When people find out I spent a career in firefighting, two questions always follow.
The first is, “Why – why did you choose to run toward fire?” I wrote a whole book to answer that question, which, spoiler alert, basically says, “Because I was born to be a firefighter.” It’s an honest answer. I couldn’t imagine a life without firefighting.
The second question is, “How many of you are there, you know, female firefighters?” like I’m supposed to know the number off the top of my head. The sad thing is, I do know the number. It’s 17,200, according to the NFPA. When I share that information, I get head nods and responses like, “That’s fantastic!” or “Girl power!”
They don’t understand it’s bad news. They asked the wrong question. The right question is “What percentage of professional firefighters are women?”
That number gets a different response. Now everyone wants to know what it was like working in such an overwhelmingly male-dominated profession. So I tell them. The gear didn’t fit. Most of the guys were amazing. Some were jerks. I had to prove myself, every time – if not to them, to myself. I worked longer hours. I worked harder. I went to night school. I did more push-ups. I volunteered for the dirty jobs. I slipped cuss words in between syllables so they wouldn’t be scared to talk around me. I figured out competent workarounds for equipment not designed for anyone under six-feet tall. I practiced and studied and practiced and studied. I took holiday shifts because I didn’t have kids. I prepped relentlessly for promotional exams. I refused to date anyone in the fire service, no matter how much I might have crushed on someone, because I needed the guys to see me as a firefighter first. I honed my smart-ass skills to pointedly but lightheartedly call out bigotry in a profession mired in both intentional and unintentional misogyny. I learned about teamwork, leadership, cohesion, public service, and lifetime bonds with the few sisters and many, many brothers I have in the fire service. I’d do it again, because I love firefighting.
“Well, it’s better now, right?” I get asked on my book tour. “I mean, you started in the early 80s,” they’ll often add.
I answer, “It is better. When I started, less than 2% of professional firefighters in America were female. Since then, that number has swelled to 4.7%.”
That’s right. In four decades, we’ve more than doubled the numbers. At this rate, the fire service could achieve gender parity in approximately 135 years. Yay us!
Part of the problem is we’ve been attacking the issue at the wrong level. We point fingers at fire chiefs and city managers and human resources personnel for inept recruiting efforts. Because when 95% of applicants are males, guess how many jobs will be filled by non-males? Government agencies have grappled with this and tried and failed with rubric variations that don’t work – split lists, focused recruiting, affirmative action-style goals or quotas. And all of it has gotten us no further than 4.7%.
Why? Because that’s starting way too late in the game. My brother knew at age 2 that he was going to be a firefighter. According to Mom, she locked herself out of the house, leaving him inside. Mom went next door to call the fire department, then witnessed my brother jumping up and down on the couch and clapping when the fire engine pulled to the curb. From that day on, he drew pictures of engines and trucks, with him riding tailboard. It fit. He would grow into one of them – a handsome, mustached, kind-hearted man.
I had no idea I could be a firefighter until my brother joined and encouraged me to follow. “You would love it, and it would love you!” he promised. He was right. But not many teenage girls get that kind of affirmation. And even fewer younger girls do. This is where we need to focus our efforts. It’s not just up to fire chiefs. It’s up to all of us as adults to let kids know they can join whatever profession they are drawn to, whether or not an Adam’s apple is in the mix.
So maybe to expediate things just a little, we could work on something really simple that costs nothing. Seriously, it’s free. I guarantee some eyerolls here, and it will even piss some people off. But if we are ever going to shake the adage that the fire service is “200 years of tradition unimpeded by progress,” then this is how we start: Stop saying fireman. Stop making mustache logos for union pins. Stop adorning challenge coins with brotherhood. Stop saying girl’s fire camps that expose young females to chainsaws and hoses and dirt firefighting is discrimination against young boys. You can make that argument when the ratio is 50:50, but not when it’s 96.3:4.7 (or more fairly, you could apply the Ginsberg rule, which means those complaints will be welcome just after the ratio has been 4.7:96.3 for a couple hundred years). Just stop. You are telling every woman who’s made it into the beloved profession that she doesn’t belong. You’re telling young girls they have no hope of entering the profession.
I don’t mean to imply it’s all on the fire service’s shoulders. It’s not. Society as a whole needs to shift; it needs to recognize that we harm ourselves by not inviting everyone to sit at whatever table suits them. But I am saying, the smallest of efforts can make the biggest of differences. And isn’t that why you all joined the fire service – to make a difference?
