A sight for sore eyes

I've been working in construction for more than 30 years and whilst there are many more women working 'in construction' now they are almost all in 'soft' jobs. For example:

Surveyors

Site engineers

Site managers

Project managers

Document controllers

Environmental managers

Safety managers

Compliance

Office/welfare support staff

I've seen a few on the tools, but only very few. Saw a female brick layer, and you get quite a few women in M&E installation. One of the best crane operators I've ever known was a Polish lady.

What I've never seen women doing on the tools in the whole of my working life is:

Driving any diggers or other mechanical plant

Working in demolition (on the tools)

Steel fixing

Steel erecting

Concrete gangs

Or any of the other heavy-labour jobs in construction. So yeah whilst they are 'in construction' they are not generally fulfilling the roles that you associate with the stereotypical brawny male, and that's by choice- it's not like the opportunity is not there - it's that the typical female physique is not suited to the heavier work and they don't want to present too masculine an image.

This isn't bigotry or sexism, it's my observations and in my mind women are perfectly welcome to work in any role and in any industry they choose. In construction they very much tend to choose the non-physical roles.

Well over 20 years ago in the goldmines of Western Australia the large (250T+ carrying capacity) dump trucks were driven by women.

Women were prefered to men as they had less accidents, and the vehicles had less mechanical breakdowns, as they were driven more carefully. They were simply better drivers than the men.

Most of the them could drink the men under the table as well!

Edited By Ian Childs on 22/03/2020 21:54:30

Oh dear the page has gone wonky. Anyway guys I take it you have never been shopping with the wife. She can trundle around the shops all day with heavy bags of loot. You are saying oh my arms are falling off. True or not.

Anyway what started with me posting a polite thread has become a Battle of oldies.

Haha funny though.

Hope there is no AGM for this forum. It would need bouncers on the doors.

Steve.

Well life does indeed make fools of us! Earlier in this thread I commented that there used to be a female refuse collection vehicle driver but I hadn't seen her for a while. Guess who turned up this morning - a very blonde pony tailed femail refuse collection vehicle driver!

Oh well, can't win 'em all.

Peter G. Shaw

Hopper,

Please don't use the term "boomers". It is used as a term of derision and not needed on a forum such as this which mainly comprises of people of that generation.

As A Bricklayer / Mason I have seen a few females in the Construction industry and they all have 1 thing in common They are brilliant at their trade. be they, Joiners [ worked with a couple ] Painters, Plasterers, Electricians. My thinking is they are under scrutiny and therefore have to be that bit better ...and they are. Only trade I have yet to see them do is Mason as I think the weight of Granite MIGHT be a bit much but I could well be wrong on that.

I think it was the mid to late 70s when pay was equalised but all jobs had to be done by everyone, the trim manufacturing was largely a female preserve and the welding and presshop were 100% male. The night shift was also a solely male shift, some of the jobs did require a significant physical strength which was beyond most women and even slightly built men, of course some of the girls were stitched up with these jobs just to make a point. Of course it all settled down and regulations on weights to be handled levelled the playing field. The night shift opened the doors to a bit of low level prostitution for a while but that blew itself out after a while. Forty years later people think nothing of females in a factory even though it is still a strongly male profile and with robots doing most of the hard work all the workforce are getting soft, so a gym is now provided for those who don’t get enough of a workout in the job. Times change.

Mike

Oh I so love reading this thread the 'they can't do this' and they're no good at that, everyone is good at something, it might be they haven't found that something but what is very clear is that some women can thrash us at most jobs given the opportunity, we're just too afraid to give them that chance in case we lose our 'masculinity' .

There is the argument that women don't always get picked against male applicants for jobs even though we have 'equality' rules, there is still a sub culture that believes men should have the job anyway!!! Hmmm read some of the previous posts.

It's Me again, I once stopped a staunch feminist friend in her tracks, when overhearing her extolling the issue, I interupted To state that a woman would NEVER be equal to a man. I left it just long enough for what could be called "comic timing" then added "they are a complimentary pair" . It's the only time I've ever seen her stuck for words. Noel