R-E-S-P-E-C-T

Are women gaining
ground in construction?

By Candace Doyle

Neve Campbell was born and Bruce Lee died. The United States and North Vietnam signed the Paris Peace Treaty. The U.S. Supreme Court decided the Roe vs. Wade case. What year was it? 1973 — the same year girls were first admitted to what is now the Lynde & Harry Bradley Technology and Trade School, said Fred Schroedl, assistant principal.

Now, 31 years later, Schroedl said 30 percent of the Milwaukee school's enrollment is girls. And this coming fall, for the first time ever, incoming freshman will be evenly split: 50 percent girls and 50 percent boys, he said.

"We've made a very concerted effort to help our staff understand issues surrounding diversity and gender equity," Schroedl said.

Efforts have been made at the Milwaukee School of Engineering as well to recruit female students, although they remain well in the minority. Of the 375 undergrads studying construction management or architectural engineering, only 18 percent are female.

Despite the numbers, MSOE Professor Deborah Jackman said the school participates in many career fairs and actively recruits from high schools.

"We also have the Women in Engineering Committee," she said, "which strives to make women feel like they have a support
network."

That and the school's Women's Connection program, which helps female students find mentors, gives the female population — a minority in the classroom — a chance "to be in a room where they're not," said Carol Diggelman, also a professor in the school's Architectural Engineering and Building Construction Department.

And alums, male and female, Diggelman and Jackman agreed, have a high degree of success in the construction industry.

"We have 99 percent placement for our department," said Jackman. "I think in terms of getting that first job, certainly, the construction companies are not discriminating. Once the woman gets in the first position, she usually progresses quite nicely.

"Are there still pockets in some companies of old timers who secretly have problems with women? Sure. But I think that's not the norm. I don't see the real systematic discrimination against women encountered in the profession 25 years ago. The days of blatant discrimination of women on the job site are behind us."

hat's not the experience, though, of Lauren Sugerman, president of Chicago Women in Trades.

"We still hear fairly gruesome stories of sexual harassment," she said. "The industry remains one dominated by sex stereotypes."

While Sugerman said the percent of women in construction has increased — from less than 0.5 percent in 1980 to 2.1 percent to 2.3 percent today — she said that, considering the scarcity of skilled labor, the gain's not that great.

"We've seen a tripling," she said, "but we think there could have been a flooding."

And the reason for the shortfall?

"Affirmative action is not enforced,

and there's no pipeline to get women in the trades," she maintained.

Sugerman was part of a workgroup that recommended to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration changes to make the industry safer for women, including sexual harassment awareness training and providing personal protective equipment and clothing that fits. Another issue addressed, she said, was isolation and it's impact on female workers.

"You think about the industry," she said. "It's not like you go to the same job site for the same employer. While we remain such a small minority, we stand out."

Despite those recommendations, Leslie Ptak, team leader with the OSHA Madison-area office, said the agency's standards remain genderless.

"We don't have any special programs in construction for women," she said. "All of our standards apply to everyone, regardless of gender. I'm not really sure there are any greater hazards than for men."

However, she did say getting personal protective equipment to fit had been an issue, and she said she worked for OSHA in Chicago, where reports of hostile work environments were common.

"We heard from women construction workers that there was a lot of hostility toward them on the site," said Ptak, adding that some alleged their male co-workers threw tools at them or that they would "sabotage their safety and health."

Nevertheless, Ptak said that doesn't appear to be happening here, and she attributed it to the large number of family owned and operated construction firms in Wisconsin.

Nancy Emons, the building trades representative with the Wisconsin State AFL-CIO, said ill-fitting protective clothing and equipment remains an issue for women.

"I do believe tools need to be different for women and men with smaller hands," she said.

And she remembers a time when, even here, job sites could be openly hostile to women.

"I know at one time it was a hostile environment in some areas, including Milwaukee," she said.

But since Emons began her plumbing apprenticeship in 1979, she's watched the industry change.

"I think 25 years ago, there was a level of acceptable discrimination," she said. "I would say that's pretty much gone away. I would say outright discrimination has disappeared, but the perceptions are not dying as easily."

Emons said the lure of a plumber's wages attracted her to the apprenticeship, and she credits Executive Order 11246 — affirmative action requirements on federal contracts — with her landing jobs.

"Literally, that is the only reason I got hired in 1979," she said. "That's how I got started, and I would say for that time, that's why many women got hired."

Emons still believes that those efforts are needed, as are steeped-up recruitment efforts.

"The thing that seems to be the largest barrier … is that women have a lack of information and exposure," she said.

Further, there are few female role models.

"I think highway construction has done a better job of hiring women," she said. "There they are visible. That visibility breeds interest."

Shining the light on the industry is a goal of the National Association of Women in Construction, said Karen Stempski, president of the group's Milwaukee Chapter.

And it's that lack of visibility, as well as misconceptions that tradespeople are "not bright," that keeps women from what could be a lucrative career.

"The whole problem is the education part," she said. "Guidance counselors tend not to steer women toward the construction field. We're trying to educate the girls in grade school."

But whether hostility, discrimination or whatever else you want to call it keeps women from the industry appears to be based on individual experience.

Teekla Fingland, a 1997 MSOE graduate who is now a project manager for Hunzinger Construction Co., Brookfield, has not encountered what some women have who've been in the field longer.

"Probably at the beginning I had some issues," she said. "But whether it was be-cause I was female or young or inexperienced, you have to take that into account. I think it's really just a stereotype."

Stempski's not so sure.

"I personally feel it's still difficult for women in construction. You get the basics: Women get watched a little bit more, it's still an old boys' club, women have to prove themselves more.

"You still butt heads with the old boys who think women don't know what they know. I think that's why women start their own companies — it's one of the main reasons."

But has the field been leveled at all?

"It's getting better," Stempski said. "I don't think it's hunky dory for them yet. It's a long, hard process, and it's always going to be uphill."