I’m Robyn and I work on a building site as a ‘restoration specialist’ (a job title I made up for myself). I bloody love my job and all the wonderful 500+ gentlemen and 6ish women I work with. Aside from a few guys who want to tell me how good I look or repeatedly ask me out, and they are the vast minority, most of the guys just treat me like another human. Albeit a human who might appreciate having doors held open for them and must be called ‘love’ instead of ‘mate’.
My hope is that, by being a visible female presence in a physical role, I’m not only getting male labourers used to having women around but that more women will consider pursuing careers in industries that interest them, but have previously felt to be too male dominated.
If you don’t mind (or actually rather enjoy) getting mucky and playing with power tools then why not have a look at learning how to lay bricks or restore furniture? It’s not such a boys’ club after all.
“And since we all came from a woman
Got our name from a woman and our game from a woman
I wonder why we take from our women
Why we rape our women, do we hate our women?
I think it’s time to kill for our women
Time to heal our women, be real to our women
And if we don’t we’ll have a race of babies
That will hate the ladies, that make the babies
And since a man can’t make one
He has no right to tell a woman when and where to create one
So will the real men get up
I know you’re fed up ladies, but keep your head up”
And there are some Tupac lyrics, proving not all hip hop is guns, bitches and bling.