A sight for sore eyes

At the back of our place, house building is taking place.

I think 250 or so going up, all different designs which is good to see. If watching your open view over a village being blocked off is ever good to see.

I digress. I was just out the back having a roll up, when I heard a woman's voice. Looking around I could see a woman half way up a roof. A woman roofer.

I know there are a lot of female electricians. I wonder if there are female builders doing all trades. I know my god-daughter is into car mechanics & engineering, ( dad builds steam engines).

Steve.

And about time too. If they, the ladies that is, want equal parity with men, then they should be seen to be doing the unpleasant, hard jobs as well as the nice boardroom jobs.

Peter G. Shaw.

p.s I am not a misogynist. I have a daughter who worked for the HMRC and ended up doing VAT inspections until her accident. She is now working for the local Police doing I know not what in an admin roll. I also have a daughter-in-law who is, I think, an Llb. Or is it LLB? Except that she doesn't use it as such. I also have a lovely beautiful 13 year-old grandaughter who for the last 6 years has more than adequately shown to me that it won't be long before she will be able to wipe the floor with her two brothers. I've another 4 year-old grandaughter who hasn't yet shown what she is capable of. In theory, it should be a lot being the daughter of the LLB above and her husband who holds a Masters degree in Physics.

Daughter is learning to drive a semi-HGV. She is already a yard jockey, backs up 30-40 trailers a day.

My grandaughter plays under 16’s women’s rugby, she lives just outside Wigan so its almost a religion there, she is fervent with her rugby, her father, my son-in-law , coaches a youth rugby team so it’s a family tradition.
Dave W

p.s I am not a misogynist

Neither am I. Women will never be equal to men. At the same time men will never be equal to women.

Perhaps not entirely PC but ‘horses for courses’ might come to mind. If they want to, and can, why not?

Gone are the days when nearly all women worked at home while the men were out ‘wage-earning’. The world wars (particularly the second?) illustrated very clearly the ability of the fairer sex to do virtually any job the other half had carried out previously.

Humans were/are classified as hunters and gatherers back before settling and becoming farmers. Even then, the different ‘occupations’ were clearly complementary - and the ‘horses for courses’ cliché applied just as much then as now.

So nothing wrong with a woman roofer at all - while she can. My daughter studied hard for her qualifications and has been working for 20 years - until interrupted (temporarily) by child-birth. The same might apply (or even may have already applied), to those lady roofers at some stage, so ‘good on ‘em’ for doing what they can, and are clearly now doing, in what used to be supposedly classed as ‘a man’s world’. Things change.

try this

Just to expand a little on my first paragraph above:

We have a 3 person refuse collection crew. All, as far as I know, male, one of whom drives the vehicle whilst the other two run, yes run, to the next pickup point. At break times, the two "runners" sit in the cab eating & drinking whilst the driver did the job singlehandedly. Now we did have a woman vehicle driver a few years ago, but I never saw her out of the cab. Neither have I a seen female "runner". In these days of so-called equality, why not? After all, with wheelie bins, and powered lifts, there is no really heavy lifting to do is there?

We also have coal delivered (yes, yes I know so no comments please about pollution) by a (guessing) in his 30's or 'early 40's man who casually humps 50Kg sacks on his back round to our bin before tipping it into the bin. Now in the 25 years we've had this system we have had, I think, 4 different delivery people - all male. Are there any female delivery people? Or is 50Kg too much for them?

At the moment these are the two worst examples I can think of where ladies are conspicuous by their absence, yet, on daily basis, or so it seems according to the "box", there are young(ish) women running companies, in positions of authority, spouting about glass ceilings etc. So what about the glass floor? Lets have more equalty all round with ladies sharing the hard work, and being seen to be doing so.

Peter G. Shaw

Peter 50kg was outlawed a long time ago. It was dropped to 25kg. Probably due to sickness, bad back etc. I think it was lowered even more now to 15kg. In the building trade they have strict rules on safe lifting now. No longer will you see a brickies mate with his hod, climbing a ladder. All bricks / roofing tiles etc are crane lifted to the height req on the scaffold.

Steve.

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when doing a proper selfbuild bungalow,we had 3 ton of cement delivered, one saturday ,driver was bolshie and wanted help,i had hurt my back and was dealing with another delivery,so my wife said she would help unload,lorry driver "you cant do that,"wife "try me" one cwt bags in those days and she kept pace with the driver who afterwards said he had never seen a woman carry cement bags,And later on after the 1987 storm my wife went up on the roof to replace those big redland stonewold tiles,I have to admit that I s--t myself up a ladder.When we tiled the bungalow we carried the tiles up in a chain gang ,friends up the roof me on the middle scaffolding and wife and mother in law at the bottom.

I have to disagree with you steve, a crane or forklift is often not practical on a house extension with poor access, been a slater for over 40 years and carry my slates on to the roof on most jobs. gary

Bill,

I did wonder if it was something like that.

Steve,

50Kg for who? Everyone? Or just certain sections of society? I have in front of me an invoice from my coal merchant which states "Take notice that you are to receive herewith, in sacks, and each sack containing 50 Kilos." I've had a quick look at the HSE website and am surprised to find that there are NO legal limits to manual handling of loads. There are diagrams which suggest limits, but these are NOT legal requirements. I must admit that like you, I thought there were different limits for fully grown men and for youths & women. It seems that all the HSE require is that the employer examines the procedures concerned and makes his own rules to suit the circumstances.

To both of you,

It still doesn't explain why there are no ladies doing these jobs: in the coal sacks case, it would be reasonably easy to use 25Kg sacks, although perhaps not as efficient. And in the refuse collection ladies are still able to run.

Peter G. Shaw

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50Kg for who? Everyone? Or just certain sections of society? I have in front of me an invoice from my coal merchant which states "Take notice that you are to receive herewith, in sacks, and each sack containing 50 Kilos." I've had a quick look at the HSE website and am surprised to find that there are NO legal limits to manual handling of loads. There are diagrams which suggest limits, but these are NOT legal requirements.

That does surprise me.

The building game. I think if doing self build or one offs, maybe it does not count. I am watching daily here as everything is controlled, by crane lifting. Strange as I did a few courses on manual handling when working for blue chip companies. They insisted we all went on too many courses. Even back then they were quoting 25kg. Looking deeper it would seem as Peter says. No legal limit. So it must be down to the company who hire you. These houses are all Persimmon homes. So guess they implement the rules.

Steve.

FIL had a roof done and the Guy carried 2 bundles of shingles up the ladder at a time.

Just asked the Missus if she fancies a job as a domestic engineer, she said what is one of them. I said a dustbin man. I will not repeat the answer I got. Didn't bother to ask her about coal. Got enough bruises.

Steve.

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Today at our farm shop I slid a 25kg bag of potatoes of a 5 feet stack, once it was clear of the stack it took me to the ground, its a long time since I lifted that weight and it was a shock when I couldnt hold it.

Martin P

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