Women in 'men's' jobs

[WhiteVanWoman91]

Leading on from the thread about why trade/construction jobs aren't more widely considered outside of the working class, I feel the same way that they're never really something us females are ever told much about.

WC lads often do pretty shit at school, but then end up ok after finding a trade. Maybe not earning £100k bigshot money but £40k+. However, I feel wc class women often end up in shit retail jobs or serving coffee etc.

I'm a female trucker in the construction industry, getting all my qualifications for site management etc. Trying to decide whether I'd rather be in transport or site management. But right now I love my job and earn circa £40k in an environment I Iike. Hate offices tbh.

I think despite people saying that male dominated sectors are hostile to women, I reckon many wc women would feel less intimidated in the sort of environment I work in than in a corporate office. They'd be working with the kind of guys they're married to, grew up with, and less likely to feel looked down on - people tend to be pretty snobby in this country even if most people claim to value 'diversity'.

I feel like a lot of women moan about 'not enough women in xyz sector' but not many want to lead by example. Will post some pics of some of the women I find inspirational as they seem to be pretty much ignored despite all the talk of male dominated this and that.

Its interesting topic. I work as a gardener - part of which is in a care home, and many of the older generations are surprised that a female does the work I do (running round with machinery).

Its an interesting topic because when your doing such a variety of manual jobs like you do when your gardening - it really does show the differences between men and women.

I always prefer working in a mixed sex team, and so do my coworkers. And our industry is very mixed sex.

Generalising here; but us women are much more adept to climbing under/or through a bush and also doing the maintenance through the beds (ie. yoga with tiny feet and a lower centre of gravity).

But sometimes you just cannot beat the man power of a bloke with a pick ax, the pulling/ lifting power of a man, or the additional upper body strength/ reach when doing long periods or difficult pruning/trimming jobs.

And as someone who is now in their 30s, I am already feeling the wear on my knees. And so fitness is not just a male/female divide; I also consider it an age divide between the young and those with fresh cartilage vs the older of us who have to watch what we are doing a bit more.

So when I do my hiring and looking to build in a team, sometimes I do want a stronger man, or a more agile woman, or a fresh young one. And thats OK in my opinion.

But I suppose those requirements also lead into other sectors where people do focus on specific areas. So if I was solely running a business which specialised in heavy work, I may verge towards hiring brute man power - even as a woman and feminist myself. I am not sure what can really be done to resolve that.

'I think I’m more talking about men working in roles (generally more physical), not having to manage anyone, not having worked their way up or anything like that but probably earning more than the person in my first paragraph and from their first day on the job.'

You have to train to do any job though! From gardening to driving a lorry to plumbing to anything.

I mean even labouring you're going to need to learn the names for stuff and be able to anticipate what needs doing without being told and before you know that you're not nearly as useful.

I'll bet if you said that anyone could walk off the street and do his job as well as him straight away he'd not be very impressed! I mean obv don't know you but I can't think of anything where you don't need to learn or know anything at all.

Hotel Help I agree with the bit about women having to do more to make the money.

Lemon yes quite.

Some women may be strong enough but heavy work just isn't going to be suitable for many women.

I wrote a longish post about it earlier.

I said upthread that I was a hospital porter... a role that is traditionally a male one. I was the only woman porter in my NHS trust (which consisted of at least 6 hospitals, so not small!).

Fine to be in the role and thing everything was fine.. it wasn't. I would get bleeped and when the person on the other end found out I was female, I was told to get a bloke to do the job instead. This happened all the time!
There was a newsletter for our trust, and several times my manager wanted to do a write up about "letting" a woman be a porter. I refused every time.
I had a good relationship with most of my colleagues.. but some were dodgy, I was alone with one and he suddenly tried to grab my tits. I was WTF, and he had a go at me and called me frigid. I was in my 20s, and he was in his 60s.
I did love my job. I loved the environment, and most of my colleagues. But there was this overwhelming feeling that it was not right for me to be there because I was a woman.

OP, if you don’t want to look it up yourself, read this link:

spartacus-educational.com/ExamIR19.htm

Women down coal mines well into the 1850s, hauling wagons of coal in tunnels too narrow to fit pit ponies. They were also in factories, working in the fields (harvesting by hand is backbreaking), working as laundresses (also bloody hard work) etc etc.

Working class women have always worked, and have always done heavy manual work. Just not in the well-paid trades/craftsmens guilds, because they were shut out. This idea of Victorian ladies sitting at home and sewing all day is based on rich women in period dramas - it wasn’t the reality for most.

I don't see a lot of women in trades where I am, but the ones I do see tend to do very well, and like it. It's true the men might not be as polished and pc as those in an office type setting, but it seems to me it's a mistake to conclude they are less likely to like and respect women. And being a woman can be an advantage in some ways as they are under-represented so that opens up some special programs and such.

Change very good of you to Google for OP.

With the mines women were banned from the job - I can find a link. This caused serious issues in families due to the loss of money coming in. All because of concerns about women, femininity and morals...

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mines_and_Collieries_Act_1842

I'm a train driver. There were hardly any women when I started, we do have a few more now, but still a massively male dominated industry.

I think perhaps it's the shift work, 24-7 364 days a year. It wouldn't work for childcare, school runs etc.

'It's true the men might not be as polished and pc as those in an office type setting, but it seems to me it's a mistake to conclude they are less likely to like and respect women.'

Yes I mentioned this earlier.

Of course there are sexist/ misogynist men everywhere.

And imo as per the accounts on here of women having massive issues with sexism in traditional male sectors/ jobs etc.

The concealed simmering resentment of so many men is office jobs is a massive issue.

Working class women have always worked, and have always done heavy manual work. Just not in the well-paid trades/craftsmens guilds, because they were shut out.

With the mines women were banned from the job - I can find a link. This caused serious issues in families due to the loss of money coming in.

Exactly what I was saying.

The manual nature of the jobs meant that it was nearly always the man who was the main breadwinner, meaning that up until recently women had to rely on men.

Whereas men have always had the burden of providing on their shoulders. It wouldn’t surprise me if this influenced men’s nature in evolving to be more competitive, aggressive, better at collaborating, etc.

I think perhaps it's the shift work, 24-7 364 days a year.

Surely it’s not possible to only sleep once a year?

WhiteVan I'm sure you said women didn't work though?

'The manual nature of the jobs meant that it was nearly always the man who was the main breadwinner, meaning that up until recently women had to rely on men.'

How does that follow? That was specific to mines. How does that indicate that across the board women didn't work and were dependent on men? Whether manual work or otherwise.

@Chesneyhawkes1

I'm a train driver. There were hardly any women when I started, we do have a few more now, but still a massively male dominated industry.

I think perhaps it's the shift work, 24-7 364 days a year. It wouldn't work for childcare, school runs etc.

I'm not sure about this. On the one hand I do know that in some sectors, like my husband's, which is science, women seem to gravitate to the jobs that are better lifestyle choices with kids. So in the public sector where he is it is female dominated more often, compared to universities and the private sector.

On the other hand, nursing is very much female dominated, and that's often 24/7 shift work, certain kinds of social work that are similar have a lot of women, call centers often have plenty of women, many kinds of doctors are majority women.

When we had some work done on our house last year, one of the carpenters was a woman, and they were off at 5 on the dot every day, and didn't work weekends. That is a lot better for childcare than nursing would be.

@WhiteVanWoman91

I think an interesting thought is that it’s possible that the things that prevent many women from going into manual jobs are the same reasons why men became the main breadwinner in the first place (as most jobs would’ve been more manual a couple hundred years ago).

Yes this post.

It reads to me-

Most jobs were manual couple hundred years ago

The things that prevented women going into work then in manual jobs was probably the same as what prevents them now

Hence men were the breadwinners as the women in general weren't working due to most jobs being manual

But it's not true that women in general not working 200 years ago because most jobs were manual.
And that due to that families in general had one source of income from the man.

You have pointed at women being banned from going down mines as supporting your view. I don't see how though. As women aren't banned from manual jobs now. So if the idea is that women don't do manual jobs generally now because men have made it illegal. Isn't much of an argument.

Loads of women work for tfl in jobs with shift patterns is another example.

I'm sure there's plenty more.

OP I think it would be good to be direct.

What are the reasons that you think women don't go into manual jobs much?

Why do you keep insisting that women 200 years ago wouldn't have worked much at all? And that the reason they didn't then is the same as now. Again, what reason? You obviously have a reason in mind.

My sister is a butcher.
She was apprentice of the year countrywide which was a huge finger to the boys club.
My mum was a boner at the meat works then later a prision officer.

Both male dominated industries.
My other sister works in the Print industry also a boys club while I worked in admin and accounting in a professional industry.

I’m the one who’s had the most issues for harassment but not when I was working in Male dominated horticulture.
Just the office jobs.

If I’m reading this census data right, women only made up 30% of occupied jobs in the mid 1800s. My guess is still that this is because of the hard physical aspect of it.

eh.net/encyclopedia/women-workers-in-the-british-industrial-revolution/

Table one you're looking at?

It's always a good idea to look at context though.

Text before table says census data re women work is totally unreliable.

If it's not from table one can you say where? It's a long read. I just searched 30 and table 1 said women 30%. Apols if it's elsewhere.

'Unfortunately, the historical sources on women’s work are neither as complete nor as reliable as we would like. Aggregate information on the occupations of women is available only from the census, and while census data has the advantage of being comprehensive, it is not a very good measure of work done by women during the Industrial Revolution. For one thing, the census does not provide any information on individual occupations until 1841, which is after the period we wish to study.3 Even then the data on women’s occupations is questionable. For the 1841 census, the directions for enumerators stated that “The professions &c. of wives, or of sons or daughters living with and assisting their parents but not apprenticed or receiving wages, need not be inserted.” Clearly this census would not give us an accurate measure of female labor force participation. Table One illustrates the problem further; it shows the occupations of men and women recorded in the 1851 census, for 20 occupational categories. These numbers suggest that female labor force participation was low, and that 40 percent of occupied women worked in domestic service. However, economic historians have demonstrated that these numbers are misleading. First, many women who were actually employed were not listed as employed in the census. Women who appear in farm wage books have no recorded occupation in the census.4 At the same time, the census over-estimates participation by listing in the “domestic service” category women who were actually family members. In addition, the census exaggerates the extent to which women were concentrated in domestic service occupations because many women listed as “maids”, and included in the domestic servant category in the aggregate tables, were really agricultural workers.5'

If you read you wouldn't have to guess. Just as a general suggestion.

Did you read that link?

“For the 1841 census, the directions for enumerators stated that “The professions &c. of wives, or of sons or daughters living with and assisting their parents but not apprenticed or receiving wages, need not be inserted“

It goes on to list further issues with the way data was recorded in the 1851 and 1861 censuses, but you can read it yourself.

Also - don’t you know this? If you are working class, didn’t your own mum, grandmother and great grandmother work? And all the rest of your community? Mine certainly all did

The lads in trades still need to have decent GCSEs and often have to resit them.
Its not like it was years ago when it was a case of knowing someone who could get you in the door.

Tbh where I live there's a LOT of typically male dominated, highly skilled industry. And women and girls are actively encouraged to apply for apprenticeships. I know 3 female welders. As contractors theyre on £70 an hour. One has been given the opportunity to work in Australia.

That would have been unheard of even 20 years ago.

My come from a farming family and the “farmers wife” always worked just as hard as the farmers doing farm work that would of been unrecognised or they had a “town” job during the hard years so they could actually eat and keep the family farm.