Bin-women, a job?

[TheViewFromTheCheapSeats]

Other thread reminded me of this.

Aibu to think there’s practically zero women employed working on refuse lorries? They park up near my house, multiple crews over the years, yet I never see women there or at the tip (except for the shop).

Most jobs have women now, if I walk past a construction site it’s certainly male dominated still but I do see some women. I never ever see female refuse collectors.

Is it just my area?

As someone else said, it’s quite a sort after job for many.

What does "sort after" mean?

It's a spelling mistake because of the English non-rhotic accent. It should say 'sought after' i.e. desirable.

@FurrFeather

Possibly because physical strength counts? . It’s a valuable job, and I think of that when university lecturers are sitting at home again complaining about something or other - again.

I am a lecturer. I value the work done by refuse collectors. I also like to complain about non-bin related things. I'm not sure how all these things align.

Definitely low representation. There's a woman regularly on our route, she happens to also be a part time swimming teacher at our local pool. There's also very low representation on railways, hugely low. There's definitely sexism within railways over women taking on the seen as 'tough' roles.

I've only ever seen one binmanwoman and agree that the job needs more of them. I think the problem is that women, especially younger women starting out in their careers, don't see it as "glamourous" enough, that picking up rubbish and wheeling bins about at the crack of dawn on a cold, wet morning isn't a suitable career for them. I'm not sure how that perception can be changed, some roles have successfully increased the proportion of female applicants (eg engineering) but a lot of the responsibility falls upon schools to encourage girls to see it as a viable career.

Lower paid jobs often lean more towards one sex.

Caring roles are usually done by working class women.

DAD (dangerous and dirty) jobs are primarily done by working class men.

*Lower paid jobs often lean more towards one sex.

Caring roles are usually done by working class women.

DAD (dangerous and dirty) jobs are primarily done by working class men.*

I wanted to say this but couldn't find the words but yes this.

I think the problem is that women, especially younger women starting out in their careers, don't see it as "glamourous" enough

Yes definitely. If you're a young, WC woman with few qualifications, you'd probably rather sit on a reception desk in some swanky offices in a nice dress or wash hair and make tea in a hair salon rather than wear a high viz jacket and hang off a bin lorry.

There's some in my area. And in the street maintenance crew/ road sweepers.

DAD (dangerous and dirty) jobs are primarily done by working class men.

Quite a few degree qualified engineering jobs are in crap, dirty and arduous outdoor conditions too. As a young grad it was expected as part of my ongoing training that I would work on offshore platforms, fabrication yards in west africa or freezing my bollocks off on some spartan site in central Asia. Generally speaking it was the women who refused these assignments, preferring instead to stay in the home office working 9-5pm. The overseas jobs, while bloody hard work and anti social at times, were actually quite fun, paid well and most definitely provided invaluable experience.

In the UK it is usual for bin men, road diggers and so on to be male. Not always as other posters have pointed out, but more often than not.

Go to somewhere like Iceland or Norway and women really are pretty equal, plenty of women as bin men, lorry drivers, digging up roads with pick axes and steering large machinery. Very noticeable compared to this country.

I think doing waste is still a very physical job, especially with council cuts there will be more expected in any shift - more routes and also more bins to collect per household.

I am not a bin lady but I do organise local litter picks and while it is in no way the same level of work as a professional, it can be strenuous and hard on the muscles, especially as we get a lot of fly tipping in our area- good way to get fit though.

I noticed in Portugal that there are a lot more female taxi drivers than the UK. That said, a lot more women bus drivers in London lately.

I’m afraid the ‘back in the olden days’ thing doesn’t really stack up

‘Traditional dustbins’ are approx 60 litres in size, modern wheeled bin are between 180 and 360 litres for domestic premises. On average a bin weighs approx 30kg in weight and a collection round is on average 1200 properties .

Each round has approx 2 loaders. Would you be able to shift 600 bins at that weight all day every day? Not to mention large communal bins at 660 -1200 litres. There is a lot of manual handling and health and safety implications that go with the work

DAD (dangerous and dirty) jobs are primarily done by working class men.

I'm not sure that doing the bins is any more dirty, dangerous or physical than care work.