Tolls for tradeswomen: gaps and adaptions to blue collar life

Molly Martin: I think safety equipment is the worst thing. If you need a mask for example, you've got to have one that fits your face, and a lot of companies have tried to deal with that. The City [of San Francisco] has gone out and made sure they've found a manufacturer that made a mask that could fit women's faces.

Liz Thompson: I was wondering about safety harnesses. If you're welding up on top of a dome or a bridge, and the harness is too loose ...

Kate Curry: Harnesses is a biggie. They're adjustable but, when I've used them, they're never adjustable enough. Even the seat belt on the back hoe -- I can't get that thing tight enough to feel that secure, if I was to roll it or something.

LT: Do you have to jury-rig it, or do you just make do?

KC: I always make do. I just do it on the smallest size it has. And I'm confident in my own ability. I don't do anything that stupid, where I feel like I'm going to be really vulnerable.

MM: I think they make it for the biggest man. I know women who have trouble driving pickup trucks because their feet can't reach the pedals. My carpenter friend who is 5'2" -- for years she just put little pieces of two-by-four on the pedals. That's how she dealt with it. Taped 'em on with duct tape.

I heard another one where there was an auto mechanic, and they told her she couldn't do the job because she wasn't tall enough, because they had to haul the cars up to a certain height and she couldn't reach them. Well, how did they figure it out? They got a ladder for her to stand on. Stuff like that -- they say, "Sorry, you can't do the job,' and it turns out there's a really simple way to deal with it.

KC: I don't think they were encouraging her to stick around.

MM: These people from City of Berkeley called me up and said, "We're really trying to do affirmative action. We really want to get women in the trades. What can we do? Here are some of the basic requirements . . . " One of them was that you have to lift 100 pounds. Well, obviously what it is, it's a way to keep women out. And now they're trying to figure out why there aren't any women applying for their jobs.

Some of the things that we did in the early issues of Tradeswomen were a lot of health and safety articles. Showing how to lift, for example, which is not something that they ever teach you in the trades, that I know of. Have you ever seen that happen?

KC: No. I get these "Safe Work Practices," little flyers. And we have these safety videos.

LT: So, do these training videos or manuals ever say, for a job that does require a certain amount of physical strength, "Here's a routine you might use to get into shape," as in a sports fitness kind of model?

MM: We taught each other how to lift when we started working. The way I learned was being a weight lifter. Then you learn from coaches how you're supposed to do that stuff. But it's not something you ever learn in the trades, that I know of.

KC: The saying goes around, "The best friend to a bad back is a strong stomach." That's what I've always heard.

MM: Yeah, work on your abs. was one of the few people I knew, when I worked in the trades, that didn't have a bad back. Every man I knew had a bad back.

LT: Do you find women get different repetitive stress, or other occupational injuries, than men? Either because of their different use of tools or because of the design of tools?

MM: Oh gosh, I don't think anyone knows. There's lots of carpel tunnel. And now repetitive strain injury is related to computer use. But there used to be, before that, a lot of tradeswomen who had problems with it. Though I think there must be a lot of tradesmen who do too.

We don't know [all the details], because nobody's really done any studies. It seemed to me for a while like women were experiencing a lot more carpel tunnel syndrome than, I thought, men were. But I don't talk to men in the trades as intimately as I talk to women in the trades. They might be experiencing a lot of things I don't even know about.

KC: How about tennis elbow?

MM: My carpenter friends definitely had elbow problems. I know people who do this motion [makes hammering gesture] all day. That's what you do as an apprentice. A lot of times, that's all you do.

Outfitting

LT: The only specialized women's tools we've found are women's gloves, women's boots, women's clothes.

KC: I wear Red Wings. But the style I like only comes in a men's boot. I got away from wearing those lace-ups. I went out of the house one morning and I thought, oh gosh, I gotta hurry up and get together. Next thing I know I was face down in the gravel because I hadn't tied my shoes. I don't need that tight of an ankle support. So now I'm going with the slip-on. And steel toe. And they don't make that particular model in a woman's boot. So I end up getting a smaller man's boot.

LT: And that works all right for you?

KC: Yeah, it does, until they change the design a little bit. I'm a creature of habit. If it works, and I'm happy with it, I just continue going with the same thing.

MM: I wore boots that were way too big on a construction project for months, in the rain. You put your socks in the end and just walk around. They were like size ten or something, and I was slogging around this job. They didn't have anything smaller.

KC: Yeah, not many men wear a size eight boot. Also, what I've noticed, when somebody would come up with, say, work boots that fit women, the price was twelve to fifteen percent higher. But there's the same amount of leather, probably less for a woman's foot. I never could figure that out.

MM: We [Tradeswomen magazine] used to do lots of stuff on this, and it's been years, and I don't know if anything's changed. Did you ever hear about the business the woman runs that just sells construction work clothes for women?

KC: I think the coveralls are the big one. I just cut `em off and take `em to a local seamstress and she hems them.

LT: How about rain gear?

KC: Oh, rain gear's way big. I usually end up cutting the cuffs off and the sleeves off. I don't even hem them because it doesn't fray. They only last a season anyway.

What To Do When Its Been So Long?

LT: It's been years since women have been in the trades, right? And there's still this tool gap?

MM: Construction, it's been since about 1972. 1 think they are getting lighter and more ergonomical, just in general. But I don't know that anyone's designed anything specifically for women.

KC: I think, as far as tools go, you just come to a point where you adapt. The thing I've noticed is the handles on the tools. So far as the torque of the tools, and performance -- the job dictates that. But just the handling -- I don't have that small of hands, but sometimes I have a heck of a time gripping something. I used to take a rasp and just shave some of the wood off the fat part of the handle there. And it worked pretty well because it reduced the size, and it also gave you something to grip. You know, sweaty palms. Sometimes those things get slippery. So that was kind of dual purpose.

MM: And they make hammers in all kinds of sizes, so you can always choose the next smaller.

KC: They have finish hammers with nice little sizes, but I always noticed framing hammer handles are bigger.

MM: You know the fire department is always saying you have to be able to use those huge wooden ladders that they have. Well, I say, What do the Japanese do? You know, they have small fire fighters. Don't they have ladders that are better than this? But no, we have to lift these ladders.

KC: They're wood, huh? I thought they would be fiberglass. Not aluminum, but maybe fiberglass.

MM: Yes, I just spoke to a friend of mine who is a firefighter. They are wooden ladders. Why is that? I don't know.

[Tools] used to be more of an issue at one time. It used to be that companies would come out with different tools, and they'd be advertising, and I don't know that there was enough of a market. So we just end up dating to our situation and doing the best we can. I did some research for my own needs, but after a while I just said, "You know what? Just make what you can get work."

Bodies in Balance

MM: We use our bodies to carry things differently on the job to move things around. You might not be using any tools at all, but carpenters discovered early on that carrying things on their shoulders was not necessarily the best way. They put them on their hip. There are different ways of using our bodies. We have to develop those ourselves. No one ever teaches you to do things. You have to try to figure it out. A lot of women have figured it out. And sometimes you have to take shit for not doing it their way.

I remember a friend of mine who started out as a cabinet maker, which, believe it or not, was a really tough trade to get into in California. I think it still is. They really were very discriminatory toward women. She had a really hard time. But she talked about learning how to pick up a big sheet of plywood, this technique that she used. You have to use leverage, and know the planes it's on. There's a way to do it easier. You have to know the physics of it.

KC: You definitely don't want to do it in the wind. But you know what? Men come in various sizes too. So I don't think they're just unique to women, the problems. You just adapt.

Molly Martin is a long-time electrician and worker-activist. Today she's an electrical inspector for the City of San Francisco who likes to row when she's not on call or busy organizing. She helped found Tradeswomen, Inc., a national nonprofit organization for women in non-traditional blue collar work, and she is editor of their quarterly magazine, Tradeswomen. Molly also edited a book, Hard-Hatted Women -- stories by women machinists, carpenters, plumbers, etc.

Kate Curry is in charge of operations at the sewage treatment facility in Bolinas, California. She's a skilled back hoe driver, and has also roofed buildings, cleaned teeth, and shingled houses. Kate's excited about the state-of-the-art polypropylene membrane microfiltration system being installed at the drinking water plant, and her fishing vacation in the north woods.

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