Extract – The second body | The price to pay for “invading” male territory

Karen Messing, a world-renowned specialist in women’s health at work, reports on her research on the labor market, where women, victims of gender inequalities, are still too often considered the weaker sex.

I was sitting with my research partners in a small windowless room, along with five other women. Communication technicians, these women had worked all day, repairing or installing equipment in homes, businesses and construction sites. […] We had organized a meeting because the committee on the status of women of their central union, in 2003, was looking for solutions to encourage women to keep this type of job, where their presence, already in the minority (only 16 of the 1,270 workers in the companies in Quebec were women), was constantly on the decline. […]

Initially, none seemed to grasp the objective of this meeting, nor to have much to report. No particular problem, no difference in treatment compared to their male colleagues. […]

Chantal told us that she had asked her superior, in a confidential manner, to assign another technician to a customer who had made advances to her, but that the foreman had hastened to tell the story all round, which made everyone laugh. […] Several women in the group also mentioned that some tools were too big for them and that they did not understand why they were not provided with suitable equipment for their size. But, they concluded, it was not a serious problem. Johanne had repeatedly called for a smaller tool belt, but never got it. She could work with the one she was given […], but she weighed over three kilos and hurt her hips. We asked if wearing a crossover harness would make it easier to carry tools, since the weight would be shared between the shoulders and hips. The technicians all burst out laughing. “Yeah sure, a chest strap that will make our breasts pop, as we spend the day trying to make everyone forget that we’re women.” There was a moment of silence in the room.

And then, during the third hour of the meeting, we talked about “real business”. […] Our guests told us about their battles over the ladders, a struggle that each had fought alone. The company had ladders of three sizes (approximately 7.5, 8 and 8.5 meters long). They were heavy, difficult to transport and quite complicated to install on trucks, especially for short people. In the Montreal area, it was felt that only the shortest format was needed, so all trucks were supposed to have small ladders, which were easier to handle. In practice, however, it often happened that only the largest format was available. All the technicians participating in our meeting had asked their foreman to order more small scales or at least to reserve them the most easily handled, to no avail.

As the third hour progressed, more other stories emerged: examples of poorly sized tools, verbal attacks, colleagues who kept harassing them, others who refused to work with them or actively tried to harass them. get fired. Hearing them speak, it was all part of the routine, as if these inconveniences were the price to pay for “invading” male territory.

During the discussion, however, the technicians realized that they encountered the same obstacles, to the point of coming more and more spontaneously to share their difficulties and to seek solutions together. For all of us, it was a great moment of solidarity. […]

To access non-traditional jobs, all of these women had overcome many obstacles, one by one, and their patience and perseverance had paid off. They must have faced insults and many other forms of adversity, but they had just gritted their teeth and held on. […] But first and foremost, women pioneers had to recognize that they were not being treated equally – a very risky admission in a context where any difference could be interpreted as a sign of weakness. Take, for example, the physiological differences between women and men with regard to not only size and strength, but also morphology, muscle fatigue, pain mechanisms, hormonal interference in the response to toxic chemicals, worsening of menstrual cramps by the work environment, incompatibility of pregnancy or breastfeeding with certain tasks or chemicals. In a work environment that is not adapted to the female body, female workers find themselves struggling with more pain, more work accidents and more musculoskeletal disorders than their male colleagues. But women are reluctant to mention their differences for fear that these differences will be used to deny them a job or promotion. And unfortunately, this risk is very real.

The second body – Women at work, from shame to solidarity

Karen messing

Ecosociety

280 pages, October 2021