COVID got in the way of everything, even celebrating a gradual decline of gender barriers: for example, it was two years late because of the virus, but Camosun’s Women in Trade Training (WITT) celebrated its 10-year anniversary this September.
Since its inception in 2010, WITT has aimed to promote and facilitate gender diversity within trades. Historically, the trades have been seen as a man’s job for various illogical reasons, like the belief that men have physiological superiority over women and that the work is too dirty for women. Thankfully, as the years go on we’ve realized that these beliefs are inaccurate, which is great, because trade careers provide a stable income that can be quite lucrative, especially given what we’re seeing with inflation and the high cost of living on Vancouver Island today.
The work WITT has been doing in changing mindsets and encouraging women to enter trades is great for trades students, as proven through the evolving popularity of women entering trades.
Where it all began
Amy Carr attended the first WITT program run at Camosun over 10 years ago, and has personally seen the change in Victoria’s trades.
“I was actually thinking about going into social work when [WITT training coordinator] Karen McNeill said, ‘Hey, we’re starting this new program—you get to try all these different trades and see if you like any of them. Why haven’t you thought about doing this since you’re doing all these home renos at home?’ I said, ‘Well, women don’t belong in the trades. ‘And she said, ‘Who told you that?’ and I said, ‘My uncle, years ago, who is a carpenter.’ She said, ‘Well, you’re just finishing up your upgrading, so what have you got to lose?’ and I did the program.”
With the government supporting financially and WITT’s advocacy for women’s trade education, tradeswomen sparked up a network of internal support. They created Facebook groups and monthly meet-ups open to all BC tradeswomen. Naturally, bonds started building within this community.
“You find mentorships, or friendship, or people you can ask about child care, or whatever, or what are the best pants to buy, those kinds of things,” says Carr.
Even with all this support, when Carr first entered the industry there were still hurdles to jump. Due to a lack of women in the field, she was carving her own path into the industry. Once she graduated from the Sheet Metal Foundation program at Camosun, she had to figure out how to enter the field. She joined a sheet metal workers’ union, and was only the second woman to do so in that particular union.
“I felt like a unicorn everywhere I went,” says Carr. “It was unchartered territory here on the island to be a female sheet metal worker. And there were challenges at the beginning, and you definitely had the weight of the world on your shoulders. I think there’s a stereotype that trades are for big burly men, and it’s funny because I remember walking out on one of my first construction sites when I first started out, and there were men that were four feet tall, and there were men that were six feet tall, and there was buff men, and there was thin men, and men of every body type imaginable. And I remember looking at them and going, ‘If they can do it, I can do it’. That was a big awakening.”
A changing field
Today, women entering trades can use the support and experience from past trailblazers to enter their desired fields. This includes access to funding to get trades education. Any female student in the WITT Sampler program can access this funding; however, you don’t have to be part of this WITT program to receive funding. Many female students outside of the program are recipients of financial aid related to WITT. Pipe Trades Foundation student Vicky Yu is an example of this, as she is a recipient of WITT funding even though she isn’t in the WITT program.
“I started off at UVic and after three miserable years I dropped out and I was kind of like, ‘Ah, crap—I need a job.’ I’ve always really enjoyed working with my hands in high-school workshops and stuff, so I figured I might as well go to the trades,” says Yu. “I figured I am really terrified of getting electrocuted, so not that field. Water is cool. I guess plumbing would be smart. I didn’t even realize how many individual fields that the pipe trades consisted of—sprinkler filling, medical gas, a lot of different pipe trades that I didn’t even think of before I got to the program.”
Carr says that the attitude of women entering trades has changed immensely, and now young women can see themselves entering trades as a professional and serious career.
“When you used to Google construction workers and go to images on the Google search it would be halloween costumes of women dressed up as sexy construction workers. Now when you look up women in trades you’ll see a whole bunch of BC women actually pop up first,” says Carr. “It’s changed. Now that you can see us and we’re visible now I have friends from 20, 30, and 40 saying, ‘Yeah, I wish I had the opportunity to do that, and I go, ‘You still do. 100 percent you still do.’ And so they go.”
Barriers and hoops
It wasn’t easy for modern-day tradeswomen to get a seat at the table. Pioneers of gender diversity in trades fought hard for these accomplishments, and every woman entering trades is still battling alongside them. One of these women is Camosun WITT coordinator Heather Solomonson.
“It’s really incredibly rewarding to see women have the opportunity to try out the tools and to get a sense for what kind of work they want to pursue in a supported and comfortable environment,” says Solomonson. “And then have them come back for their foundation training or their apprenticeship and then… come back in that full-circle capacity as instructors and supporters of the program.”
Like Carr and Yu, Solomonson didn’t plan on entering the trades, or for it to be her career. Unfortunately, their stories are that of a huge number of tradeswomen. Solomonson says that the default suggestion to women is too often a more academic route.
“When I was growing up there was sort of an expectation for me that at some point I would go to university and get a real job,” says Solomonson. “It’s really quite remarkable at this point to see how many students who end up coming to our trades sampler programs and get into the trades that do come from a university background.”
Some women need financial support to enter the field. Thanks to this assistance, women like Sarah Cooper, a WITT alumni and current carpenter, can access this career path.
“I became a single mom when I was pregnant with my second, and I used to work in an office and I hated it so much, so I started working with WorkBC and things like that. And they told me about the WITT program,” says Cooper. “I ended up, when my ex left me, [with] a two year old and I was pregnant with a baby. I was on welfare. I had to turn to social assistance to pay my rent and I was like, I don’t ever want to be here again. So, I figured out if I tried this and it worked out, then, great, so I took the program and did a whole 360, and now I never have to worry about money again.”
Since women aren’t commonly encouraged to enter trades it can be confusing to know where to start. Programs like WITT can be part of the solution. By providing a sampler program, women can be introduced to the trades that they’ve been sheltered from. The program isn’t by any means a holy grail, though. Women in WITT and other Camosun trade programs still endure the harsh realities of entering a male-dominated industry.
“There are definitely ups and downs,” says Yu. “I personally haven’t really felt the negative effects but some of my friends do feel like they have to fight harder to be included. But my experience has largely been really positive.”
Only approximately five percent of trades workers in Canada are women, according to figures from 2020.
“It is growing. We can see it here at the college as we continue our enrolment in the trades programs, and it is increasing across the country,” says Solomonson. “Province to province I would imagine there would be some variation on how many supports are in place and whatnot.”
These support systems help to produce higher numbers of positive journeys through trade education in BC. Yet, too often these are tales of those who got the luck of the draw.
“General mentality, it’s a man’s world,” says Cooper. “And we need to change the outlook where it’s a man’s world. And a lot of women are scared, because of that mentality, to even try it. Luckily for me, I found an amazing boss, an amazing company. But most guys, these younger guys that are coming up, don’t really have that mentality as much. So I think it’s going to take another generation or two before this stuff changes a lot. You’ve still got your foremans and stuff who are still from the older generation, and it’s a man’s world. Until we change their perception that it’s not a man’s world, it’s an everybody’s world, nothing is going to change until that happens.”
Unsurprisingly, the public takes a long time to adapt to change, even in the fight for equality, and especially when oppressive patterns in social behaviours morph into different micro-aggressive outlets. That lingering stench of sexism can be found in terminology and workplace humour.
“I’m optimistic that something like that will happen but it’ll take a lot of work,” says Yu, “and people will have to be aware of their own implicit biases, because people still joke about, ‘Oh, a tradesmen is just a tradesman, you don’t need a tradeswoman.’”
Sexual harassment has been one of the leading forms of discrimination in trades workplaces. But there’s been success in making change in cultural norms in those workplaces, at least in Victoria.
“People don’t laugh anymore, or they’re learning to sidekick that person like, ‘Yo, you can’t do that.’ But it’s also cool because women are also speaking up and saying, ‘Hey, I’m going to tell you right now, you do that again and I’m getting you in trouble,’” says Carr. “So instead of us being perceived as aggressive, they’re realizing that no, no, we’re just being assertive and we’re setting our boundaries and we’re setting our expectations when we’re on a site.”
Aside from external influences, there are also individual barriers. Limited access to childcare, for example, is a major setback that primarily affects women. And not all women are fortunate enough to have the means to allow for childcare.
“I have an amazing mom who took care of my kids while I went to school and let me get homework done,” says Cooper. “And she still takes care of them now. She doesn’t do it for free; I pay her to do it. Which is great. When I went to school she did it for free, and now I actually get to pay her to do, it which is great. I’m from Ontario. If my mom still lived in Ontario I would have never been able to attend school, because I was on social assistance and there was no way to get childcare. So I would have never been able to get to where I’m at right now.”
Cooper says that she expected that it wouldn’t be easy and that she’d have to work harder to prove herself than the men would.
“I personally lucked out so much because the guys that I work with, and the company that I work with, I didn’t actually have to worry about that kind of stuff,” she says. “But that was a big concern. It was nerve-racking having to be surrounded by all these guys and not all of them would necessarily want you there or think you deserve to be there.”
Where do we go from here?
Carr says that because of her struggles and successes she found she had a passion for supporting and teaching other women entering the trades.
“I was also a softball coach, so for young girls, teaching girls how to support other girls, getting rid of the bullying mentality that there’s room for one alpha female at the table and teaching and demonstrating to other women that we just need to build a bigger table and there’s enough room for all of us,” says Carr.
Solomonson sees this too and has taken the time to see what next moves can be most beneficial. As she points out, there is still room for growth that can help make the support in place more effective.
“BCCWITT [BC Centre for Women in the Trades] is doing a regional representative training program. It’s tremendous insofar as helping women at any point in their careers in the trades learn skills to be able to step up into leadership positions, to be able to take on roles within their unions, or come back as instructors, to be more confident in public speaking, or speaking up for themselves,” says Solomonson. “The more women we have in leadership positions the more we normalize women in the trades. Women need to be able to see themselves there too to be able to reach those goals.”
Carr says that she taught her students to document everything when she was teaching in Women in Trades last year.
“Dates, times, anything you have, document it, including your work, so that you don’t get accused of scratching a wall or wrecking an appliance when you are installing something,” she says. “And those are not things that are always taught to you when you’re on the job, and those are things that will benefit you down the road.”
Tips and tricks to manage discrimination around women being in trades can only go so far, though. If women can’t get to their jobs to begin with, because of other limitations to getting on the job site, they won’t even get a chance to use those tips.
“Childcare is a big one and I’d suggest that that’s for anyone working in the kind of industry that might have early starting hours and whatnot. There have been talks of some of the unions getting together and starting their own daycare services. BCCWITT has certainly taken a lot of lead and direction to have things like childcare available,” says Solomonson. “Bathrooms on site are something that always comes up when you’re talking to tradeswomen. Clean bathrooms would be better. There’s a lot of things that we don’t necessarily think about. Even finding PPE, personal protective equipment, that fits well. Finding pants that fit well, or boots that are small enough, or a good selection. There’s certainly significantly more of a selection for men. Finding gloves that are small enough is sometimes an issue, that sort of thing.”
Even with the unprecedented amount of opportunities in BC, there are, unfortunately, still setbacks due to cultural limitations. Support systems do a lot for changing how society views women in comparison to men in the trades but changing an entire culture’s entrenched belief that women are less than is a monumental task.
“I know I shouldn’t feel this way, but still when I realize I’m not as fast as the guys who’ve actually been in the industry before I feel I can do better, but it’s just one of those personal things,” says Yu. “The instructors do reassure me that I’m doing a good job but it’s definitely one of those self-against-self mental struggles where it’s like imposter syndrome.”
There is an incredible joy that comes with the job that any woman working in the field will happily describe at length. But, as Solomonson reminds us, there’s still a ways to go.
“At this point we still definitely have a lot of room and need the additional support in place,” she says. “I would like to see it be an environment where people are hired because they’re good at their jobs, and that’s the consideration that’s taken into play.”