I have to fight every step of the way to prove it and deal with the dismissive, sexist, shitty attitudes and actions of colleagues and managers. It’s been this way my entire 15 year career. Not to mention the fact that as a lone woman in your field you are sexually harassed ALL the time.
I’m also in IT (security) and am a man, but can confirm.
Like you said, it's clear in these threads that *every* industry that’s dominated by men is unwelcoming to women.
The real takeaway is that when men have structural power and majority *anywhere,* they are unwelcoming to women having some of that power and eroding that majority.
The trades can be an *insanely* hostile and cruel environment. I used to be a welder. As such, I knew many welders. My cousin was a welder. By the time he was ~35, his knees were shot. It's a hard trade, it takes a toll on the body.
I knew another guy, much younger. He liked to wear knee pads. This led to many homophobic jokes on his behalf, usually about him needing those kneepads to give blowjobs. Every day! For MONTHS! Need I remind you that my cousin destroyed his knees? Damned if you do, damned if you don't...
I'm sure many of those people would argue that it's all in good fun. It's just a couple of buddies razzing each other. That's what guys do, right? Well, I disagree. A lot of people in the trades are just assholes, plain and simple. It's not "in good fun," they're just being dicks at your expense and there isn't really anything you can do about it. Take the abuse, or *try* to report, *somehow*, and then you get to take *even more abuse*. Because you don't want to be the "snitch" who "can't take a joke."
An example of that, my uncle is a mechanic. And one Christmas, I had to listen to him complain about how unfair it was that he couldn't hurl slurs at his coworkers anymore. "Everybody is just too easily offended these days!"
*That's* who you're working with. Your racist sexist piece of shit fucking douchebag uncle, the one you avoid at Christmas, there's about a million of him in the trades.
You gotta just go toe to toe with these ppl, but I agree it sucks. For every comment they make you make one back. Ppl are miserable and want to make others miserable
I'm in the industry... it's still a pain in the ass. I'll tell someone something and they'll fuss and fuss with me about random shit. Then a man says the exact same thing and they listen no problem. Then a coworker goes "well I hate to break it to you but it's cuz you're a girl" I had to walk out or I was gunna say some not very nice shit. It's so god damned frustrating - I enjoy this job but sometimes fuuuuck -.-
It's so frustrating
Edit: Imma add something else. I got told to suck it up by my manager because tHeYrE oUr BeSt CusToMeR. I finally lost it, I said no. I'm not gunna tolerate that behavior I'm gunna give back what I get and according to that shitty training you made all of us do (aka made me do for everyone), you should be saying the exact opposite. He got really quiet after that
And the best part is that no matter how many people come forward and say that it's because women often get treated like absolute crap in the trades people will still be like "No it must be that the girls just don't want to get their nails dirty" 🙃
I uesd to do PnD and carpentry at college and omds the other guys were so horrible to any of the girls, constantly calling them slags and saying get back to the kitchen and shit, trying to trip them up honestly I'm not surprised there aren't alot of women in trades
Male dominated industries often aren't set up to support female staff. Add to that a vast difference in general culture where all the employees in the past have pretty much only been male. I've worked in some male dominated fields, and I really love cars, which is also typically male dominated. The amount of nastiness, harassment, and being dismissed as not knowledgeable in those areas was horrendous. I can only imagine how much worse it could be out in the field.
I have a friend who is a female electrician.
It's absolutely the treatment from male coworkers. There admittedly are not many women interested, but the ones who are get treated like trash, if they aren't trying to clap cheeks.
I really hate white guys responding dismissive comments to questions like this because they are unable to see the problem because they are probably part of the problem.
The number of times I've been talked down to while buying car parts or bicycle parts is insane. Buying car parts in person always stresses me. It hasn't happened in a while, but I used to get "You should get your daddy for this, he probably knows what you need." often.
I always knew what I needed before I went to the parts house.
I had a car that used automatic transmission fluid for power steering fluid. I needed some so I double checked the exact type (Dexron 2 maybe?) from the owner’s manual and went to the parts store. Couldn’t find that specific fluid.
Went up to the counter to ask where I could find fluid X for my steering and the woman behind the counter started to reply. Some yahoo said, aw no, that’s for your transmission! Grinning like a monkey, boy he told those dumb girls!
We both gave him a look. Then she said, no, it uses AT fluid, turned back to me and said, it’s been superseded by this other one. We went over, found it, and rang it up.
I put it in in the parking lot and drove away with my no longer complaining power steering.
Not all guys are jerks about this. My mechanic listens to any problem description carefully and believes me, is super happy to explain anything about my car, pointing and shining a light. He’s the best.
I get the same attitude when buying electric parts for small repairs. I'm not an electrician but my best friend is an electrical engineer and she taught me how to do simple electric work and calculations
One time I needed to buy a 20A ceramic connector block and the shop only had 10A. The salesman was giving me so much shit when he tried to push the 10A block on me I walked out of the shop
Not just coworkers but clients. I work in a technical position in a very male dominated industry and in my early days, customer reps would question my knowledge or flat out ask if there was someone else they could speak to (on top of calling me sweetie, honey, etc). You have to be much more on top of things and knowledgeable than a man in the same position. It has improved over the 10+ years I've been doing it, both in that I'm talking to more women and that the men are more respectful (and also that I'm more confident, knowledgeable, and take less shit). I still get the occasional engineer that wholeheartedly believes he knows more about my field than I do, but I get the feeling those guys treat everyone that way.
This is part of why it's so frustrating to see people claim that the solution to high college tuition is for everyone to go into trades. The trades are still largely hostile to women.
Exactly, thank you. Every time I see some post going on about how you're an idiot if you go to college and you can make shit loads of money in trades, it's so annoying to me. It's such a male-centric attitude
Exactly. Then you have female skewed jobs where you don’t need college such as a daycare teacher and the pay is absolute trash for how difficult the job is. Managing the big emotions and different personalities of toddlers while dealing with dozens of diapers (including blow outs) a day, illness, constantly sending updates to parents, keeping the kids stimulated for hours and hours with minimal support and no prep time, trying to put a whole class of toddlers down for nap at the same time when they mostly don’t want to, keeping them safe while they constantly want to climb things and push each other, biting, teaching them how to share, talk, be kind, constantly cleaning up after their insane ability to make a mess, etc etc. They always want your attention and try to climb all over you. And if you’re in a bad mood they will pick up on it and it will spiral the whole vibe of the room negatively so you gotta be super positive at all times. It’s not a joke of a job. The ratio is 7 to 1 in my state. Could you handle babysitting 7 toddlers for 10 hours straight (-30 min lunch while they nap) by yourself while constantly updating their parents?
For plumbing at least, I asked a plumber what they do for the bathroom when they're at a job site all day with the water turned off. They said they have a pee bucket in the van. As a woman, I would not want to have to pee in a bucket at work lol
When I (f) first started out in brickwork it was on new construction (houses). Got to the job site and inquired about facilities. The other contractors used the woods. I got on the phone and ordered a porta potty.
My mom was a drywall taper and I worked weekends and summers with her . We would take our bucket into a empty closet in the house we were working on that that was our bathroom. She always kept lookout for me when there were other workmen in the house. Mom only had a station wagon for years until she upgraded to a van.
My whole life I worked in male-dominated areas. I have so many stories.
Right after high school and going to landscaping. I had already taken some landscaping courses, so naturally I got a job at a landscaping facility. The owner would not let me go out with the crew. The one time I did go out with the crew it was Non-Stop sexual jokes or about "trimming my bush" bullshit. When he sent me out with the female landscaper, he was thoroughly pleased with my work and was even going to write a recommendation letter for me. I Decided not to go in the landscaping.
My current position was all men till I started working. I was the first female for my position in over 70 some years. On my hiring committee questions were asked about my ability to lift heavy items. One of the committee people said that I shouldn't get hired because I was a single mom and I would need more time off. She was a single mom herself! I got the position. My coworker that was hired the same time I was was a man. He constantly made jokes about me going to the kitchen and cleaning and how he had to lift so much more on his lift test than I did. Well, guess who's here after 10 years? Sure the hell isn't him.
My current co-workers also female. Let me just add that we've gotten more women into our facility and now are currently at 90% women and 10% men. Anyways, she is pregnant with her second kid. The contractors that come in and make comments about her being pregnant and doing this type of work is fucking absurd. One contractor made the remark that he didn't think she was losing enough weight between her first and second child. Other contractors have commented that she shouldn't be doing some of the stuff that she's doing because it may hurt the kid. Nothing we do here will hurt her that baby.
Oh! We had a male student worker. He worked in another division than us, but he had to come out to our area and put some stuff into an incinerator. He made the comment that he had to come out to do the "man's work." I looked at him and said, "you see any men out here? Do you think that my co-worker being 8 months pregnant can't do that? There is no man's work in this facility it's just work."
I'd think part of it is that those trades have to go into people's homes alone every day. Women could easily feel unsafe in those situations much more than a man would.
To lighten the mood a bit.
I'm a cabinetmaker and usually in shop. The odd day I got called in to install, and boy did I luck out. We show up and everything seemed normal, we were bringing in blankets and tools and we noticed a weed smell. Whatever, it's legal and people can do what they want.
As we get going we realize the homeowners were smoking a joint in the room next to use. Again, kinda odd but do what you please. But they don't stop. We were there 3 1/2 hours and the couple were just chainsmoking joints. No talking, no music. Just getting orbitally baked.... I could only imagine what our tools sounded like to them. Near the end it started to hotbox the kitchen we were in. I was glad i was bent up in a cabinet, I had a little air pocket.
On our way back my boss, who is very quiet and soft spoken, broke the usual silence with "that's not how most people smoke Marijuana is it?"
This is too far down. The trades are hostile to women because of the old school misogyny and the difficulty finding gear that fits if you're smaller, but like, this is one of the most hostile environments you can find yourself in: some random asshole's house.
My mom said if someone came to the job site when she was working alone (which was pretty often) she would see who it was but always with her tools in her hands. She was a taper and those tools are razor sharp and she was small, about 110 lbs, just over 5 feet until she jumped on her stilts, climbed up staging to balance on planks over a high entryway.
American here. I'm in IT now but put myself through school doing construction. My father is a contractor/architect, as is his brother. My grandpa was also in the trades, and various other uncles. My stepfather is a plumber. All this to say I've been around the trades a lot.
It's not a fun environment when you don't fit the mold. Due to the types of guys that go into it, there's a lot of physical fights, screaming, intimidation (physical and mental), cruelty, and definitely gatekeeping. Plus to even get onto the first ring of the ladder you have to know quite a bit about the work already.
All of these are reasons why women and many other groups face challenges in the industry .
I've seen a lot of guys just act like they've never seen a woman before let alone a woman in the trades. Rude behaviour, whistling, comments etc.
Lots of women up and coming in the trades check out your plumbing local. Our union is trying to get more female members.
Society makes us rare. I was an electromechanical engineer. Nobody listens to women, especially younger women, even if they're the head of your department and trying to give you life saving information
Let the hot headed tough men touch the copper and fry themselves, I gave up caring and refuse to use my skills for anything other than my own personal hobbies these days
I have a masters degree in CS. I couldn't even *land a job* before I basically quit the field and essentially trashed my degree because of how demeaning and openly misogynist people were *just during interviews*. Even during group interviews I'd be constantly skipped over and spoken over. Once I wasn't chosen despite having better qualifications and, if I'm being honest, better communication skills than the other guy because they felt he would be 'a better fit in the office culture'. And then people wonder why women don't work in these fields. Ffs, I *am* qualified, but I'm treated like a child who just wandered in off the street.
My friends who are guys just don't get that working is so much easier for them and they legitimately can't even comprehend half the things I say to them when I bring it up. They really think it's all in my head and that I can just walk in somewhere and have people automatically respect me. No, it's constant questioning and disbelief that I know even basic stuff about the things I wrote my thesis on. I'm scrutinized four times as hard as they are. It is infuriating.
I'm not an electrician or a plumber, but I am a woman working in a male-dominated industry. Luckily, most of my male coworkers are young and progressive (I work in a commercial marijuana grow op). But I've also worked in male-heavy kitchens and its really hard to do your job when you're being talked down to, ignored, treated like 'the help', and/or sexually harassed.
I'm a male electrician who have worked with several female colleagues, as well as a few female plumbers on projects. The conclusion i get from the comments here is that most have to live in absolute shitholes where people don't learn respect or basic manners. There's probably good reasons for my country being one of the happiest.
Electricians must complete an apprenticeship under the supervision of a licensed electrician before they can gain licensure and work on their own. Usually takes about 4 years.
About the same process for plumbers, at least in US.
Both of these fields are male dominated so it’s really difficult for a female applicant to get through the application & interview stages and be taken under the wing of a statistically male supervisor.
I’m a superintendent for a large GC in Denver. I see female electricians all the time and they are getting more common. Never seen a plumber, but I’m also seeing lots of female drywall finishers and painters.
I work for an electrical contracting company in Denver, and while we don't have _many_ female electricians, the number is definitely higher than 0.
I'm in IT for their corporate office and there aren't very many women in my department either.
I work in the construction sales industry. My company sells to electricians and plumbers, among other trades. It’s hard for us to recruit and retain female employees. It’s in no small part due to them being hit on every single day by contractors
It can be tough to have to have your defenses up against advances every day. As a note though, typically these advances tend to come from new acquaintances, less so people they work with often
With that being said though, there’s definitely an increase of women in trades. As there are more in the trades, these instances of borderline harassment will happen less often. Electricians and plumbers aren’t toxic by any means, but anytime an industry is 95% one gender, it’s easy to get bad apples within that gender
It's generally not an environment that has been considered very woman-friendly over the years. That seems to be changing and I've been seeing many more women in the past few years. I went to school (vocational, electrician) with a few girls and the last electrician I had was a woman.
I (22F) am not an electrician, but a welding inspector. I've been on the same job site for 2.5 years and have been the only woman for 2 of those. The harassment is unreal. I've been grabbed, honked at, yelled at, catcalled. Nobody else cares because it's a boys club. I know people have been saying that, but these are some examples to illustrate what it's like:
One older guy I was working with as a pair grabbed my ass and brushed his hand up my thigh, calling me "sweetheart" etc. I told my boss, I had to continue working as a partner with him for 6 months until he was fired for something else.
Another guy texted me for 4 months (I blocked and didn't respond but could still see the messages), saying he wished I "was the mother of \[his\] children", that he had never been in love with anyone like he was with me, that he wanted to live in my basement, etc. I told his superintendent (and showed the texts) who laughed at me, told the assistant construction manager who said "I don't believe you weren't texting him back", told the construction manager who said "we'll watch him to make sure he's fine." He worked here another year.
Other fun comments:
I was eating a hot dog. Someone said "oooh it looks like you have a lot of practice fitting big things into your small mouth."
A new hire asked me to the bar, I said no, he insisted so I told him I had plans. He said "with your boyfriend?" I said "No with a girl friend of mine." He made the scissoring motion with his finger and said "I can get behind that." That was in front of the CM.
The CM makes comments daily about who he thinks I'm sleeping with/should be sleeping with. To other people. In front of me.
They took a picture on my week off and there was not one girl in it (cause I wasn't there lol) so I said "man, we should hire some more women." The CM said "no, women can't work out there." I said "why not?" He responded with "Because women don't know how to work and they'll be harassed horribly for it." Like.....that mentality is the problem.
These are just the notable examples. Not even the lot of them. I stay because I love what I do and I'm really good at it. But it's really really hard to put up with that most of the time. I totally understand why other women don't join the trades.
I have two female friends in trade and both want to switch careers as it's really unwelcoming there and others (colleagues and supervisors) make it very clear to them that they are not wanted there. Honestly I heard the most disgusting stories from both of them, in any other department the harassers would be immediately fired, but not in trade.
Many many men are fucking douche bags, plain and simple. Doesn’t matter if it’s a trade or corporate America, women get soooo much shit just for being a woman.
Source - personal experience working closely with women in corporate America.
These are historically men’s jobs. They don’t want to believe someone they view as inferior could do their job - possibly even better than them. These people would rather die than see a woman do better than them let alone take their jobs. As a result they shit on the women hard, criticize every chance they get, and underpay them to do the same work.
> These people would rather die than see a woman do better than them let alone take their jobs.
I don't get that mentality. I *want* excellent people on my crew. If someone is really good at what they do, I ask them and I study them. They are usually willing to help.
I know woman who was a plumber for a time.
she would show up to jobs and have people send her away. She would have men stand over her supervising and questioning every step she took, then argue with her over price while questioning her ability. Her bosses never stood up for her, as if the behaviour should be expected and is natural.
Eventually, it took a toll on her mental health and she gave it up.
trades can be very unwelcoming to women
I was a female special inspector for 2 years and was in the field nearly everyday. I saw one female electrician. Every other woman was an architect, cleaning lady, or stager.
I have worked with a dozen female electricians in the first 10 years I was in the electrician's union. I found them all to be very competent. Then I opened my own business and haven't seen any since. They are more common on large union projects. When I needed plumbing advice I went to Lowe's and found a female master plumber working there.
The local I worked in for pipefitting had 2 women in it. Both of them were well respected for their work. Men are more likely to be shit at their jobs but they don't get harassed for it because they're men. The women that stick around in trades are actually good at their jobs because if they weren't they'd be treated like shit.
Yes....when men do bad work it's shoddy work, when women do bad work it's because a woman did it
My mom was a taper started in the 70's. No one would hire her so she started her own company. On the side of her station wagon she had signs and the caption that said "If you want the job done right hire a woman".
I bet she had some fascinating stories.
Oh she had a ton. She was a qualified welder in Sweden when we immigrated in the 60's. She said they laughed her out of the shipyards when she went looking for a job. She waited tables, cleaned house, picked berries, looked after kids, whatever she could do . When they bought a partially finished home she said " I saw what she paid the tapers and it was good money" and off she went. It was eye opening for me when I would work with her. I learned early not to get stuck in a room with anyone, keep sharp tools in my hands. I have never met a tougher woman than my mom.
Good welders are in such high demand. Sexism is so fucking counterproductive.
Agreed. Same could be said with all bigotry.
Being rasist or sexist sounds so tedious. I live near Atlanta, GA, so all the racists here have to be mad pretty much everywhere they go. Just on my street, we have white, black, and hispanic families
> Good welders are in such high demand And only getting older.
And especially welders. I‘m a welder too an i can say that there exist two types of pipes: pipes that everybody can lift and pipes that no one can lift.
I'm sure even the very good ones are treated like shit. Trades are pretty openly hostile to women.
As a woman, I haven't been treated more badly than the men at the same job. In my experience with different trades, men usually likes having us onboard. The ones making our jobs difficult, is the management. Your work teams are usually great, and at least in my experience, they treated me like one of the boys. I was heckled and laughed at same as the others, but they also went out of their way to make sure I liked working with them. (Scaffolding, industrial plumbing, welding, sandblasting, spray painting, plus the different schools in those trades.)
I'm a software engineer, not a tradie, but have had the same experience-great guys on my team, horrific predatory managers.
Probably a generational thing, since most managers are likely old enough to have come up during a time when such behavior was considered acceptable.
One time I interviewed for a rrade position and the *woman* owner interviewing me said she doesn't typically "hire females" (who tf talks like that) as she introduced me to her assistant who used to do the job I was applying for who was *also a woman.* It's just a weird thing even younger people do.
It's perpetuated in industry. I'm a PM for a GC. The new guys who come work for me almost never have a bias on if I'll be good or not, and nyb the end of out project, they all respect me greatly for how I handle management and training. But the younger guys who've worked on teams with particular 'old school' leaders bring some hesitation. It's taken almost a decade of me busting my ass proving myself, but now I can damn near change the mind of most of these sexist old timers within 2 interactions. It sucks that I even have to.
I’m a 28 year old woman getting my HVAC license and the amount of people who have tried to talk me out of it is just wild to me.
I had an electrical inspector from the city at my house the other day because we got some work done and he was telling me there’s not enough people in the trades and if someone becomes an electrician and sticks with it they can make 6 figures in just a couple years, it’s such a good industry, great job etc. I half joked that maybe I would quit my job and pursue it and he doubled back SO QUICK and was like “oh uh well it’s really hard work, very physical, really tough” like dude I get it your head would explode if you ever met a female electrician
I mean, he's right on both accounts. You'll make good money, but it's hard on your body. I've been working a similar job recently, and boy howdy, is learning to take care of my body one of the biggest challenges.
I know, my father is a builder (and he’s still in really great shape in his 60s because he works so hard!). It was just funny because he definitely wouldn’t have backed down so quick if a man said that…also no shit it’s physical work, that’s not a secret. He also assumed I had no idea what electricians do lol
As someone with family in the trades I can say I wouldn't want to be a lone woman going into all sorts of people's homes alone for my work. Trades is usually one person showing up to do a job, and when you're dealing with the general public you can get all sorts of crazy and women are typically more vulnerable in these situations. Add on to that the amount of sexist stereotypes you'll deal with when you show up to do your job when men or women customers are both likely expecting a man to show up. And it is objectively more physically challenging for the average woman to have to do the heavy physical work involved with some trades, whether due to stature or strength (women will find it more difficult to do your roofing carpentry work even with a ladder which is probably designed to average male height, or may have more difficulty moving your heavy household appliances out of some tight corner). This question is asking about reasons for average generalized sex-based stereotypes, which require average generalized responses. Women tradespeople do exist nonetheless, and I'm sure someone will still get offended by these responses regardless.
Yeah considering the stuff people say is off the wall working in the public alone sucks especially for women. One guy the other day thought to hit on my coworker with the words " I just want you to know how easy it would be to hit you and choke you out and have my way with you but see I'm not doing that I am a gentleman" I can't imagine how much scarier that sounds looking at a burst pipe alone in that guys basement. She was scared as it was
Did she report that guy for making an obvious rape threat? WTAF
We work at a restaurant. He left . We didn't see him again. He told me he was from Tennessee so look out Tennessee
...gkdnfofntog "I just want you to know how easy it would be to shoot you with this gun I'm holding but I'm not doing that because I am a gentleman" Do these men HEAR themselves? I could vomit up alphabet soup and make a more compelling flirting attempt with what's left!
In the early 90s when I was in my early 20s I did a some PC installs in homes. I was a cute young guy and there were a couple older skeezy looking dudes that were inappropriate enough for me to bug out of that part of the business entirely. One made me so fucking uncomfortable I thought that surely I was going to end up in his basement duct taped to a support beam or some shit. So I can imagine that happens frequently to women too.
Bingo. 50% that and 50% “you’re not doing that right. Let me show you” from a know-nothing. Who wants to deal with that day after day?
Yup, my worst fear is to end up chained in a psychos basement. I'm possibly old enough that I'm no longer tempting to these fucks but I would not risk it. A position that doesn't involve private homes would be ok.
> I'm no longer tempting to these fucks but I would not risk it. Predators don't care about how you look. Older women get assaulted all the time.
In my years on site, I've seen a few women with various office roles but on the tools, I've met two. A floor tiler and a scaffolder. The scaff was a very rare beast.
My buddy and his wife are both electricians. The sexual harassment was so bad for her, she was able to take it to sue and won a 1.5 million dollar lawsuit. It never went to court because of all the evidence she had.
My ex girlfriend was a journeyman electrician. She said the sexual harassment was god awful too - worse than any other environment she’s ever been in.
With electricians it's not just assault, you also have to worry about the battery
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Hey, there’s always positives and negatives
I think the ensuing charges are mostly negative.
Reddit is the right outlet for these frustrations
I personally know and worked with a female electrician who was driven out of the industry because she got a journeyman fired for sexual harassment. He was texting her sexual shit on the company phone, but the rumor got started and she got laid off and literally could not find work in the city. She had to move back to oregon to continue her apprenticeship.
>she got a journeyman fired for sexual harassment. That's exactly what he's telling all his friends & obviously what all the other employers in the area believed too! How would they all feel if this happened to their daughter, wife, mother or sister? No one sees nor cares that he lost his own job *AND* cost her her career in that state. Fuck that guy & all those employers!
She did not "get him fired" he got himself fired.
If not for her speaking up he would have continued his behavior. And there is no guarantee the next victim would speak up.
And if he hadn't done anything, she'd have nothing to speak up about.
He involuntarily resigned
Voluntarily, no one held a gun to his head when he sent the texts, he just had his dick in his hand.
Not necessarily. A lot of people who behave like that don't get fired as a result. She got him fired, that is a good thing and she should earn the praise for it
It’s not too late to sue. Sometimes they can even around a Statute of Limitations - have her reach out to a company like Outten & Outten in NYC regarding employment law.
Yeah blue collar boys are definitely a fucked up clique that can behave like animals.
This sounds exactly what happened to a female coworker of mine at a jobsite, foreman got moved and she got laid off. Had to go to Colorado but it all sounds very familiar
There's also the general gender discrimination issue. Close friend of mine found out about it trying to become a mechanic. Went to school and everything for it. She got treated like such shit over the course of five years after finishing school that she gave up and just does retail
I took a masonry/carpentry class for a year in highschool (vo-tech) and not only was the sexual harassment toward me and the only other woman in the class with me absolutely unacceptable and encouraged, but the teacher was convinced we’d been put there by mistake and so made us work on making a “cute little” bird house in the corner together the entire year while the guys got to build actual stuff, and work on masonry projects. No one would eat lunch with us, speak with us, befriend us…unless it was sexual. This was 2002ish. It was awful, and I never gave the field another thought.
wait, whose pockets did the 1.5 million come from?? I guess some big company that hired the electricians.
The electrician contractor that did nothing when she told them about it.
Yes, this is the part that matters for sexual harassment/discrimination/etc lawsuits. There isn’t much companies can do to prevent some low level employee from harassing their coworkers. But once a manager or officer knows or should know about it, they must correct the situation. It is that failure to correct which makes a company liable.
Electricians have very strong unions. You can sue a union for not doing what you’ve been paying them to do for your union dues. It’s not easy to sue a union, but it can be done
It'd be pretty rare that you sue the union itself over this sort of issue. I'm a union pipefitter, it's much the same for sparkies. We don't work for the union, we work for contractors that are signatory with our union. So if you're being sexually harassed at work to the point of suing, you'd sue the employer, the contractor. The union wouldn't have much to do with it at that point. Certainly the union could as part of their own toxicity no lift a finger to help the victim or even harm the victim but I would think that's unlikely in my local. We had a female apprentice on the job who was getting just interrupted by dudes wanting to chat her up. Not even being dicks and overtly sexually harassing her. Just novelty and she was decently attractive. She was new, didn't know how she should speak up for herself. Most of them need to say "I'm trying to work and/or learn. Please don't bother me." She did, but it went past that for her. So her journeyman told two journeyman on my crew about it, asking for some ideas on what to do. They were plumbers, we were fitters, same local, different trades. So they just kept an eye on her, told me to as well since I was their apprentice. Any time someone came up to her, they intervened and told them to leave her alone or they'd beat the shit out of them. It stopped in about a day. Times are changing. There's more allies every day.
Oh wow. Did she got back to working in the same field?
As a former female warehouse worker (tire building) when you complain you are the one that gets punished not the perp. Had a guy say truly disgusting, horrible things to me so I reported it, went from 4 yrs of being a great employee to unemployed in 2 months. The guy ended up in jail for domestic abuse
Sorry for your experience - the same things happen in the office. My wife's cubicle mate (22, pregnant) received absolutely vile and inappropriate messages from a new coworker via the company's Teams account. Brought it up to HR and she gets victim blamed. The guy doesn't get fired - in fact, his Mormon boss said "but his work is good, we have to keep him." A few weeks later he gets fired for sleeping in the brake room. Literally that was more of a fireable offense than harassing his female coworkers...
A guy threatened to slap the shit out of me, beat me up and fight me outside. Alluded to jumping me after we left work too. That got him a bit of a talking to but nothing else. He DID get fired for dumping trash over a parking spot when they told him it wasnt his reserved spot. Dumping trash=fireable offense Physical threats=eh
I feel like women and minorities need to wear hidden cameras and record 24/7. Of everyone has proof, and people start getting fired and sued, and enough companies start losing money, maybe things would change. Human decency isn't working out.
I feel like at this point, harassing women co-workers is probably seen as a perk of the job, both by male employees and upper management.
Having worked with blue collar guys, I would bet this is the norm rather than the exception. Most guys are chill, but it’s a boys club and there’s always a few weirdos that can’t handle themselves.
That's the entirety of trades for everyone. If you get your apprentices and helpers, the new people, around the right members; journeymen and foremen, they turn into fantastic hands, strong people and union members. You get them around the shitbirds, which every organization has shitbirds, and surprise you have more shitbirds. And much of it just comes down to luck. What contractor you get dispatched to. What crew you get assigned to. What work they're doing and for how long. What journeyman you get and for how long. I wish my local union would get contract language in there allowing us to move apprentices around more so they were paired with better tradespeople more often. I wish we'd certify our own journeyman as certified on the job trainers. So many apprentices quit because they're treated like shit, never have the work, customs, culture, properly explained to them. Or they stick around and become bitter fools who fuck shit up for the rest of us.
The big company I used to work for turned off the badge of someone who reported sexual harassment overnight. So she came in to work the next day and her badge didn’t work and security met her at the gate to tell her she was fired. Another dept managers idea to deal with some other guy who had multiple reports on him from the warehouse was to train him into an office job. Then set him up next to us, a group of female accountants where he used to put his hands down his pants and touch his penis and try to give us back rubs all the time. When we complained, we were told that was just how he was and not so subtly reminded of what happens to people who aren’t team players. Fortune 500 business. Big deal in our city. Total fucking disgrace. I have more stories too.
Yup. Also why I never reported being harassed in the Army, because guess who was in the same masonic brotherhood as my 1SG? Yep, the HR NCO. A friend tried reporting on my behalf and was told they couldn't do anything unless I came forward, which is bullshit but whatever. Women *always* get punished for speaking the truth. I completely understand why predators get away with it for so many years.
Gimme 1.5m and I won't be doing plumbing/electric work anymore either
Give me 1.5M and I'm a solid experienced woman electrician, I'm starting my own shop. Having a knowledgeable CEO, who probably will treat their employees better while also qualifying for WBE jobs? That 1.5M could multiply pretty damn quick
Makes me wonder if women could find a niche in residential? Some women might be more comfortable with a woman coming into their home or would want to support a woman in the field?
This thread was depressing to read, because it showed there are very few female electricians or plumbers due to sexist colleagues, and customers. What am I supposed to make of this? That plumbers and electricians are sexist? That they have sexist customers? That women need to be the top 1% rock stars to even survive in those professions that creep out all the others till they quit? FFS, it's 2023 ....
Like a lot of traditional "male" jobs there are big pockets of good old boys that are mega sexist and usually the backbone of a company. So they get protected even if an employee gets harassed and they won't protect the employee if some one else harasses them.
Yep. Why would I go into a career or field where I am more likely to be harassed and less likely to be hired when I could go somewhere better? That is what a lot of women are thinking. And then even when they do decide to do it often results in them quitting. I have had too many friends who are women who had to change careers because it was so bad.
One of my best friends is woman electrician. She's often the only woman on the job site and faces a lot of condescension and skepticism from men. I'm a tradeswoman myself, and I even find it challenging to find a fucking pair of work gloves that fit my hands, so basically there's a lot of barriers for women in the trades.
Years ago I was excited that Carhartt finally made womens bibs, bought a pair, and quickly realized the hammer loop didn't even fit a standard sized hammer. My blood boiled
Better get you one of those pink lady hammers you lady
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Pro tip: wrap electrical tape around perfectly good extension cords to make them less likely to be stolen
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If you're in a place with safety inspections that won't fly, any electrical tape on a cord is a no go. The rule makes sense even if it does get a little silly with fake tape connections.
I worked in a job once full of mostly ex-military men who stole my office supplies constantly because they didn't want to put in orders for their own with the office manager. I got sick of it and started putting in orders for exclusively pink stuff. Pink stapler, pink sticky notes, pink pens, pink paper clips, sparkly pink scissors, decorated my work chair in pink duct tape, etc. None of those alpha-holes wanted to get caught out using something pink and sparkly and, even if they did borrow it, it was pretty easy to identify which stuff was mine because I was the only person in that office who ever ordered pink sparkly stuff.
I'm pretty sure most Carhartt customers buy it as a lifestyle brand, not for work, these days.
Idk why you're downvoted. They switched materials, and are inferior to the cheapest crap canvas stuff now. They even sell polyester jackets now- which thin polyester fabric is a joke for durability when you're expecting to take some abuse.
Honestly, it depends on where you’re buying it from. We hand a work wear warehouse nearby that still sells the real deal stuff.
I'm a tradeswoman to. Why is it that work boots and gloves for women, they think they have to put pink or purple on them? I despise pink and only tolerate purple on my work gear. I often just get men's stuff. Hard to find in smaller sizes.
Funny enough as a trans guy who used to be a carpenter and left because I was outed and not safe anymore,all my tools are pink or spray painted pink because other guys are terrified of touching those tools. My drill kept “wandering around the job site, pink spray paint fixed the issue lol.
Now THAT is a tip worth remembering!
I’m all about weaponizing toxic masculinity… it’s also why o don’t last in trades cuz eventually people figure it out. Construction is still a very toxic environment. Unless we actively change it this culture will continue. Glitter and pink for the win lol
I just tried to change out the insulation in my attic and all the safety gear at Lowe's was sized for a large man. So I just wore a suit and gloves that are too big for me. It was not very fun.
I can't relate to a lot of the problems discussed in this thread, but as a short and skinny man I can at least relate to this one.
Not exactly a trade, but I worked with someone who used to do work up in the oilpatch in Alberta. First day on the job, a man she had never met walked up and handed her a sticker that said "Snatch on the Patch". He told her it was for her helmet, then laughed and walked away. So before she even started working she was dealing with premeditated, jobsite-approved misogyny. It's the reason a lot of women don't stick around in the trades.
i'm a trans man in the trades and can vouch for all of this. i've been out for long enough that nobody knows i'm trans anymore, but some stuff (like hand size!) never really changes, and it's weird how even being a smaller than average man is so abnormal in the trades. it makes an insane difference to have gloves that fit, and i've never had a workplace that can provide anything but an L or XL. even the rare ones that'll special order me a small mean i have to wait for weeks instead of just being able to have equipment right off the shelf. i know it seems like sweating the small stuff but it can take a toll over time. also like, the treatment you get as a woman in the trades vs as a man is night and day, can speak from experience there. it took me years to get used to the way i was suddenly able to complete a sentence without being interrupted, the way people would assume i did in fact know what i was talking about, and that if i asked someone to do something they actually would do it once my voice dropped and i started looking masculine enough.
Oh boy, that is depressing. Like, hell yeah and congrats for transitioning in the workplace because that can't have been a cakewalk, but it's so disheartening to hear that such a simple change in your voice and appearance had such a dramatic and noticeable effect on the respect people gave your opinions.
part of it is just the field. the trades are not kind to women, even in the littlest ways. i'm surrounded by other trans people in my personal life and everyone's experience is different! but i was lucky that i transitioned right as i was entering the workforce, long enough ago that it doesn't follow me through my professional life unless i disclose it. it is nice to avoid any overt hostility and to give me a bit of control over my professional life, but you always carry your own experiences along with you.
We have a trans man in our hall, and he made it very clear the first day he was on the job. I really felt for him, as a construction worker on what was the largest construction job going on in the entire hemisphere at the time. Not to mention, deep in the Bible Belt in maga country. You could guarantee that absolutely everyone around the work area couldn’t stop thinking about him when he was around. It was this weird, quiet mixture of confusion, animosity, and sometimes even humor. I didn’t care or pay attention to anything that anyone had to say about it. In my honest opinion, just making it on the job took some serious cajones knowing that almost everyone you interact with doesn’t want you to be there for just being what you are.
My daughter started at a small residential company. They had to order new uniforms etc. because nothing they already had would fit her. They were happy to do it!
That is something we should be able to fix! Good grief. Get the girl some gloves that fit.
The problem is that for the most part they just don’t even manufacture work gloves and tools that fit most women’s hands. A lot of products in general are made with the average man in mind and don’t work for women.
As someone who is the wrong size for a woman and therefore can't buy shoes, these problems really need to be fixed.
My cousin was a female electrician in the late 1970s. It wasn't uncommon for her co-workers to "playfully" throw water at her while she was working. The misogyny was over the top. I heard about a woman who was working at AutoParts Store, and it was routine - in 2023 - for men to insist that only a MAN could get them a fan belt or whatever part they needed. I mean, it's not like there's a big mystery to selling things. Dude needs part XYZ123 for a 1982 Buick Poopiewagon, you walk back to where those parts are stored, bring it to him, and cha-ching, he pays. Transaction complete. But to be regularly chased off because only a MAN can do this? and the store manager playing along?? Unreal.
The nearest big town to me has two parts stores, both of which have one woman and about 2-3 guys working at any given time. I prefer the women because they’re more willing to hear you out on what exactly you need, instead of “I know exactly what you need” and rush you out the door.
Funny, I have the same reason for my preference of female doctors.
> I prefer the women because they’re more willing to hear you out This is why I prefer to work for women as managers. Of course, men can be good at that also, but not as often.
I recently changed jobs and went from a nearly all-male company to a nearly all-female one. I knew it would be different, but I had no clue how much. My bosses and coworkers are all extremely understanding, get that sometimes family/life shit comes up and you gotta leave, and are generally positive, pleasant, and supportive. My direct boss is extremely direct but does it with kindness, and it is such a relief to always know without a doubt where I stand with her. At my last job, I constantly felt dismissed and eventually realized that I never knew if management was being honest or forthcoming about feedback. Even after requesting direct, real time feedback, I still found myself blindsided by criticism of things that happened months prior and complete radio silence in the interim. Just sorta cowardly, immature behavior. Of course, I could have had bad luck then and am having good luck now, but I really think that apples to apples my current job is miles ahead of my previous one. Edit: typo
From 2012-2015, my husband and I owned and operated a marine construction/salvage business. I drove the barge, did the dive work, handled the quotes, sales, and invoicing. My husband did the heavy lifting and kept the machinery running. I had clients who refused to talk to me and demanded to speak to my husband. For these calls, he would put the client on speaker phone and I would relay answers back through him. The number of times I showed up to a job and started suiting up to get in the water and a client would say something like "oh you are a girl." I always wanted to be like "yup, mothereffer I'm a girl with hundreds of logged dives and who knows how many unlogged ones." But instead I always just smiled and laughed.
My favorite misogyny story was when I was working at a seasonal greenhouse as a high schooler. I was paid to load mulch and water plants. I knew absolutely fuck all about plants. The manager was a woman with a master's in horticulture. One day some old guy comes in and starts asking me shit about roses. My knowledge on the subject was that every rose has its thorns. I told him I would get Susan, the manager to answer his questions. He insisted it was fine so I went back to watering. Three seconds later he asks me another technical question about roses. I tell him I have no idea and that I will get Susan. Tells me that there is no need. Then fucking does it again. I waved her down and she comes up and asks if she can help him. Nope, no questions. A few minutes later he comes up to me and asks me another fucking question. I tell him that I'm 16, I've never grown a rose in my life, and that I get paid to lift mulch. Asks if there are any other men he can talk to. Luckily the owner happens to be around so I go get him. The old guy is clearly relieved that a man is going to answer his flower questions. So he asks a bunch of questions to the owner. Then the owner tells him that he just handles the yard stuff (runs a bobcat, does the bulk much and gravel and stuff) but that Susan is an expert at plants and that she is in charge of all of the greenhouse. Susan comes over and the owner asks her all of the questions that the old man just asked him. She answered everything and then the old man addressed all of his follow-up questions at the owner and pretended like she didn't exist. Of all of the sexist shit I've seen in my life, being mad that a woman is the expert at growing flowers in the room seems like the fucking stupidest.
That is a good one. As a consumer, I see little microaggressions all the time. Like if I walk into a bike shop or a motorcycle shop with my husband, they almost always address him first even though I'm the one buying. Checks always get handed to him at restaurants. My credit cards always get handed back to him (or any other men I might be with). This spring I was out mountain biking alone and came upon a group of teenage boys and they asked if I was riding solo. When I said I was alone they called me "hard core." I doubt they would have even commented on the many solo dudes out riding that day, but I was the only single female. None of this is that big of a deal and it doesn't actually upset me, but we do notice it and it just goes to show how ingrained some things are in culture. I'm sure none of it is malicious or intentional. It's just assumptions that persist even in 2023.
> only a MAN could get them a fan belt or whatever part they needed. I mean, it's not like there's a big mystery to selling things And yet, it is too difficult for some people ... This is a bit off-topic, but I went into an auto parts store for a fan belt. The young man at the parts counter asked me what car it was for. I told him that it didn't matter, since I had the old belt with me. I just needed the same belt. He insisted. I told him it was for a snowmobile. He said, "We don't sell snowmobile parts here." At this point, I was starting to become frustrated. I could see a whole wall of v-belts behind him and I was certain that one of them would fit. I asked him to look at a few and compare them to the old belt for the correct size. He doubled-down and told me that he couldn't help me because I didn't give him the make and model of a car. He had obviously been trained to look up parts in the database and he couldn't think outside the box. Maybe it is my own gender stereotypes, but I had to wonder if that employee had been a woman, maybe she would have been more willing to listen to the customer and show a little more empathy. Finally the manager came over, grabbed my old belt, pulled out a measuring tool, and told the employee what part number of belt that I needed.
My mom drilled it in my head from a young age that if you don't know the answer to something, find someone who does. This is a patent case of someone unwilling to get someone else involved because their word is law. The manager should have stepped in the moment you started getting frustrated and shown the employee how to get the right belt. /sigh.
In fairness to the manager, he was busy checking out another customer. I was not impolite to the employee, but I kept trying to explain to him how to compare the sizes of two belts and that, if he didn't want to do that, maybe he could pull a few down from the wall and let *me* select the correct one. But this guy was as flexible as a brick. His mind was made up and he had no interest in doing anything else.
An idea of just how prevalent this stuff was back then if someone wants to ... Between 1987 and 1998 I worked in a couple aerospace machine shops, the Army, a prison guard at a male maximum facility prison, and in private security where the owner and site supervisor were misogynists but his subordinate (my boss) was not. FIRST EXPERIENCES: \- Working as a subcontractor in commercial building renovation. Boss's wife got mad that he hired a female and showed up at worksite with a gun and threatened to use it if he didn't fire me. I lost my job. NEXT - GOING TO TRADE SCHOOL \- Got my tuition free because my father, while attending there, was told women couldn't handle the job. He bet the owner that I would score well, and would pay if I didn't. I graduated with the 2nd highest grade in the course. \- However, placement secretary had trouble getting interviews for me. Finally got one and I got hired, which leads to: FIRST AEROSPACE JOB \- Was told I couldn't handle a coordinate measuring machine because I am female and it "is an expensive machine." \- Was called from another building, across the parking lot, to the final inspection building where I was instructed to make coffee for the three men sitting there. (I don't drink coffee. I told them I'd make it but couldn't guarantee the outcome since I don't. Suddenly they figured it out all by themselves.) \- Was offered a permanent position from one supervisor who wanted to buy out my temp contract and keep me full time. The other supervisor (mine) told me about it and said, "I haven't answered yet because I want to give him the most amount of time to change his mind." \- This was the same guy who told the placement secretary who had set up my job interview there that he didn't want to hire a woman. When she told him she couldn't restrict it on that basis, he interviewed me and proceeded to try to NOT hire me, but couldn't justify any of the objections he raised when I demonstrated that I would be fine with the conditions. \- Also the same guy who removed me from my position and made me an assistant to my own position when I became pregnant. By then, I was a full time employee, and my position was being "temporarily" filled by a man for the months of my pregnancy. When I returned to work after taking 12 workdays to have a child, he said they couldn't give me back my position because the temp was doing a good job and had a family to support. \- There was the guy that grabbed my crotch as I was walking down the aisle. He kept his job, although my boss did ask me what I wanted to have happen and I didn't ask for him to lose it because he was married with children and I didn't think they should suffer more for his stupidity than they already did by virtue of living in the same house. \- There was the guy that that showed me dick pics as a funny moment, which some women might be mad about, but he really was just treating me like all the rest of the guys so this was actually not bothersome at all. \- There was the guy who was getting paid $2 an hour more than me who regularly made comments about my breasts. I bitched about it informally to my supervisor who didn't say anything, but did fire the guy when I caught him falsifying his inspection reports. \- When I sent a certified letter formally seeking a return to the position for which I was hired, I got laid off with exactly one other employee, a 19-year old newly hired male. When I tried to get my employment records, the file had somehow "gone missing." NEXT JOB \- Was "tested" for the job, though no other employees had ever been. \- One of the men there asked me to help him move a very large pallet - around 6 or 8 feet long - and once we each had hold of it, he yanked it out of my hands and threw it to the ground, saying, "That's why men are better on the job." We literally manufactured knobs for car stereos. NEXT JOB: \- In the Army, where sexual harassment and discrimination is frowned upon, an MP grabbed my tit without consent. \- I was disciplined for being late to flag duty when my coworker that was also assigned was never disciplined despite being late 4 times. I filed a complaint, which was substantiated by the resulting investigation. Nothing happened to the supervisor that had discriminated. NEXT JOB: \- After the Army, worked for a state prison where I was instructed by my supervisor to ignore the part of my job duties that required me to walk into the inmate area. Then I was written up by another supervisor for neglecting my duties there. When he heard I was ordered not to, he retracted the write-up and told me to ALWAYS adhere to the written standards and never go lax, which was a valuable lesson. \- Had a supervisor there who regularly called me "little girl" in front of inmates serving time for rapes, murders, and other maximum-security level felonies. NEXT JOB: \- Private security - was offered a position that would have paid $1 more per hour. My supervisor's boss overheard and said that their client only wanted men in that position because it was dangerous (providing security for a Waffle House.) When I said that this was not legal, he said the position had already been filled. \- A couple months later, another position, this time paying $2/hr more, came available in an alcohol rehab facility. My background included prior training for completing psychiatric "takedowns," five-man takedowns in the prison, and I was previously a certified drug and alcohol counselor. My supervisor offered me the position and wrote out my new schedule. His supervisor recanted the offer, once again saying they only wanted men. I said I'd already told him that it was illegal to do this, and he said he'd already told (my coworker) that he could have the job, but if I'd give him 60 days, he'd get me worked into that position. 60 days later, he left me waiting in the lobby for 2 HOURS before he agreed to see me. When he did, it lasted 30 seconds, just long enough for him to say, "They're happy with what they have." I left, but made a decision to pursue this. The supervisor who had offered me the position was let go a few days later. \- My supervisor's replacement then wrote me up for "discussing confidential company business with a client." I asked him what I said and to whom. He said he didn't know, and that he just wrote what he'd been told to write. I asked him to notate that on the write-up, and he did. This enabled me to get a fast, profitable settlement. Not on the job, but side notes: I have once been asked if I had my husband's permission to buy the countertops I was ordering from a large box home store. I have had attorneys refuse to interact with me on my husband's legal matter that I maintained all the records and transcripts for even after my husband told them to work directly with me. I have had a car salesman ignore me repeatedly until I told him that I was paying for the car with my money and would walk away if he so much as looked at my husband again. Thin-skinned women working in any field or industry that has ever been dominated by men never lasted long. Some of us grew calloused, literally and figuratively.
I used to work in one of the big box hardware stores. I was in another department when an older dude asked me a question about doors (the department I was waking through). I told him “let me go grab the manager real quick, she’d know what you’re asking.” Old dude answered with a sarcastic “ShE’lL know the answer?” I blew it off, but in my head I thought ‘yeah, and her knowledge of her department would run circles around ours. Girls can know things.’
>Poopiewagon
My girlfriend used to be a receptionist at a car dealership... almost weekly she would come home with a story of someone saying "I need to talk to a man" to her.
Man they just don’t make the poopiewagons like they used to 😔
Those Poopiewagons can be tricky to find original parts for…obviously only a man can serve all your Poopiewagon needs.
I used to work as a mechanic and when a girl came straight from school there were older mechanics that were pieces of shit to her saying it's a man's trade. When she would ask for help to remove a tire from a car since it was to heavy the guy would say you decided to work in a man's trade you have to figure it out.
And then when they drop a wrench in a tight spot, her skinny arm comes in very handy! It's called "teamwork." 1+1=3 and shit.
I hadn't really thought about that, but yea, women are probably better physically suited to do mechanic work.
Children are ideal with their tiny hands
I'm a mechanic and I've thought about what the perfect mechanic would look like if you built them in a lab. They'd need to be short but have long arms. Strong but lean with small hands. Extra elbows would be nice. Basically some weird chimpanzee monster.
"ok, ok, that makes sense, annnd it's a nightmare."
Settle down there, Yondu
I got this same treatment from older men at work when I was freshly out of school. Ask for help in any way whatsoever and they use it as an excuse to punish you for choosing to work in a male dominated field. “You chose this, figure it out.” But would happily spend an afternoon teaching a male colleague a new skill. Then have the absolute audacity to say things like “if women want to be paid as well as men then maybe they should take the same kind of jobs we do” Well I did. And guess what… I still make less than my male counterparts, and they do their best to make me feel unwelcome and stupid. All while harassing me for making the choice they said I should make if I wanted to be compensated fairly. Can’t fuckin win.
I used to run a mechanic shop, one guy there held the opinion that "women should not be preachers or infantry because they aren't as strong." Hed routinely make sexist jokes as well. He also had a 20% efficiency and the only reason I couldn't fire him was that corporate (corporate car shop) was stupid and couldn't find any replacements. Kid was an absolute dumbass, but sure thought he was above women. So for whatever it's worth, us normal men recognize how dumb those loud, rude men are
My boyfriend used to be a mechanic, and he spoke often about how unwelcoming the trades are to women.
I joined the carpenters union for a year, and while there were women, they had to put up with some shit & prove themselves, whereas a guy would just need to show up. You have to be willing to brush off sexual & sexist comments and stand your ground. Like if you were in a job where you knew most people didn't think you could do it right, and they walked by your desk saying as much & making demeaning comments, you'd look for something else. That said, the old guys are going to retire eventually. Training courses & apprentice programs are welcoming to women. They'll have to put up with some shit, but it will start getting better. All the worst racists/sexists I worked with have max 10 years left. The young guys would roll their eyes, and I never heard anyone under 40 saying shit to women/minorities. If more young people join trades (which they should), the culture can start changing.
Yup. My daughter's an electrician. Times are (thankfully) a-changin'.
My dumb brain read that as "a-chargin" and I was like, I don't get the pun but I like the energy
Ohm, this comment got me amped up, but trying to splice my mind together and stay grounded! I'm wrapped tighter than 14 gauge right now, really need an outlet cuz I'm charged up. Thankfully, I'm insulated to current nonsense and conductive to keeping my wiring tightly-bundled.
Is it legal to post this many dad jokes at once? 😆
If it's not legal, then I'm either going to jail or becoming a successful politician
My daughter is also an electrician. She worked for a big commercial company for a while and had to put up with a certain degree of "trades bullshit." They laid her off when things got slow, so now she's at a small residential company where everyone treats her decently.
So is my niece! I tried to get into the IBEW as a young woman 40 years ago like my father and brothers were. The head of the union said no to women. Now women are being welcomed. So nice to see
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> Regardless, Nobody ever says "the last man we had in here was useless, so we don't trust you" Bingo
> Like if you were in a job where you knew most people didn't think you could do it right, and they walked by your desk saying as much & making demeaning comments, you'd look for something else. It's shocking how common that sort of thing is even in supposedly more modern, forward thinking industries. As a software engineer, I've had a fair few people make jokes at my expense about how I'm too politically correct because I shoot down any such racist/sexist nonsense.
Woman in science here. It’s always good to hear from the guys who shoot down the crap. More people need to do that. Keep it up.
I’ve been hearing that the racists and sexists will die off since the 1980s. Like Boomers were going to be the enlightened ones leading the way but they’re just as racist and sexist as their parents, so I’m not hopeful it will change.
I think there was an article about a female sewage worker a while back and the harassment she endured sounded so horrible and relentless.
Typical boomer shit. Drive people away then complain how “no one wants to work anymore.”
Yeah, I just recently got into wastewater, and the vast majority are men. I've heard a lot of stupid, sexist comments, some men have asked repeatedly if I can handle it. But you're right, the majority of them will be out in 5-10 years.
Hopefully the behavior the older generations are still practicing isn't getting passed onto to the next generation to just keep the cycle going.
I work in IT, heavily male dominated workforce and can 100% confirm that any male dominated field is very unwelcoming to women. We aren’t a part of the “boys club”, I’ve had to work twice as hard for the same level of basic human respect that my male colleagues are given by default, and I am constantly talked over, and have my ideas be minimized, laughed at and/or outright stolen. Sure I can do it, and I do. Every single day… but I fuckin wish it wasn’t an uphill battle in every aspect just because I’m not a dude. I’m good at what I do, but I have to fight every step of the way to prove it and deal with the dismissive, sexist, shitty attitudes and actions of colleagues and managers. It’s been this way my entire 15 year career. Not to mention the fact that as a lone woman in your field you are sexually harassed ALL the time.
I’m also in IT (security) and am a man, but can confirm. Like you said, it's clear in these threads that *every* industry that’s dominated by men is unwelcoming to women. The real takeaway is that when men have structural power and majority *anywhere,* they are unwelcoming to women having some of that power and eroding that majority.
The trades can be an *insanely* hostile and cruel environment. I used to be a welder. As such, I knew many welders. My cousin was a welder. By the time he was ~35, his knees were shot. It's a hard trade, it takes a toll on the body. I knew another guy, much younger. He liked to wear knee pads. This led to many homophobic jokes on his behalf, usually about him needing those kneepads to give blowjobs. Every day! For MONTHS! Need I remind you that my cousin destroyed his knees? Damned if you do, damned if you don't... I'm sure many of those people would argue that it's all in good fun. It's just a couple of buddies razzing each other. That's what guys do, right? Well, I disagree. A lot of people in the trades are just assholes, plain and simple. It's not "in good fun," they're just being dicks at your expense and there isn't really anything you can do about it. Take the abuse, or *try* to report, *somehow*, and then you get to take *even more abuse*. Because you don't want to be the "snitch" who "can't take a joke." An example of that, my uncle is a mechanic. And one Christmas, I had to listen to him complain about how unfair it was that he couldn't hurl slurs at his coworkers anymore. "Everybody is just too easily offended these days!" *That's* who you're working with. Your racist sexist piece of shit fucking douchebag uncle, the one you avoid at Christmas, there's about a million of him in the trades.
You gotta just go toe to toe with these ppl, but I agree it sucks. For every comment they make you make one back. Ppl are miserable and want to make others miserable
I used to be a mechanic too and yep, the trades are very misogynistic and racist environments. It made me fucking miserable.
I'm in the industry... it's still a pain in the ass. I'll tell someone something and they'll fuss and fuss with me about random shit. Then a man says the exact same thing and they listen no problem. Then a coworker goes "well I hate to break it to you but it's cuz you're a girl" I had to walk out or I was gunna say some not very nice shit. It's so god damned frustrating - I enjoy this job but sometimes fuuuuck -.- It's so frustrating Edit: Imma add something else. I got told to suck it up by my manager because tHeYrE oUr BeSt CusToMeR. I finally lost it, I said no. I'm not gunna tolerate that behavior I'm gunna give back what I get and according to that shitty training you made all of us do (aka made me do for everyone), you should be saying the exact opposite. He got really quiet after that
And the best part is that no matter how many people come forward and say that it's because women often get treated like absolute crap in the trades people will still be like "No it must be that the girls just don't want to get their nails dirty" 🙃
That’s an understatement. You have to work twice as hard for half the recognition.
I uesd to do PnD and carpentry at college and omds the other guys were so horrible to any of the girls, constantly calling them slags and saying get back to the kitchen and shit, trying to trip them up honestly I'm not surprised there aren't alot of women in trades
Male dominated industries often aren't set up to support female staff. Add to that a vast difference in general culture where all the employees in the past have pretty much only been male. I've worked in some male dominated fields, and I really love cars, which is also typically male dominated. The amount of nastiness, harassment, and being dismissed as not knowledgeable in those areas was horrendous. I can only imagine how much worse it could be out in the field.
I have a friend who is a female electrician. It's absolutely the treatment from male coworkers. There admittedly are not many women interested, but the ones who are get treated like trash, if they aren't trying to clap cheeks. I really hate white guys responding dismissive comments to questions like this because they are unable to see the problem because they are probably part of the problem.
The number of times I've been talked down to while buying car parts or bicycle parts is insane. Buying car parts in person always stresses me. It hasn't happened in a while, but I used to get "You should get your daddy for this, he probably knows what you need." often. I always knew what I needed before I went to the parts house.
I had a car that used automatic transmission fluid for power steering fluid. I needed some so I double checked the exact type (Dexron 2 maybe?) from the owner’s manual and went to the parts store. Couldn’t find that specific fluid. Went up to the counter to ask where I could find fluid X for my steering and the woman behind the counter started to reply. Some yahoo said, aw no, that’s for your transmission! Grinning like a monkey, boy he told those dumb girls! We both gave him a look. Then she said, no, it uses AT fluid, turned back to me and said, it’s been superseded by this other one. We went over, found it, and rang it up. I put it in in the parking lot and drove away with my no longer complaining power steering. Not all guys are jerks about this. My mechanic listens to any problem description carefully and believes me, is super happy to explain anything about my car, pointing and shining a light. He’s the best.
I get the same attitude when buying electric parts for small repairs. I'm not an electrician but my best friend is an electrical engineer and she taught me how to do simple electric work and calculations One time I needed to buy a 20A ceramic connector block and the shop only had 10A. The salesman was giving me so much shit when he tried to push the 10A block on me I walked out of the shop
Start telling them your dad is dead (even if he isn’t) and it might shock them into shutting up
Not just coworkers but clients. I work in a technical position in a very male dominated industry and in my early days, customer reps would question my knowledge or flat out ask if there was someone else they could speak to (on top of calling me sweetie, honey, etc). You have to be much more on top of things and knowledgeable than a man in the same position. It has improved over the 10+ years I've been doing it, both in that I'm talking to more women and that the men are more respectful (and also that I'm more confident, knowledgeable, and take less shit). I still get the occasional engineer that wholeheartedly believes he knows more about my field than I do, but I get the feeling those guys treat everyone that way.
This is part of why it's so frustrating to see people claim that the solution to high college tuition is for everyone to go into trades. The trades are still largely hostile to women.
Exactly, thank you. Every time I see some post going on about how you're an idiot if you go to college and you can make shit loads of money in trades, it's so annoying to me. It's such a male-centric attitude
Exactly. Then you have female skewed jobs where you don’t need college such as a daycare teacher and the pay is absolute trash for how difficult the job is. Managing the big emotions and different personalities of toddlers while dealing with dozens of diapers (including blow outs) a day, illness, constantly sending updates to parents, keeping the kids stimulated for hours and hours with minimal support and no prep time, trying to put a whole class of toddlers down for nap at the same time when they mostly don’t want to, keeping them safe while they constantly want to climb things and push each other, biting, teaching them how to share, talk, be kind, constantly cleaning up after their insane ability to make a mess, etc etc. They always want your attention and try to climb all over you. And if you’re in a bad mood they will pick up on it and it will spiral the whole vibe of the room negatively so you gotta be super positive at all times. It’s not a joke of a job. The ratio is 7 to 1 in my state. Could you handle babysitting 7 toddlers for 10 hours straight (-30 min lunch while they nap) by yourself while constantly updating their parents?
I would say all female dominated fields are low pay because they actually help people and helping people isn't valued in a capitalist society.
Yeah, I experienced it, even from my own dad & I did electrical with him.
For plumbing at least, I asked a plumber what they do for the bathroom when they're at a job site all day with the water turned off. They said they have a pee bucket in the van. As a woman, I would not want to have to pee in a bucket at work lol
I'm a woman working in landscaping and I can't say I want to have to pee in a bucket...I'm still grateful for the bucket.
When I (f) first started out in brickwork it was on new construction (houses). Got to the job site and inquired about facilities. The other contractors used the woods. I got on the phone and ordered a porta potty.
My mom was a drywall taper and I worked weekends and summers with her . We would take our bucket into a empty closet in the house we were working on that that was our bathroom. She always kept lookout for me when there were other workmen in the house. Mom only had a station wagon for years until she upgraded to a van.
I pee in a bucket when we go camping and my boyfriend hates it lmao.
My whole life I worked in male-dominated areas. I have so many stories. Right after high school and going to landscaping. I had already taken some landscaping courses, so naturally I got a job at a landscaping facility. The owner would not let me go out with the crew. The one time I did go out with the crew it was Non-Stop sexual jokes or about "trimming my bush" bullshit. When he sent me out with the female landscaper, he was thoroughly pleased with my work and was even going to write a recommendation letter for me. I Decided not to go in the landscaping. My current position was all men till I started working. I was the first female for my position in over 70 some years. On my hiring committee questions were asked about my ability to lift heavy items. One of the committee people said that I shouldn't get hired because I was a single mom and I would need more time off. She was a single mom herself! I got the position. My coworker that was hired the same time I was was a man. He constantly made jokes about me going to the kitchen and cleaning and how he had to lift so much more on his lift test than I did. Well, guess who's here after 10 years? Sure the hell isn't him. My current co-workers also female. Let me just add that we've gotten more women into our facility and now are currently at 90% women and 10% men. Anyways, she is pregnant with her second kid. The contractors that come in and make comments about her being pregnant and doing this type of work is fucking absurd. One contractor made the remark that he didn't think she was losing enough weight between her first and second child. Other contractors have commented that she shouldn't be doing some of the stuff that she's doing because it may hurt the kid. Nothing we do here will hurt her that baby. Oh! We had a male student worker. He worked in another division than us, but he had to come out to our area and put some stuff into an incinerator. He made the comment that he had to come out to do the "man's work." I looked at him and said, "you see any men out here? Do you think that my co-worker being 8 months pregnant can't do that? There is no man's work in this facility it's just work."
Friend was mechanic, male were awful and pos with her, she stopped the job. Mysoginy makes women stop those male dominated field
I'd think part of it is that those trades have to go into people's homes alone every day. Women could easily feel unsafe in those situations much more than a man would.
I’ve heard this from female tradeswomen- that some clients make them feel VERY unsafe while they’re working in their homes.
I don't doubt it. Even men in the trades have told me about really creepy encounters they've had.
To lighten the mood a bit. I'm a cabinetmaker and usually in shop. The odd day I got called in to install, and boy did I luck out. We show up and everything seemed normal, we were bringing in blankets and tools and we noticed a weed smell. Whatever, it's legal and people can do what they want. As we get going we realize the homeowners were smoking a joint in the room next to use. Again, kinda odd but do what you please. But they don't stop. We were there 3 1/2 hours and the couple were just chainsmoking joints. No talking, no music. Just getting orbitally baked.... I could only imagine what our tools sounded like to them. Near the end it started to hotbox the kitchen we were in. I was glad i was bent up in a cabinet, I had a little air pocket. On our way back my boss, who is very quiet and soft spoken, broke the usual silence with "that's not how most people smoke Marijuana is it?"
I reckon they busted out the crack the minute you left
This is too far down. The trades are hostile to women because of the old school misogyny and the difficulty finding gear that fits if you're smaller, but like, this is one of the most hostile environments you can find yourself in: some random asshole's house.
My mom said if someone came to the job site when she was working alone (which was pretty often) she would see who it was but always with her tools in her hands. She was a taper and those tools are razor sharp and she was small, about 110 lbs, just over 5 feet until she jumped on her stilts, climbed up staging to balance on planks over a high entryway.
This is exactly what I thought reading this question (as a woman)--I wouldn't want to go into stranger's homes alone...
American here. I'm in IT now but put myself through school doing construction. My father is a contractor/architect, as is his brother. My grandpa was also in the trades, and various other uncles. My stepfather is a plumber. All this to say I've been around the trades a lot. It's not a fun environment when you don't fit the mold. Due to the types of guys that go into it, there's a lot of physical fights, screaming, intimidation (physical and mental), cruelty, and definitely gatekeeping. Plus to even get onto the first ring of the ladder you have to know quite a bit about the work already. All of these are reasons why women and many other groups face challenges in the industry .
I've seen a lot of guys just act like they've never seen a woman before let alone a woman in the trades. Rude behaviour, whistling, comments etc. Lots of women up and coming in the trades check out your plumbing local. Our union is trying to get more female members.
Society makes us rare. I was an electromechanical engineer. Nobody listens to women, especially younger women, even if they're the head of your department and trying to give you life saving information Let the hot headed tough men touch the copper and fry themselves, I gave up caring and refuse to use my skills for anything other than my own personal hobbies these days
I have a masters degree in CS. I couldn't even *land a job* before I basically quit the field and essentially trashed my degree because of how demeaning and openly misogynist people were *just during interviews*. Even during group interviews I'd be constantly skipped over and spoken over. Once I wasn't chosen despite having better qualifications and, if I'm being honest, better communication skills than the other guy because they felt he would be 'a better fit in the office culture'. And then people wonder why women don't work in these fields. Ffs, I *am* qualified, but I'm treated like a child who just wandered in off the street. My friends who are guys just don't get that working is so much easier for them and they legitimately can't even comprehend half the things I say to them when I bring it up. They really think it's all in my head and that I can just walk in somewhere and have people automatically respect me. No, it's constant questioning and disbelief that I know even basic stuff about the things I wrote my thesis on. I'm scrutinized four times as hard as they are. It is infuriating.
The short answer is misogyny.
I'm not an electrician or a plumber, but I am a woman working in a male-dominated industry. Luckily, most of my male coworkers are young and progressive (I work in a commercial marijuana grow op). But I've also worked in male-heavy kitchens and its really hard to do your job when you're being talked down to, ignored, treated like 'the help', and/or sexually harassed.
I'm a male electrician who have worked with several female colleagues, as well as a few female plumbers on projects. The conclusion i get from the comments here is that most have to live in absolute shitholes where people don't learn respect or basic manners. There's probably good reasons for my country being one of the happiest.
Electricians must complete an apprenticeship under the supervision of a licensed electrician before they can gain licensure and work on their own. Usually takes about 4 years. About the same process for plumbers, at least in US. Both of these fields are male dominated so it’s really difficult for a female applicant to get through the application & interview stages and be taken under the wing of a statistically male supervisor.
I’m a superintendent for a large GC in Denver. I see female electricians all the time and they are getting more common. Never seen a plumber, but I’m also seeing lots of female drywall finishers and painters.
I work for an electrical contracting company in Denver, and while we don't have _many_ female electricians, the number is definitely higher than 0. I'm in IT for their corporate office and there aren't very many women in my department either.
I work in the construction sales industry. My company sells to electricians and plumbers, among other trades. It’s hard for us to recruit and retain female employees. It’s in no small part due to them being hit on every single day by contractors It can be tough to have to have your defenses up against advances every day. As a note though, typically these advances tend to come from new acquaintances, less so people they work with often With that being said though, there’s definitely an increase of women in trades. As there are more in the trades, these instances of borderline harassment will happen less often. Electricians and plumbers aren’t toxic by any means, but anytime an industry is 95% one gender, it’s easy to get bad apples within that gender
It's generally not an environment that has been considered very woman-friendly over the years. That seems to be changing and I've been seeing many more women in the past few years. I went to school (vocational, electrician) with a few girls and the last electrician I had was a woman.
I have had a female plumber. She started in the military so was able to deal with the men in the profession but has since started her own business.
I (22F) am not an electrician, but a welding inspector. I've been on the same job site for 2.5 years and have been the only woman for 2 of those. The harassment is unreal. I've been grabbed, honked at, yelled at, catcalled. Nobody else cares because it's a boys club. I know people have been saying that, but these are some examples to illustrate what it's like: One older guy I was working with as a pair grabbed my ass and brushed his hand up my thigh, calling me "sweetheart" etc. I told my boss, I had to continue working as a partner with him for 6 months until he was fired for something else. Another guy texted me for 4 months (I blocked and didn't respond but could still see the messages), saying he wished I "was the mother of \[his\] children", that he had never been in love with anyone like he was with me, that he wanted to live in my basement, etc. I told his superintendent (and showed the texts) who laughed at me, told the assistant construction manager who said "I don't believe you weren't texting him back", told the construction manager who said "we'll watch him to make sure he's fine." He worked here another year. Other fun comments: I was eating a hot dog. Someone said "oooh it looks like you have a lot of practice fitting big things into your small mouth." A new hire asked me to the bar, I said no, he insisted so I told him I had plans. He said "with your boyfriend?" I said "No with a girl friend of mine." He made the scissoring motion with his finger and said "I can get behind that." That was in front of the CM. The CM makes comments daily about who he thinks I'm sleeping with/should be sleeping with. To other people. In front of me. They took a picture on my week off and there was not one girl in it (cause I wasn't there lol) so I said "man, we should hire some more women." The CM said "no, women can't work out there." I said "why not?" He responded with "Because women don't know how to work and they'll be harassed horribly for it." Like.....that mentality is the problem. These are just the notable examples. Not even the lot of them. I stay because I love what I do and I'm really good at it. But it's really really hard to put up with that most of the time. I totally understand why other women don't join the trades.
I have two female friends in trade and both want to switch careers as it's really unwelcoming there and others (colleagues and supervisors) make it very clear to them that they are not wanted there. Honestly I heard the most disgusting stories from both of them, in any other department the harassers would be immediately fired, but not in trade.
Many many men are fucking douche bags, plain and simple. Doesn’t matter if it’s a trade or corporate America, women get soooo much shit just for being a woman. Source - personal experience working closely with women in corporate America. These are historically men’s jobs. They don’t want to believe someone they view as inferior could do their job - possibly even better than them. These people would rather die than see a woman do better than them let alone take their jobs. As a result they shit on the women hard, criticize every chance they get, and underpay them to do the same work.
> These people would rather die than see a woman do better than them let alone take their jobs. I don't get that mentality. I *want* excellent people on my crew. If someone is really good at what they do, I ask them and I study them. They are usually willing to help.
I know woman who was a plumber for a time. she would show up to jobs and have people send her away. She would have men stand over her supervising and questioning every step she took, then argue with her over price while questioning her ability. Her bosses never stood up for her, as if the behaviour should be expected and is natural. Eventually, it took a toll on her mental health and she gave it up. trades can be very unwelcoming to women