“You’ll have to cut your hair and you can’t wear makeup. What happens if you get married?”
- johannavalentine
- Mar 26, 2016
- 4 min read
During previous conversations with firefighters, I have never heard anyone say that women should not be allowed in the service. I have heard discourse at entry training requirements being altered for women and the fact that they need to be able to lift the same weight requirements as men from a safety point of view…after all if as a firefighter you are trapped in a burning building you want to know the firefighter beside you is capable of lifting you out. I have to agree with both these. I don’t think entry requirements should be changed to ‘better fit’ or ‘encourage’ or ‘make easier’ for women to enter the service. The entry requirements should be job specific regardless of gender. Recently I attended a volunteer recruitment session. As they began to talk about working conditions being hot and sweaty it was actually commented that ‘makeup is not allowed and your hair will be plastered to your face’ and the spokesperson directly looked at the women as though the mere thought of us not being able to wear makeup during an incident would be enough to have us fleeing from the room! I’m sure that all the women who attended this session had done research prior to turning up and knew that fires were indeed hot and that sweating might be possible!!! This experience led me one rainy afternoon to Google the history of women in the fire service out of interest to learn more. I came across a great interview with Sian Griffiths (pictured above) who in 1985 was only one of 5 female fighter fighters in a 6,000 force (UK).
“You’ll have to cut your hair and you can’t wear makeup. What happens if you get married?”
Sian was actually asked these questions at her recruitment. She recently retired after 30 years service with a Queens Fire Service Medal - you can find the link below to read more about her experiences.
Did she join the ranks to forge a path for another woman? To break the glass ceiling? To trail blaze for younger generations? To show, she could do exactly what a man could do? No. She joined cos she needed a good paying job as she was a single parent and male dominated jobs paid better at the time.
Here in Australia, a Women in Firefighting conference was held in 2006 in Sydney. The conference heard from Terese Floren, Executive Director Women in the Fire Service USA. She joined the fire service in 1975. In the opening address, Terese Floren related her own background describing the difficulties she faced being the first female firefighter in her state.
She related stories told to her by other women firefighters of lengths women had to go through to “prove” themselves to their male colleagues - even to the extent of having themselves sterilised incase of an unplanned pregnancy which would have ended their careers at that time. It was also commented that women firefighters were at 9/11 but where in the photos do they appear? There is a great introductory article here about some of them. In 2006, WA had 27 female firefighters (about 3% of the firefighting workforce) which were almost double that of other states at the same time.
There have been a few well known women firefighters through history. Here are a few:
The first known firefighter in the USA was an African American slave called Molly Williams (1818). She belonged to a New York City merchant by the name of Benjamin Aymar who was affiliated with the Oceanus Engine Company #11 in 1818. She was referred to in the Company as Volunteer No. 11. and was said to be "as good a fire laddie as many of the boys.". During the blizzard of 1818, many male firefighters were scarce due to an influenza outbreak, but Williams took her place with the men on the drag ropes and pulled the pumper to the fire through the deep snow.
The first known female fire chief in the U.S. was Ruth E. Capello. Ruth Capello was born in 1922 and became fire chief of the Butte Falls fire department in Butte Falls, Oregon in 1973. She died at the age of 70 in 1992
Lillie Hitchcock Coit lived in San Fransisco, was also one of the richest heiresses in the Bay City. Lillie was 15 years old and on her way home from school when she spotted a company of shorthanded volunteers trying to run their engine up Telegraph Hill to a fire. They were falling behind the other companies, so Lillie grabbed an open spot on the ropes and shouted "Come on you, men! Let's beat 'em!". The men of Knickerbocker No.5 made her an honorary member. They always regarded her presence worth more than that of many men. When she married, she quit her fire work, but until she died she wore a little solid gold "5" pinned to her dress, and she signed her name "Lillie H. Coit 5"
It was certainly interesting to read more about the progress of women within the service and provided me with enough material to write another blog post about women in the service across the globe which I will post soon.
For now, I will leave you with the stories of Lillie, Ruth and Molly… References:
Article about Sian
Report from Women in Firefighting Conference (2006)
Article in Australian Journal of Emergency Management
DFES videos by women in the service
A USA program about the darker side of some of the experiences of women firefighters
