Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and welcome to Stephane.
Speaker 1: Never told you protection of I heard Radios has Steff
Speaker 1: works for our classic today we wanted to rerun one
Speaker 1: about firefighting women. So my brother lives in California, one
Speaker 1: of them. He's been unaffected as as last I heard
Speaker 1: from him, but he says he can see the smoke
Speaker 1: of the fires there, and I just it feels like
Speaker 1: this happens every year now, um, and the news coverage
Speaker 1: always access though like Lebron James or had the move
Speaker 1: like Brich people are the only people being impacted. But
Speaker 1: so many people are being impacted by these these fires, um.
Speaker 1: And they are scary, and they're dangerous, and they spread
Speaker 1: really quickly likely So the season was the deadliest and
Speaker 1: most devastating fire season in California's history, with the loss
Speaker 1: of over one hundred lives, according to California Department of
Speaker 1: Forestry and Fire Protection. Climate change is one of the
Speaker 1: main factors behind the increased incident rate and deadliness of
Speaker 1: these fires, and due to warmer temperatures decreased snowpack in
Speaker 1: earlier snow melts, the fire season is now seventy five
Speaker 1: days longer. Right, now this is what's going on in
Speaker 1: the twenty nineteenth season. So about two hundred thousand acres
Speaker 1: have been estimated to have been burned, UM six thousand,
Speaker 1: one nine incidents UM, three fatalities, and seven structures damaged
Speaker 1: or destroyed. And this I got these numbers. Probably by
Speaker 1: the time you've heard this, it's been a couple of weeks, UM,
Speaker 1: so the situation has probably got worse. UM. Hundreds of
Speaker 1: thousands of people have been evacuated from their homes. So
Speaker 1: I just wanted to say thank you to all the
Speaker 1: firefighters out there for doing the work that you do,
Speaker 1: and that we hope that all of our listeners are
Speaker 1: safe and um. Yeah, here's this classic episode on the
Speaker 1: history of women in firefighting. Welcome to Stuff Mom Never
Speaker 1: told You from how stupp Works dot com. Hello, and
Speaker 1: welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen and I'm Caroline, and
Speaker 1: today we were talking about firefighting women because even though
Speaker 1: they're around all year, it's peak fire season in January,
Speaker 1: these cold winter months, that's right, I mean people running
Speaker 1: their space theaters and their generators and whatnot. It gets
Speaker 1: dangerous and you want capable people to be coming to
Speaker 1: your aid. That's right, But if a fire breaks out,
Speaker 1: chances are that the people coming to your aid are
Speaker 1: probably going to be guys. Because only three point four
Speaker 1: percent of firefighters are women, which is far lower than
Speaker 1: workplace statistics would project for that type of sector. Right,
Speaker 1: And I mean women actually make up a good chunk
Speaker 1: of like emergency services. I mean I think they're about
Speaker 1: twenty which is not great, but it's definitely higher than
Speaker 1: three point four percent. And so before we get into
Speaker 1: why there are so few women, let's look at some
Speaker 1: of the women who have been firefighters and some of
Speaker 1: those trailblazers. Well, the very first trailblazer we have to
Speaker 1: talk about is a woman named Molly Williams who is
Speaker 1: recognized as the first known female firefighter in the United States.
Speaker 1: And she was a slave who belonged to a merchant
Speaker 1: named Benjamin Amar, and they lived in New York City,
Speaker 1: and Amar was associated with the Oceanus Engine Company number eleven,
Speaker 1: and Molly Williams became known as volunteer number eleven because
Speaker 1: I guess she went with a mar when he would
Speaker 1: be working at this fire department, right, and ring a
Speaker 1: particularly nasty eighteen eighteen blizzard when a lot of men
Speaker 1: had the flu. Williams joined in to help and pulled
Speaker 1: the giant heavy pump through the snow, wearing nothing but
Speaker 1: her calico dress and a checked apron. And there are
Speaker 1: all of these children's books now about Molly Williams, and
Speaker 1: it's lauded that, you know, she came out in this blizzard.
Speaker 1: She was wearing just a calico dress and a checked apron,
Speaker 1: and when you read about it, it's it's usually this
Speaker 1: in a very chipper tone, of this woman who was
Speaker 1: in the blizzard fighting fires. But when I was reading
Speaker 1: this Caroline, the first thought in my head was, did
Speaker 1: Molly Williams really want to be putting out these fires
Speaker 1: during a blizzard and nothing but a calico dress. I
Speaker 1: have a feeling she probably did not, right, because it
Speaker 1: seems sort of glossed over that Oh wait, No, this
Speaker 1: woman was actually enslaved by this merchant who was probably
Speaker 1: making her do this, because there was one quote from
Speaker 1: her basically saying, listen, I kind of have to do
Speaker 1: whatever this amar guy tells me to do, because yeah,
Speaker 1: slavery hello. Yeah. So not to cast a dismal light
Speaker 1: on the first female firefighter in the United States, because
Speaker 1: it's It's cool that she's the first, but at the
Speaker 1: same time it's sort of tainted by the reasons surrounding
Speaker 1: why she was the more negative circumstances. Yeah, But moving
Speaker 1: on from Williams's service, there were plenty of other women
Speaker 1: who volunteered on their own throughout the early twentieth century. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and even way before that. The earliest women firefighters were
Speaker 1: actually volunteers in urban and small town settings, dating back
Speaker 1: to the eighteen hundreds at least, and as we move forward,
Speaker 1: women have worked as fire lookouts since the early nineteen hundreds,
Speaker 1: chiefs of volunteer fire department since at least the nineteen thirties,
Speaker 1: and beginning in the mid nineteen seventies, seasonal fire fighters
Speaker 1: in the wild lands sector a k a. Forest fires. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and over at PBS we found a pretty comprehensive timeline
Speaker 1: of some of those earlier nineteenth century trailblazers in addition
Speaker 1: to Molly Williams. For instance, if we leave New York
Speaker 1: City where Molly Williams was and head over to Pittsburgh
Speaker 1: in the eighteen twenties, you have Marina Betts, who was
Speaker 1: a volunteer firefighter who served for about ten years and
Speaker 1: she was said to have never missed an alarm during
Speaker 1: all of her service, and especially liked this tactic of hers,
Speaker 1: which was pouring buckets of water on mail bystanders at
Speaker 1: fire scenes. Yeah, guys who weren't helping out, she would
Speaker 1: douse them. Yeah, Yeah, that would probably get me on
Speaker 1: the move, probably a wave away from the end um.
Speaker 1: And then we have Adelaide von buck how she volunteered
Speaker 1: during a fire outbreak in eight and eventually was voted
Speaker 1: into the membership of the Atlantic City Fire Department in
Speaker 1: night teeno four after helping out with a bucket brigade.
Speaker 1: And she is still the only female member of that
Speaker 1: fire department. Yeah. And I think one of the reasons
Speaker 1: too that she was eventually voted into the fire department
Speaker 1: is that she married a guy who worked there too.
Speaker 1: But yeah, still nineteen o four Componalytics City, what's happening? Uh?
Speaker 1: Moving on though. In eighteen seventy eight, across the pond,
Speaker 1: students at the all female Girton College near Cambridge in
Speaker 1: the UK formed a bucket Brigade that existed until nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty two. And that might sound like, oh, some ladies
Speaker 1: got together and formed a bucket brigade, no big deal.
Speaker 1: But actually there was this problem on the Girton College
Speaker 1: campus where they had no way to put out fires
Speaker 1: at buildings because I think their pump system was broken
Speaker 1: or something like that. So it was almost an engineering
Speaker 1: problem that these students got together and solved to figure
Speaker 1: out how to institute some sort of fire safety measure.
Speaker 1: So it was it was a pretty significant thing to
Speaker 1: these that this bucket brigade was. Man, how many fires
Speaker 1: are these people putting out? I wonder, just stop catching
Speaker 1: things on fire. Well, they were probably tons of fires.
Speaker 1: And in the nineteenth century before you have central eating,
Speaker 1: that's right, You're probably right. Smokey the bear was not
Speaker 1: around at that time. Caroline um Well, in you have
Speaker 1: Carrie Rockefeller chosen as a regular member of Engine Company
Speaker 1: number one in West Haven, Connecticut, quote for her valuable
Speaker 1: services and helping to pull the apparatus, which sounds like
Speaker 1: but no, she was. She was rewarded for her very
Speaker 1: good work. Yeah. And uh, in the nineteen tens, I
Speaker 1: kind of like what was going on in Los Angeles
Speaker 1: with the fire departments, because, as we will talk about
Speaker 1: later in the podcast, it's and start contrast to the
Speaker 1: situation with women in firefighting today in l A. But
Speaker 1: at the time there was a lack of available men
Speaker 1: during daytime working hours, and so during the early twentieth century,
Speaker 1: the male chief of the fire department in l A
Speaker 1: was encouraging women to volunteer, and so you have in
Speaker 1: nineteen twelve, for instance, Captain Marie Stack, who heads up
Speaker 1: an all female brigade in the l A Fire Department.
Speaker 1: And there were other all female brigades that popped up
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles as well, one of which was called
Speaker 1: something like the Society Brigade, and it was literally like
Speaker 1: ladies who lunch, like wealthy women who this was their
Speaker 1: little hobby of just getting together and putting fires out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like a posh thing to do. And if they
Speaker 1: would take off their white gloves first, oh, I imagine.
Speaker 1: You know what, though, they probably had paid help who
Speaker 1: actually did the dirty word, probably right, So cynical, we
Speaker 1: are very Yeah, it's kind of cynical. I don't know.
Speaker 1: It didn't stay around too long, but for a short
Speaker 1: while they're in Los Angeles, women putting out fires was
Speaker 1: all the age. Yeah, it was a common thing. Well,
Speaker 1: then let's look at the transition from UM just volunteer service,
Speaker 1: not to poo poo that, but into actual careers and
Speaker 1: paid service UM. In nineteen twenty six, you have fifty
Speaker 1: year old Emma Vernal who became the first woman officially
Speaker 1: recognized as a firefighter in New Jersey and then higher
Speaker 1: up the ranks in firefighting in nineteen thirty one, and
Speaker 1: Crawford Alan Host became the first female fire chief when
Speaker 1: she became chief of the Cedar Hill, Rhode Island Fire Department.
Speaker 1: And when we get into World War Two, as with
Speaker 1: a lot of other male dominated fields, you have a
Speaker 1: lot of women entering fire departments, both volunteer and like
Speaker 1: main fire departments in cities to take over the work
Speaker 1: that men left behind after the war. The first women
Speaker 1: known to have been paid for fire suppression services were
Speaker 1: the wild land firefighting crews working for the US for
Speaker 1: a Service and the Bureau of Land Management. But when
Speaker 1: it comes to municipal fire services, like the people who
Speaker 1: you'd call if a fire broke out at your house,
Speaker 1: the progress has been even still much slower. Although you
Speaker 1: have a lot of movement starting to happen in the
Speaker 1: nineteen sixties and seventies. In fact, there were some all
Speaker 1: women fire companies that sprang up in King County, California
Speaker 1: and Woodbine, Texas in the sixties, and by the seventies
Speaker 1: it was becoming slightly more common for women to join
Speaker 1: the ranks of regular volunteer fire departments and working side
Speaker 1: by side with male peers. This is when you start
Speaker 1: to see a lot of first and also a lot
Speaker 1: of women more forcibly pushing their way into fire departments
Speaker 1: because they weren't always welcomed with open arms. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: that's an understatement. Um. In nineteen seventy four, you have
Speaker 1: Judy Brewer, who becomes the first paid career female firefighter
Speaker 1: in Arlington County, Virginia, and she was quoted by mpr
Speaker 1: IS saying, when I apply to my local fire station
Speaker 1: to volunteer in Fairfax County, I was told essentially to
Speaker 1: go back to my kitchen. It was no place for
Speaker 1: a woman. And this situation is hardly unique to Brewer.
Speaker 1: I mean, this story gets told over and over again.
Speaker 1: And then the following year, in nineteen seven, we have
Speaker 1: then last student, Brenda Berkman, who's living in New York
Speaker 1: City who notices that the Fire Department of New York
Speaker 1: is accepting applicants. And at this point f d n
Speaker 1: Y is under pressure from the court to diversify. So
Speaker 1: what the fire Department was doing was actively trying to
Speaker 1: recruit black men. But Berkman thought, hey, you know what,
Speaker 1: I think that they also need to diversify in terms
Speaker 1: of gender. So she wants to get a group of
Speaker 1: women to apply to be firefighters. And they do. I
Speaker 1: think it was like five women or something applied in
Speaker 1: this massive recruitment effort in the late seventies. But guess
Speaker 1: what they all failed. Yeah, they most of them passed
Speaker 1: the actual examination, the test, the written test, but they
Speaker 1: all failed the physical examination. And so in ninety Berkman
Speaker 1: brings a gender discrimination lawsuit against the New York Fire
Speaker 1: Department under the Civil Rights Act after all of those
Speaker 1: women had women had failed, saying that the test had
Speaker 1: been retooled and based off of the current male firefighters abilities,
Speaker 1: and to set off a huge media firestorm because first
Speaker 1: of all, people just didn't think that women should be
Speaker 1: allowed to professionally fight fires. There didn't seem to be
Speaker 1: a huge pushback against women who might want to volunteer,
Speaker 1: but actually having something a place like the New York
Speaker 1: Fire department, which is one of, if not the largest
Speaker 1: municipal fire department in the nation, starting to accept women
Speaker 1: just seemed wrong. I mean, when when all of those
Speaker 1: women failed that test in ninety eight, one of the
Speaker 1: headlines from that in the Daily News in New York,
Speaker 1: which is a paper that's no longer an instance, was
Speaker 1: ninety fems flop fire tests and one sizzles. I mean,
Speaker 1: there were all these puns about, like, you know how
Speaker 1: they're they're just waiting essentially for women to fail. And
Speaker 1: so when Berkman decided to bring this lawsuit, people weren't happy,
Speaker 1: and the fire union was not happy either, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: Brenda Bergman gave an interview with Makers on PBS which
Speaker 1: is so interesting and so heartbreaking, and some of the
Speaker 1: images that they showed during the interview are, you know,
Speaker 1: people holding up signs saying I want to be saved
Speaker 1: by a fireman and a bumper sticker that says, don't
Speaker 1: send in a girl to do a man's job over
Speaker 1: and over. I mean, the the abuse that Berkman describes
Speaker 1: that she and her fellow female firefighters underwent in the
Speaker 1: New York Fire Department is insane. I just I can't
Speaker 1: imagine going through anything like that. Well, and it wasn't
Speaker 1: only men who were leaving the charge against this civil
Speaker 1: rights lawsuit either. I mean there were plenty of women
Speaker 1: who are saying, no, we want don't. Don't send a
Speaker 1: girl to to a man's work, that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: And one of the quotes from that interview with Makers
Speaker 1: that Berkman gave was, when I first came on the
Speaker 1: job twenty three years ago, fighting fires was the easiest
Speaker 1: part of the job for me. Much harder was dealing
Speaker 1: with the hatred and discrimination that some male firefighters had
Speaker 1: for me. And now many of the initial problems f
Speaker 1: D and Y women firefighters encountered have improved, um, But
Speaker 1: it took a long time for that lawsuit to actually
Speaker 1: make its way through the court, right, Yeah, And she
Speaker 1: was saying that UM men around her at that time
Speaker 1: were voicing opinions like, okay, feminism has gone too far.
Speaker 1: Second way feminism, you know this is a joke now,
Speaker 1: like you want to be in every single facet of society,
Speaker 1: Like that's ridiculous. You're a woman. There are just some
Speaker 1: things you should leave it to men. And Burkman was saying, no,
Speaker 1: I this is what I have dreamed of doing since
Speaker 1: I was a little girl. Her family were all firefighters.
Speaker 1: She wanted to pursue that line of work. Also, yeah,
Speaker 1: because it was interesting hearing her motivation for wanting to
Speaker 1: fight fires, because it wasn't so much about breaking any
Speaker 1: kind of glass ceiling, although clearly you know that was
Speaker 1: that was part of the motivation for bringing that lawsuit.
Speaker 1: But for her personally, she thought that it was the
Speaker 1: best way to help people in the community, because when
Speaker 1: you have a problem at home, what do you do?
Speaker 1: You end up calling the fire department. A lot of
Speaker 1: times those are the people who are going to respond
Speaker 1: to your distress calls. So then in two Judge Charles
Speaker 1: Proctor swift In rules in favor of those women, but
Speaker 1: not after the massive press controversy and demonstrations people continue
Speaker 1: to demonstrate outside of his court. He received death threats
Speaker 1: and horrible hateful letters. I mean, the heat was on
Speaker 1: him as well for making this decision. And later that year,
Speaker 1: in November of nineteen eleven, women including Berkman, graduated from
Speaker 1: the firefighting Academy, and Berkman went on to serve twenty
Speaker 1: six years and achieved the rank of captain after enduring
Speaker 1: a ton of harassment, And she talks about how after
Speaker 1: she was promoted to lieutenant, she was like, you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of guys think it's hard to suddenly go
Speaker 1: from being a buddy and being in that like fraternity
Speaker 1: to suddenly being the boss and having to tell people
Speaker 1: what to do and to cut it out and all
Speaker 1: that stuff. And she's like, but you know, that really
Speaker 1: wasn't a problem for me because they had never accepted
Speaker 1: me into their group anyway. Yeah, what were some of
Speaker 1: the things that she mentioned as examples of the harassment
Speaker 1: she had to endure. I remember one thing she said
Speaker 1: was going in and having seeing a massive bra stretched
Speaker 1: over her locker. But I mean, all the things she listed,
Speaker 1: they ranged from like stupid stuff like having a bra
Speaker 1: with her name on it, to the guys would empty
Speaker 1: the oxygen out of her oxygen tanks, they wouldn't mess
Speaker 1: with her equipment, They pete in her boots, they turned
Speaker 1: her locker upside down, she wasn't allowed to eat with them.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's like the worst kind of in your
Speaker 1: face discrimination I've ever heard, which only goes to show
Speaker 1: the determination of hers and these other groundbreaking women. There's
Speaker 1: eleven other women who has the test to actually go
Speaker 1: out and fight fires. And I think she was one
Speaker 1: of the first responders to during nine eleven as well. Um.
Speaker 1: But the thing is, the situation in the late seventies
Speaker 1: and early eighties in the New York Fire Department is
Speaker 1: not isolated at all. I mean, even today, if we
Speaker 1: look at the national numbers, the firefighting gender gap is
Speaker 1: still massive, in large part because of those issues of
Speaker 1: gender harassment, sexual harassment, and discrimination that are still going on. Um.
Speaker 1: As we mentioned at the top of the podcast. For instance,
Speaker 1: according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, women comprise only
Speaker 1: three point four percent of all firefighters in the US,
Speaker 1: and out of that just point five percent of first
Speaker 1: line supervisors of firefighting and prevention workers. Yeah. And if
Speaker 1: you want to look on the broad scale across the
Speaker 1: country of paid fire departments have never hired a female
Speaker 1: firefighter ever. Wow wow wow, that's a majority as a majority.
Speaker 1: So people are still wondering today why are those numbers
Speaker 1: so persistently low. I mean, first of all, it's not
Speaker 1: supposed to be easy to become a firefighter. It's incredibly
Speaker 1: demanding because you have to do things like pull heavy
Speaker 1: lengths of hose, you have to climb stairs while wielding
Speaker 1: huge power tools like chainsaws. You have to be able
Speaker 1: to lift a ton of weight such as an hundred
Speaker 1: eighty pound thirty five ft wooden ladder. Personally, Caroline, I
Speaker 1: have zero upper body stream. I wouldn't cut it. I
Speaker 1: would not be able to pass the physical exam. It's
Speaker 1: not supposed to be easy, but it's also not supposed
Speaker 1: to be discriminatory either, right, And when you look at
Speaker 1: the Los Angeles Fire Department, for instance, they have come
Speaker 1: under a lot of heat no pun intended for their
Speaker 1: hiring practices, and they have barely been able to pass
Speaker 1: any women, with a lot of those women alleging discrimination. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there was a huge article about this in the l
Speaker 1: A Times, kind of charting this whole hot mess essentially
Speaker 1: of their municipal fire department. And in one comprehensive article
Speaker 1: from the l A Times, the journalist details how there
Speaker 1: are less than three percent of firefighters, fire paramedics, fire administrators,
Speaker 1: and fire investigators that are women, But according to an
Speaker 1: audit by the city's personnel department in two thousand six,
Speaker 1: that tiny group accounted for fifties six percent of the
Speaker 1: lawsuits against the Los Angeles Fire Department between and two
Speaker 1: thousand five, right, and these women are claiming that there's
Speaker 1: an unequal playing field, you know. They say they just
Speaker 1: want to be accepted as firefighters. They don't want to
Speaker 1: be treated differently, and they don't want to be considered
Speaker 1: crybabs either. But a lot of people are pointing out, like, hey,
Speaker 1: you're hiring practices are putting a dent in the taxpayers wallet. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because the taxpayers are ultimately the ones who are paying
Speaker 1: for all of these costly sexual discrimination suits that are
Speaker 1: being brought because a lot of times it's the plaintiffs
Speaker 1: who are winning, and so the fire department is having
Speaker 1: to settle with them. But ultimately they're not the ones
Speaker 1: who are paying for it. And when they the journalists
Speaker 1: was interviewing people within the government and within the fire
Speaker 1: departments trying to figure out whether or not the tests
Speaker 1: had been devised to you know, allow women in there,
Speaker 1: if they were even passable for women. The answers were
Speaker 1: so ambiguous. Some would say, oh, well, yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: we've actually had to let some women in who wouldn't
Speaker 1: normally be allowed in just for numbers reasons. Other others
Speaker 1: saying that no, actually it's devised so that women can't
Speaker 1: get in. It was hard to get to figure out
Speaker 1: what Actley was going on. Yeah, and you know, one
Speaker 1: issue in particular when you're talking about, um, just gender
Speaker 1: discrimination and not being probably equipped to handle women becoming
Speaker 1: firefighters is the gear. You know, if you don't have
Speaker 1: suits that fit right, masks that fit right, you can
Speaker 1: really be injured. And so women firefighters in Orange County
Speaker 1: out in California recently did win a lawsuit to provide
Speaker 1: them with the basics, just the protective gear and the
Speaker 1: uniforms that fit. Yeah. I mean in addition to things
Speaker 1: like uniforms, even the facilities often aren't set up for
Speaker 1: women to even work there. So you've also had lawsuits
Speaker 1: that have been brought down simply to institute bathrooms for
Speaker 1: women being built, because I mean, if you think about it,
Speaker 1: if you're working full time with a fire department, there
Speaker 1: are living quarters there, and there are bathrooms there, and
Speaker 1: you are showering there, and if you are a woman,
Speaker 1: you don't want to you know, it can't be co
Speaker 1: ed and be copacetic all the time. Um. And there
Speaker 1: was a recent blog post actually by a guy named
Speaker 1: John k Murphy who was a retired fire chief, and
Speaker 1: he was writing over at the fire engineering site, and
Speaker 1: he essentially just gave a laundry list of all of
Speaker 1: these discrimination suits that women had brought, alleging things like
Speaker 1: sexual harassment, the test being set up against them, like
Speaker 1: all of these barriers that women were facing once they
Speaker 1: were inside of fire departments, and he was just saying
Speaker 1: that it's time for it to stop. I mean, he
Speaker 1: was horrified, as someone who was a fire chief who
Speaker 1: had worked in this field for years and years, just saying, guys, listen,
Speaker 1: what what is going on? Stop it? Right And people
Speaker 1: from outside the industry are taking a look at this too.
Speaker 1: There's been a lot of academic research into the issues
Speaker 1: of of gender and race in uh in fire departments.
Speaker 1: One study published in the International Journal and Diversity documented
Speaker 1: the good and the bad that comes with firefighting. And
Speaker 1: the good is that, you know, for a job that
Speaker 1: does not require you to go to college or get
Speaker 1: a master's degree or anything, the potential benefits are great
Speaker 1: and the hourly wage of nineteen dollars and forty two
Speaker 1: cents isn't too shabby. Unfortunately, as the study found, when
Speaker 1: women are hired the majority of them say that they
Speaker 1: were treated differently, eight percent that they were issued ill
Speaker 1: fitting equipment, reported that their gender created barriers to career advancement.
Speaker 1: Half felt shunned or socially isolated, and thirty seven percent
Speaker 1: are verbally harassed. And just for comparison, and that same study,
Speaker 1: they found that twelve percent of men reported experiencing discrimination.
Speaker 1: So clearly there there's thing going on there. And one
Speaker 1: other thing that these Cornell researchers did in that study
Speaker 1: was compare the number of women in firefighting with other
Speaker 1: high risks types of jobs like logging, being a bus mechanic,
Speaker 1: being a roof for being a septic tank servicer. And
Speaker 1: they found that women in those other similar sectors comprised
Speaker 1: around seventeen percent of the employees and two and that's
Speaker 1: in such stark contrast to the three point four percent
Speaker 1: of female firefighters. Now there are a lot more volunteer firefighters.
Speaker 1: It's it's estimated that they are between thirty five to
Speaker 1: forty women in the volunteer fire service in the US.
Speaker 1: But if you want this to be your career, even today,
Speaker 1: it's quite a challenge. And it's even a challenge too
Speaker 1: for women who are in there because I don't think
Speaker 1: that a lot of women want it to be. I
Speaker 1: don't think a lot of women want their gender to
Speaker 1: be an even bigger issue than it already is by
Speaker 1: virtue of them standing there and looking like a woman,
Speaker 1: you know. And so there were some women in the
Speaker 1: l A Fire department talking about how you know, they
Speaker 1: don't they don't want to say anything because it's already
Speaker 1: assumed that they're going to be a cry baby. But
Speaker 1: this is what they really want, right Well, you know,
Speaker 1: like Berkman said that, you know, she was like, Ei,
Speaker 1: there were a million times I could have quit, you know,
Speaker 1: the abuse got so bad, But she was like, I
Speaker 1: knew that if they got rid of me, it would
Speaker 1: be open season on the rest of the women in
Speaker 1: the department. They would pick them off one by one
Speaker 1: and have no mercy. Yeah, it's tough, I can I mean,
Speaker 1: I can only imagine tough on top of what can't
Speaker 1: be an easy job to begin with in the day
Speaker 1: to day, right. And so all of this is in
Speaker 1: line with a study that's that's slightly dated, but I
Speaker 1: think it illustrates well what we're talking about. There was
Speaker 1: sudy in Women's Health that found that male and female
Speaker 1: fire fighters have similar jobs stressors, but female firefighters reported
Speaker 1: significantly higher scores than men died on job skill concerns,
Speaker 1: and job discrimination reported by female respondence was significantly higher
Speaker 1: than for males, even though it was not ranked among
Speaker 1: the five most stressful factors. And there were a number
Speaker 1: of studies that we also found suggesting that women of
Speaker 1: color are at even greater risk of gender harassment within
Speaker 1: fire departments. So it only exacerbates these issues that are
Speaker 1: already at work. It's not easy to be a woman
Speaker 1: in a fire department. It's especially not easy to be
Speaker 1: a black or Latino woman in a fire department because
Speaker 1: they were almost targeted more for um hazing that would
Speaker 1: go on, and just being isolated socially isolated. I mean,
Speaker 1: I can't imagine like with like you mentioned with Berkman,
Speaker 1: she wasn't allowed to eat with her coworkers. Now I
Speaker 1: eat at my desk because I don't have time to
Speaker 1: not eat at my desk every day at work. But
Speaker 1: to to be so forcibly ostracized, it's got to be
Speaker 1: really tough, right, So I mean props to any women
Speaker 1: firefighters who are listening to this, and we we are
Speaker 1: specifically talking about firefighters and not talking so much about
Speaker 1: e M. S workers because the gender issues in this
Speaker 1: are so stark. I was not expecting this at all.
Speaker 1: I thought it would be, you know, kind of a
Speaker 1: plucky tale of women putting out fires and aren't we strong?
Speaker 1: And whoa, No, it's like it's horrific. Yeah, it's not
Speaker 1: that at all. And so I mean, I'm glad, you know,
Speaker 1: we we we like to try to end things on
Speaker 1: a more hopeful note, and I don't know that we
Speaker 1: can other than to say that it's good that we're
Speaker 1: talking about it. And like Berkman said and her Maker's interview,
Speaker 1: you know, you never see women in fire trucks, riding
Speaker 1: along on the truck to the fire, to the emergency,
Speaker 1: and how important that is as it is to see women,
Speaker 1: you know in the computing fields and the science fields.
Speaker 1: It's the same thing. You know, how important it is
Speaker 1: to see a woman on a fire truck. So the
Speaker 1: just a girl, you know, playing outside, will think maybe
Speaker 1: I can do that when I'm a grown up. Yeah
Speaker 1: I was. I was reading an interview actually with uh
Speaker 1: female firefighter who was a nine eleven responder, and she
Speaker 1: was saying that exact thing of how when she was
Speaker 1: on the fire truck headed to the twin towers, she
Speaker 1: remembers looking and seeing people with these astonished looks on
Speaker 1: their faces, just at the sight of seeing a woman,
Speaker 1: you know, responding to this fire. Because even she was
Speaker 1: like it still happens after years of service, which is
Speaker 1: kind of incredible. Um, but not even as incredible as
Speaker 1: what these women are are doing all for the passion
Speaker 1: of the specific line of work. I mean, clearly we
Speaker 1: shouldn't take our female firefighters for granted, or our male firefighters.
Speaker 1: This is an important job and one that I am
Speaker 1: not physically strong enough to do now. Definitely can't pull
Speaker 1: that home. No, no, uh So I hope that maybe
Speaker 1: there are some firefighters listening, male, female, whoever. We want
Speaker 1: to hear from you. Um, it was this as surprising
Speaker 1: to you as it was for us. Let us know
Speaker 1: all of your fiery thoughts, mom and stuff at Discovery
Speaker 1: dot com is where you can send your letters, and
Speaker 1: we have a couple of letters to share with you
Speaker 1: when we get right back from a quick break. And
Speaker 1: now back to our letters. So I've got a couple
Speaker 1: of letters here about the holidays, the first one is
Speaker 1: from a nuke. I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly. Um,
Speaker 1: so she writes your podcast or Holidays Bad Relationships made
Speaker 1: me think back to Christmas two thousand seven. I was
Speaker 1: dating a German since the end of October of that year,
Speaker 1: and I'm Dutch and lived in Amsterdam at the time,
Speaker 1: so we only saw each other every other weekend. Around Christmas,
Speaker 1: there were a few parties in this town that we
Speaker 1: were both invited to, and he said I could stay
Speaker 1: with him for the two weeks around Christmas and New Year's.
Speaker 1: So the day finally arrived and he had an official
Speaker 1: dinner from work and invited me to come along, and
Speaker 1: I was also invited to his family for Christmas dinner.
Speaker 1: To me, this meant that things were getting more serious,
Speaker 1: and I was very flabbergasid when a friend made a
Speaker 1: joke about relationships and my quote unquote boyfriend bluntly said,
Speaker 1: we are not in a relationship. There were a lot
Speaker 1: of people in the room that all seemed surprised. It
Speaker 1: really hurt my feelings, and I told him that when
Speaker 1: we were alone, he said that he had never said
Speaker 1: we were in a relationship, and I made it clear
Speaker 1: that I found it disrespectful and didn't want to be
Speaker 1: treated that way. It took about five more months before
Speaker 1: he wanted to make the relationship official. I saw something
Speaker 1: special in him and thus gave it a chance while
Speaker 1: pursuing my own dreams. Fortunately the story has a happy ending.
Speaker 1: We moved in together in two thousand nine, bought a
Speaker 1: house this year, and I are expecting our second child.
Speaker 1: We were very happy together, but the beginning was facult
Speaker 1: and it took me a long time to not feel
Speaker 1: sad about that. Perhaps we hadn't had that holiday period
Speaker 1: in the beginning, the relationship would have developed more naturally. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm glad there was a happy ending, though. Okay. I
Speaker 1: have a letter here from Laurie about dealing with family
Speaker 1: stress during the holidays, and I all I can say
Speaker 1: Laurie is oh girl, Aphelia uh. The letter states, since
Speaker 1: I have a small family and we live in different states,
Speaker 1: I have always done the holidays with my husband's family,
Speaker 1: which is rather large. There are four siblings with their
Speaker 1: husbands and wives and their children and grandchildren. When my
Speaker 1: mother in law was no longer able to host the
Speaker 1: holiday dinners, I took over a holiday meal at my
Speaker 1: house would normally consist of twenty five to thirty five
Speaker 1: people with numerous children. Two of the families consistently showed
Speaker 1: up a half hour to an hour late and then
Speaker 1: would complain if we started eating without them or if
Speaker 1: the food was cold. Also, their children and grandchildren were
Speaker 1: out of control. They would climb behind furniture, knock over lamps,
Speaker 1: mark my walls, and if I said anything, I was
Speaker 1: told that they were just kids. They also would leave
Speaker 1: their plates on the table and just walk away and
Speaker 1: would not think of helping to wash a dish. I
Speaker 1: have to pause here and say, Lorie again, I feel you,
Speaker 1: and some people don't understand that even though they are
Speaker 1: just kids, they should be able to help out and
Speaker 1: not be jerks and rant Okay. Continuing on, she says,
Speaker 1: since it seemed to be only these two families that
Speaker 1: caused all the commotion, I finally told my husband that
Speaker 1: I refused to do the holiday meals any longer if
Speaker 1: I had to deal with this. The following year, my
Speaker 1: husband only invited his sister and her family, as well
Speaker 1: as my mother in law. The holiday meals are much
Speaker 1: calmer now. We also switched from eating on china to
Speaker 1: eating on paper plates to save dishwashing and cleaning time.
Speaker 1: Instead of just family for holiday meals, we now sometimes
Speaker 1: have friends also join us. While my holidays are still busy,
Speaker 1: I do enjoy them much more and with much less stress,
Speaker 1: less mess and less broken items in my house. So, Lorie,
Speaker 1: I'm glad that you are such a wonderful example of
Speaker 1: communication flash telling your husband that you're just not dealing
Speaker 1: with it anymore. Sometimes you gotta do it. Sometimes you
Speaker 1: gotta draw a line in the sand. So good for you, Laurie,
Speaker 1: and thanks to everybody who's written into his Mom's stuff
Speaker 1: at Discovery dot com is where you can send your letters.
Speaker 1: You can also get in touch with us on Twitter
Speaker 1: at mom Stuff podcast or messages over on Facebook and
Speaker 1: to find all things stuff Mom Never Told You are, blogs,
Speaker 1: are videos, are podcasts, all of our social media links.
Speaker 1: There are a ton of them. We're on pretty much everything.
Speaker 1: There's one and only place to go now www dot
Speaker 1: Stuff Mom Never Told You dot com for more on
Speaker 1: this and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com