So, what do you conjure in your mind's eye when you read the title of this post? Let me guess:
Buff men posing in half of their turnout gear with ripped abs?
Buff men in full turnout gear on a ladder with a passed out or grateful female or juvenile figures over their shoulders?
Cobbers with black streaks across their faces after putting in some long hours fighting wildfire?
I'd be pleasantly surprised if any of your imagery included a woman, who wasn't draped in overalls with pumped up boobs and a "come and get me" pout on her, who was actually engaged in ANY aspect of firefighting.
Chances are that you didn't have that, though. Even if you're female.
I take it for granted that men just don't figure women as firefighters in all their fantasies about being firefighters. Many of them adjust extraordinarily well to the reality, when it happens, and many don't. It's not just men, though, whose apple-cart is upset by the nerve of some women to cut into the frame of the hunky firefighter.
Why would a woman want to be a firefighter? Like, a real one who trains in fire suppression, even if it's just the mandatory training so that she can help out more 'behind the scenes', where those scenes don't include sandwich making and boosting the morale of the 'troops'. My skin crawls when I hear the old chestnut "they're only joining to prove a point", or commentary along the lines of accepting the women who aren't just joining to prove a point. Umm...think a little further along this trajectory and ask, "what point?". Because I've never heard that 'point' being extrapolated on - it just seems sufficient to accuse a woman of having a 'point' or agenda and writing off her intentions or capabilities.
Do men and boys never join career or volunteer ranks with no point to make? What constitutes a 'good' point to make and an objectionable one? And who interprets what that point is? Who judges the point to be worthy?
One interpretation I make of a 'point' is that the woman somehow wants to prove she can do what men do. Which is probably true, insofar as men do firefighting and many women can, too. What many men AND women do, though, is interpret that contingent on the assumption that firefighting IS a male interest, rather than an activity that has, thus far, been dominated by particular male participation and, hence, its organisation and operations have reflected certain male roles and the male biological experience. There is no natural determination of firefighting being something that men are interested in, can do and sometimes, by some anomaly, women want a cut of, too.
Cos, it's not just women who have that point to prove. There are plenty of shorter, leaner men without the popularly-conceived physique who also want to prove that they can do firefighting without pumping steroids and weights. Or men of any height who carry more weight than is even medically ideal. These men, however much they may have to fight against the grain, still find themselves on the right side of prejudice when it comes to the great divide: biology. There are not many men in the ranks who cross over to be seen and heard in defence of their firefighting sisters. I've known notable examples of such men, and more men who wouldn't step up to protect and defend my right to a level playing field.
There are not many men who are willing to see that 'equality' does not mean 'sameness', and that by wanting equality women mean that the barriers that exist keeping them from fulfilling a firefighting experience are removed, redesigned and accounted for. It's not just women; it's also homosexual firefighters, firefighters from non-culturally dominant backgrounds, and firefighters from more white-collar backgrounds (thinking of the volunteers whose day jobs don't involve dirt, manual labour or any day to day grunt). One challenge at a time, though - I'm just not clever enough to tackle the world's problems in one blog post. So, for now, women.
So, women enter the world of firefighting having to navigate a culture that hasn't developed with them in it, or with their requirements. My own experience is a volunteer one, so I'll borrow heavily from the volunteer world.
Some women enter as volunteers in junior brigades. Lots do, actually. There's just not a lot of translation of junior participation into the senior ranks. No-one knows really why this is. Locally, we have at the local high school a program for kids to learn firefighting and to train with some of our firefighters once a month. We have a good rate of recruitment of these participants to our brigade proper; all boys. All are boys that join, that is - the girls from the school program don't come through to our brigade and I don't know why. No-one's really asking why, and that's a cultural thing. I mean, hey, girls aren't joining and the boys are, so let the girls go and figure out what they want to do. If boys weren't also joining we'd be asking questions about what we're doing wrong that we couldn't recruit kids already learning firefighting. But it's the girls and we don't see much of them in brigades anyway, so it must be something about being a girl and we'll leave it at that, shall we?
Well, no, we shan't, and there are people making it their business (WAFA, for instance) to find out why girls not only don't tend to see firefighting as a career option, but also won't consider pursuing it as a volunteer option where skills can be built on including rapport-building, team work, conflict-resolution, housekeeping, administration...none of these are particularly male-oriented. The physical aspect of firefighting needn't be too onerous to overcome, either. No-one is expected to go above their physical limitations, and whilst it is generally thought that girls and women aren't as strong as male firefighters, I know many women who would be stronger than many of the men I know who are firefighters. I also know that good firefighting isn't about the physical strength you bring to the fireground or incident, it's about how you employ the safest tactics to make the scene safe, efficiently. And brute strength is so often not part of that equation, in most of the jobs I've ever attended. If it is required then even of all the men in the scenario, only a few of them are physically capable of the relevant task unless it is a task where a few hands get the job done. In the firefighting I train for it has always been drilled that you work with a buddy and never alone, so most tasks, between two firefighters are quite achievable. Even holding a branch on the end of a 32mm charged hose for 15 minutes at a house fire, providing asset protection is achievable between two female firefighters or a male and female one of any physique. I know, I've done it. But for longer than 15 minutes, mostly.
So, you see, I get quite peeved when newsreaders insist that the only firefighters worth telling a story about are male ones, hence the ubiquitous "firemen" (never mind that one of those is what feeds the fire of a steam engine). In one fell swoop, all female firefighters cease to exist and the public conjures up the image of the beefy hero come to save the day, instead of the trained tacticians who will employ safety for all involved before any bravado that we see in the movies.
"Firemen", really? I've heard it in news items where I knew for a fact that the crew had at least 3 women on board. It's not like a kick in the guts. It's more like a slap in the face, turning me around and giving me a boot in the back. "We don't want you in our fantasy! Go back to something more palatable to the public and leave our macho image intact!". It's up there with engineering and the trades, in terms of career choices for women. It's there, technically, as a choice, it's just not really made accessible as a choice. Women aren't procedurally prohibited from applying for these vocations, they are mostly culturally prohibited. As far as volunteering goes, firefighting is a choice of mine often met with "You don't actually get on a truck and fight fires, though, do you?". Firefighting is much more than getting on a truck and fighting fires with water and other extinguishing agents, but yes, I've done that, too, because I wanted to and nobody stopped me. If I said I were a veterinarian I wouldn't be asked "You don't actually anaesthetise the animals, cut them open, find the ovaries, cut them out, stitch up the opening and remove the intubation, do you?" (I've volunteered as a vet nurse assistant, too, so this is not unfamiliar territory). Even though being a vet used to be a male pursuit. No-one has a vested interest in keeping the vet image macho and maintaining a fantasy for an adoring public, always hungry for a 'hero'.
Needless to say (or maybe it's not, hence what I'm about to write), I never bought into that 'fireman' fantasy that my peers and other women appear to lap up and perpetuate. I wasn't encouraged whilst growing up to volunteer as a firefighter, (though I wasn't encouraged, either) and neither did I have it in my life experience to consider the firefighter as an untouchable symbol of the masculine ability to save the day. Perhaps this made the idea of volunteering more accessible to me when I noticed the recruitment signs in my area. There is a demand for this imagery. Women demand it and men demand it. But not all of us do. Some of us demand access to be and do what calls us and to have our experiences valued and validated. Some of us want more women in fire stations. Some of us want girls to know that they can aspire to fight fires, as a community service or as a career. Get rid of the outdated limits on our boys and girls and use proper language that reflects equality of gender and equal access to opportunity.
I'm not even going to ask nicely, as 'befits' my female state.
Buff men posing in half of their turnout gear with ripped abs?
Buff men in full turnout gear on a ladder with a passed out or grateful female or juvenile figures over their shoulders?
Cobbers with black streaks across their faces after putting in some long hours fighting wildfire?
I'd be pleasantly surprised if any of your imagery included a woman, who wasn't draped in overalls with pumped up boobs and a "come and get me" pout on her, who was actually engaged in ANY aspect of firefighting.
Chances are that you didn't have that, though. Even if you're female.
I take it for granted that men just don't figure women as firefighters in all their fantasies about being firefighters. Many of them adjust extraordinarily well to the reality, when it happens, and many don't. It's not just men, though, whose apple-cart is upset by the nerve of some women to cut into the frame of the hunky firefighter.
Why would a woman want to be a firefighter? Like, a real one who trains in fire suppression, even if it's just the mandatory training so that she can help out more 'behind the scenes', where those scenes don't include sandwich making and boosting the morale of the 'troops'. My skin crawls when I hear the old chestnut "they're only joining to prove a point", or commentary along the lines of accepting the women who aren't just joining to prove a point. Umm...think a little further along this trajectory and ask, "what point?". Because I've never heard that 'point' being extrapolated on - it just seems sufficient to accuse a woman of having a 'point' or agenda and writing off her intentions or capabilities.
Do men and boys never join career or volunteer ranks with no point to make? What constitutes a 'good' point to make and an objectionable one? And who interprets what that point is? Who judges the point to be worthy?
One interpretation I make of a 'point' is that the woman somehow wants to prove she can do what men do. Which is probably true, insofar as men do firefighting and many women can, too. What many men AND women do, though, is interpret that contingent on the assumption that firefighting IS a male interest, rather than an activity that has, thus far, been dominated by particular male participation and, hence, its organisation and operations have reflected certain male roles and the male biological experience. There is no natural determination of firefighting being something that men are interested in, can do and sometimes, by some anomaly, women want a cut of, too.
Cos, it's not just women who have that point to prove. There are plenty of shorter, leaner men without the popularly-conceived physique who also want to prove that they can do firefighting without pumping steroids and weights. Or men of any height who carry more weight than is even medically ideal. These men, however much they may have to fight against the grain, still find themselves on the right side of prejudice when it comes to the great divide: biology. There are not many men in the ranks who cross over to be seen and heard in defence of their firefighting sisters. I've known notable examples of such men, and more men who wouldn't step up to protect and defend my right to a level playing field.
There are not many men who are willing to see that 'equality' does not mean 'sameness', and that by wanting equality women mean that the barriers that exist keeping them from fulfilling a firefighting experience are removed, redesigned and accounted for. It's not just women; it's also homosexual firefighters, firefighters from non-culturally dominant backgrounds, and firefighters from more white-collar backgrounds (thinking of the volunteers whose day jobs don't involve dirt, manual labour or any day to day grunt). One challenge at a time, though - I'm just not clever enough to tackle the world's problems in one blog post. So, for now, women.
So, women enter the world of firefighting having to navigate a culture that hasn't developed with them in it, or with their requirements. My own experience is a volunteer one, so I'll borrow heavily from the volunteer world.
Some women enter as volunteers in junior brigades. Lots do, actually. There's just not a lot of translation of junior participation into the senior ranks. No-one knows really why this is. Locally, we have at the local high school a program for kids to learn firefighting and to train with some of our firefighters once a month. We have a good rate of recruitment of these participants to our brigade proper; all boys. All are boys that join, that is - the girls from the school program don't come through to our brigade and I don't know why. No-one's really asking why, and that's a cultural thing. I mean, hey, girls aren't joining and the boys are, so let the girls go and figure out what they want to do. If boys weren't also joining we'd be asking questions about what we're doing wrong that we couldn't recruit kids already learning firefighting. But it's the girls and we don't see much of them in brigades anyway, so it must be something about being a girl and we'll leave it at that, shall we?
Well, no, we shan't, and there are people making it their business (WAFA, for instance) to find out why girls not only don't tend to see firefighting as a career option, but also won't consider pursuing it as a volunteer option where skills can be built on including rapport-building, team work, conflict-resolution, housekeeping, administration...none of these are particularly male-oriented. The physical aspect of firefighting needn't be too onerous to overcome, either. No-one is expected to go above their physical limitations, and whilst it is generally thought that girls and women aren't as strong as male firefighters, I know many women who would be stronger than many of the men I know who are firefighters. I also know that good firefighting isn't about the physical strength you bring to the fireground or incident, it's about how you employ the safest tactics to make the scene safe, efficiently. And brute strength is so often not part of that equation, in most of the jobs I've ever attended. If it is required then even of all the men in the scenario, only a few of them are physically capable of the relevant task unless it is a task where a few hands get the job done. In the firefighting I train for it has always been drilled that you work with a buddy and never alone, so most tasks, between two firefighters are quite achievable. Even holding a branch on the end of a 32mm charged hose for 15 minutes at a house fire, providing asset protection is achievable between two female firefighters or a male and female one of any physique. I know, I've done it. But for longer than 15 minutes, mostly.
So, you see, I get quite peeved when newsreaders insist that the only firefighters worth telling a story about are male ones, hence the ubiquitous "firemen" (never mind that one of those is what feeds the fire of a steam engine). In one fell swoop, all female firefighters cease to exist and the public conjures up the image of the beefy hero come to save the day, instead of the trained tacticians who will employ safety for all involved before any bravado that we see in the movies.
"Firemen", really? I've heard it in news items where I knew for a fact that the crew had at least 3 women on board. It's not like a kick in the guts. It's more like a slap in the face, turning me around and giving me a boot in the back. "We don't want you in our fantasy! Go back to something more palatable to the public and leave our macho image intact!". It's up there with engineering and the trades, in terms of career choices for women. It's there, technically, as a choice, it's just not really made accessible as a choice. Women aren't procedurally prohibited from applying for these vocations, they are mostly culturally prohibited. As far as volunteering goes, firefighting is a choice of mine often met with "You don't actually get on a truck and fight fires, though, do you?". Firefighting is much more than getting on a truck and fighting fires with water and other extinguishing agents, but yes, I've done that, too, because I wanted to and nobody stopped me. If I said I were a veterinarian I wouldn't be asked "You don't actually anaesthetise the animals, cut them open, find the ovaries, cut them out, stitch up the opening and remove the intubation, do you?" (I've volunteered as a vet nurse assistant, too, so this is not unfamiliar territory). Even though being a vet used to be a male pursuit. No-one has a vested interest in keeping the vet image macho and maintaining a fantasy for an adoring public, always hungry for a 'hero'.
Needless to say (or maybe it's not, hence what I'm about to write), I never bought into that 'fireman' fantasy that my peers and other women appear to lap up and perpetuate. I wasn't encouraged whilst growing up to volunteer as a firefighter, (though I wasn't encouraged, either) and neither did I have it in my life experience to consider the firefighter as an untouchable symbol of the masculine ability to save the day. Perhaps this made the idea of volunteering more accessible to me when I noticed the recruitment signs in my area. There is a demand for this imagery. Women demand it and men demand it. But not all of us do. Some of us demand access to be and do what calls us and to have our experiences valued and validated. Some of us want more women in fire stations. Some of us want girls to know that they can aspire to fight fires, as a community service or as a career. Get rid of the outdated limits on our boys and girls and use proper language that reflects equality of gender and equal access to opportunity.
I'm not even going to ask nicely, as 'befits' my female state.
