It’s funny you know; sometimes there’s shitty gender discrimination and other biases at play. And sometimes you’re jumping at shadows. Recently I had to eat humble pie.
I was happy to apologise, and I was certainly pleased to be wrong. I’d basically had a public moan about an organisation in the building industry that I thought had rejected (or more precisely, overlooked) me for a volunteer role while at the same time bigging up their credentials about inclusion and gender equality. But, in fact, I’d jumped to conclusions, and there was a perfectly reasonable explanation.
I was mistaken, and I said so.
The reason I got it so wrong is because I was jumping at shadows. My experiences in the building and construction industry to date – including with this organisation in fact – have frequently been unpleasant. There is a lot of bias. There is an uneven playing field. Women do get passed over. Handywomen do get derided as being useless. So I find myself in fight mode a lot, and when all you’ve got is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
It’s a shame to exist in the world like this. I have compassion for myself and understanding about why I can get like this. At the same time, this experience of discovering I was just plain wrong was a slap in the face to remind me sometimes we can all get carried away with outrage at the injustice of it all. Because, with the eyes to see, I can recognise that there are people and organisations out there doing good. Change in the construction industry is slow, but it is occurring. Businesses and organisations with a lot of clout are putting money where their mouth is.
Some examples are:
- Bowens Women in Trades event, and its associated awards such as the Magaret Hickey Award
- The work of organisations like Tradeswomen Australia, Empowered Women in Trades, Women Building Australia, AWIC, NAWIC and SALT
- The enormous popularity of Lady Tradies and the Tradie Lady Club (not to mention hundreds of individual tradeswomen), and success of podcasts like Building Confidence
- Space at the table at in things like Sydney Building Expo, Wood Dust, Lost Trades Fair
- The targets for TAFE places and programs like Big Build Victoria.
Yes, there is always more to do. Yes, we do need to keep fighting gender inequality in the industry and stop pretending it’s ‘problem solved’ because of a few outstanding examples.
I actually look forward to the day when gender-focused businesses like She Bangs, and organisations like Women Onsite aren’t needed. When smart, educated women like Electrify This’ Sarah Aubrey don’t get abused seemingly for being a woman on the internet with opinions.
We’re a long way off that. ‘Til then, I need to remember that sometimes it’s too easy to grab the wrong end of the stick and bark up the wrong tree. The lesson for me is that sometimes I need to take a big ole seat and just watch things play out before shooting off my big fat mouth. Oops, my bad!