Where women rarely go...

A few females are plying their trade in male-dominated sectors hit by recession, says Sue Leonard

THE recession has been tough for everyone. Jobs throughout Europe have been disappearing. If it’s been hard on women, it’s been even worse for men. A recent study from the European Union has found that of the five million jobs shed between 2008 and 2010, four million had been held by men, and just one million by women. But that doesn’t mean that the feminist movement has finally been victorious. It’s just that the jobs worst hit are those in construction and manufacture. So, though women in female-orientated jobs are relatively secure, women preferring a more macho occupation have it worst of all.

At the height of the boom, in 1995, there were 131 women employed as apprentices. Today, FÁS reports there are just 58. That doesn’t surprise Chris Lundy, of the Association of Electrical Contractors of Ireland.

“I’d guess that this industry is 99.9% male,” he says. “I work in the area of fire alarms. I know one female electrician in this type of work. But she now deals with distribution.”

The Farrier

Sarah Callow, 29, reckons she’s one of the few female farriers in Ireland. Apprenticed at 19, she says she was lucky to get taken on. She met John Dooley, a farrier from Kildare, when he was shoeing in Sarah’s native Isle of Man. She proved a Grade A student. And 10 years on, and married to a farmer, Sarah runs her own business in Stratford-on-Slaney in Co Wicklow.

“People have accepted me. Occasionally I get, ‘I didn’t know there were female farriers’. I just say, ‘Aren’t you lucky to meet me then!’

“Sometimes being a woman is an advantage. The horses that are nervous like a quiet approach. But there are times where you need brute strength, and that’s where I have difficulty. I’m five foot eight and nine stone.

“When I started in practice I tried to prove a point. I worked in a lot of racing yards with big tricky horses. I got injured a few times, and I wasn’t prepared to risk it anymore. I now work with private clients and in riding schools with nice, pleasant horses.

“It’s not worth a broken leg or arm. If a horse acts up, I now ask the client to work on it; to sedate it, or get someone else. You live and learn.

“It’s a good life. I own three horses. I try and keep a day free to go hunting in the winter. And I try and keep weekends free. But that often doesn’t happen, because with the recession, you work more when it suits clients.

“The best thing about my job is being able to help a horse. I love when I can try something different. The worst is being self-employed and getting no sick pay, no paid holidays, and nobody to cover when you are sick.

“It takes a lot of patience and determination for a woman to become a farrier. You have to be apprenticed, and it’s hard to find someone to back you.”

Tougher than she looks ...

Lisa Baldwin doesn’t look like a bodyguard. Petite and attractive, she’d blend in a crowd. That’s the point. “Being a bodyguard is more mental than physical,” she says. “If you’ve done the proper planning for a situation, nothing untoward should occur.”

From Portmarnock, the 28-year-old works mostly with royal families from the Middle East. “I work with the Saudis, or royals from around the Emirates when they go on holiday to London. They like a female bodyguard to look after the women and the children. They worry about the kidnap threat.

“We tend to work in a team. The family arrive and the men and women separate. Sometimes, we work with children one-to-one — and occasionally it’s two of us for one.”

Lisa wanted a physical job. As a teenager, she trained to be a swimmer, in Holland and Spain. Then, she went to UCD to study science, but realised it wasn’t for her. Then, at 20, she heard that women could become bodyguards.

“I trained in London, taking back-to-back courses with the International Bodyguard Association. I learned about basic ID explosive device search, electronic surveillance, bodyguard para-medicine, and I took a three-day driving course. We learned at a police skid pan, and were taught evasive driving, as well as offensive driving and which part of a car to hit, if you had to get through in a last resort,” she says.

Lisa runs the women’s branch of the IBA, dealing with queries. “The high point of a job is signing off at the airport. It’s great knowing that a family has had a happy and safe holiday. It’s the best feeling in the world. The worst is if you’re in a team where you don’t trust all the people. Another downside is that you don’t know what you’re doing from day to day. At one time, every time I tried to have a holiday in the States, I’d get a voicemail as soon as I landed. I’d have a job starting in London the next day. For all that, I’d put my job satisfaction close to a ten.”

Lisa living the high life ... just as her mum did before her

The other day, Susan Lynch’s seven-year-old son, Andy, saw his mother climb up the outside of the Limerick County Council building. Fascinated, he’s been talking about it ever since.

“He couldn’t believe I could climb so high,” says Susan, who is 42. But heights are nothing to Susan. Following her mother into the family business, she’s been climbing up buildings, using just ropes, ever since she was a teenager.

“When my mother, Angela Collins O’Mahony, set up as a steeplejack with my father, it was an extraordinary thing for a woman to do. When I was in boarding school, she was on The Late Late Show. Then, people began to understand what she did.

“The business was ingrained into me. It was the talk each night over dinner. My mother wanted us to have a different career; she could see changes coming. I did teaching, and I enjoyed it, but I’d been used to helping out in the business and I wanted to get back to it,” she says.

“My brother and I now run Collins Building and Steeplejack services. We maintain buildings, and we work a lot on wind-turbine maintenance. My job used to be mostly in the office. But since my parents retired, I began to go on-site and climb. The lads would be explaining something. It was easiest to climb and take a look. The lads are fantastic. They don’t treat me any differently.”

“The great thing is, as steeplejacks, we don’t need scaffolding. We can get to work the same day. We sit in a little chair and abseil down. We’ll do the pointing, the stonework, or whatever needs doing.”