The construction industry is now and historically has been a man’s world. Even though medieval European manuscripts document that a surprising number of women worked alongside men building cathedrals and fortifying city walls, they were largely relegated to menial jobs, earning half of what their male counterparts were paid.
Back then, it was socially unacceptable and in fact immoral for a woman to work for wages. Her duty, her sole focus in life, was to care for her husband and children. Sound familiar, ladies?
Payroll documents from those times rarely mentioned female workers by name. Instead, they were referred to only as doña, femme, or wench, reflecting the shame and disgrace surrounding women who did manual labor.
Today, although women working in the trades are certainly paid more than their medieval counterparts and need no longer hang their heads in shame , a mere 8.9 percent of the industry’s workforce is female.
It’s a fair question to ask, since the feminist movement has been around for decades, why there are still so few females in the industry. It may well be that many women simply are not interested in or drawn to these jobs. They don’t want to get filthy dirty every day, “walk the high steel,” or work outdoors in all manner of weather.
Another possibility: Modern women raised with Title IX and the EEOC are unwilling to tolerate a hostile workplace environment. Stories abound of women on construction sites being subjected to unrelenting harassment and abuse by their male supervisors and coworkers. Some men in the industry, upon hearing the phrase “women in construction,” don’t think of real women doing real jobs but instead picture a Playboy fantasy of gorgeous buxom blondes clad only in toolbelts and steel-toed boots.
Colorado is making efforts to boost the measly percentage of women in construction, as illustrated by a outlining organized efforts by a coalition of schools, construction companies and advocacy groups to make the field more appealing to young girls and women. They are placing special emphasis on the benefits of apprenticeship programs, where participants receive four years of paid on-the-job training and free classroom instruction after hours.
I know that my mother, given the chance to learn a skilled trade through a paid apprenticeship, would have jumped at the opportunity, if for no other reason than to avoid drowning in the secretarial pool. In my family, gender roles were reversed. My mother could fix just about anything, whereas the mere mention of home repair would cause my father to spook like a skittish horse and bolt for the nearest tavern.
Unlike other families in my neighborhood where dads were kept busy every weekend with “honey-do” tasks, my father had a “honey-don’t” list specifically designed by my mother to keep him far away from leaky faucets and clogged drains. Dad meant well, but his idea of “helping” my mother was to stand at the base of the ladder while she put up storm windows and shout, “Watch it! Look out! Don’t fall!”
If Colorado is truly serious about getting more women into construction, just look back to the example set in World War II, when women were desperately needed in non-traditional jobs to take the place of men who were at war. One government advertisement asked women: “Can you use an electric mixer? If so, you can learn to operate a drill.”
The spirit and determination of “Rosie the Riveter” is what’s needed today. Plus, women must be assured that, this time, they can keep these jobs and not have to give them up when Johnny comes marching home.
Teresa Keegan works for the courts in Denver. E-mail her at b161tak@yandex.com.
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