Now I’ve tried to write this one as non-sexist as possible, but if at any point I manage to insult the female kind in anyway, I apologise!
I asked my friendly Twitter folk the other night if they had ever seen any female window installers or female tradesmen. I got five replies:
@BirminghamGlass: sure have, husband and wife team buy off us, only one I’ve heard of though !
@peterdoran01: not as yet but my father employed a female brickie 20 yrs ago
@eco_sash: Yes, a two woman team! #notbadeither!!
@rich_brick: no but ours is a big f***ing girl sometimes!!
@schuecomark: we get them on training courses all the time!
So, the general consensus is that there are some female fitters out there, but not that many. However of the ones seen, they are good at what they do. There was this comment though from Nigel Grant:
@NigelGrantUpvc: @glazingblogger @eco_sash: Tryin my best not to be sexist. But the weight thing, they cant do big windows. I know how heavy things r sometimes.
To be fair, I can see Nigel’s point of view. But if women were part of a fitting crew with men as well then maybe it wouldn’t be too much of a problem. I think more women fitters could bring a different dimension to the installation. Some customers can feel slightly intimidated by a team of men. Maybe a woman in the team might help negate some of that intimidation.
In terms of skills, I think women would be just as good on sight as the men. In fact, women probably have a keener approach to attention to detail. This would help reduce the amount of remedial work after a job is complete.
If you have any female window installers working for you, it would be interesting to know how many of you do and if it has had a positive effect on your business!
As long as the standard of training and fitting is good then it really shouldn’t matter what sex your fitters are, another interesting one with the Paralympics coming up would be how many firms employ fitters with disabilities / learning difficulties, equality in the workplace seems to be a hot topic again people should not judge on appearances but on abilities and standards of work.