Female's on the tools?

[Linda]

This is going to prove touchy,I have employed two female climbers so far this year.Neither have worked out for me,as they both were preoccupied with the idea of staying in the tree all day and not doing their share of ground work.I understand that generally a female is not as strong as a male and don't encourage anyone to lift excessive weights or use saws that are bigger than needed whilst aloft.However we do far more felling than pruning so using a 066 to block down with is common,I bought an 046 for the second climber but with a 3 foot bar it was still to much for her to handle,a three foot bar on the 036 would kill it so the 046 it was.I don't have enough pruning or small fells to dedicate one climber to,nor would it be fair to be sexist when advertising for another climber.

 

 

Sorry guys but what is the point of this thread?! What is it you want to say/suggest/ask? If you don't think your employees do a good job then I suggest you should have a chat with them about their attitude. Or maybe you should name them and we could all point fingers at them? If you have something constructive to bring to the forum on the gender topic we're happy to hear it. And please, stop pretending women are a different species. There will be women good at what they do and bad at what they do, just as there are men good and bad at what they do. In all professions. No wonder women always feel they have to prove themselves and work twice as hard as men to get the same recognition men get for just breathing.

[Andy Collins]

Ouch, I just knew this was going to be a dodgy topic. Having never worked with female climbers, I dont have an opinion on their aerial abilities, and no doubt they would be better than me off the ground anyway. I feel that the benefits of being (generally) more consciencious about the way they work may out-weigh the lack of physical strength. Why should peeing be any more of problem for girls than blokes???? We all gotta go!!

[Rentachimp]

Just it's easier for guys to be covert about it.

 

Ok if you're in a forest, less so roadside...

[Dagmar]

Whilst I'm not a climber or at least not in the sense that you mean on this thread, I have to say that women, who are generally lighter and more agile, would appear to have a place working in the trees, sure sometime there will be issues of strength, but it shouldn't be an insurmountable problem to solve it with a bit of discussion. There really are more positives than negatives in women doing ariel work, it doesn't take much to work that out.

 

Women do things differently so work with it, it may well work out better. Your female team members are just that, part of the team.

 

By the way, we can pee up trees too! We just do it the other way round. The toilet excuse has been used as a reason not to employ women in outdoor jobs for too long - you really need to get over it guys!

[Jerseygirl]

OH MY more women here - that is great -

 

Hey Guys, is Kathy Holtzer on here yet.

 

I am sure she will also advise you that gender is not an issues. I am sure you have had male workers that also did not workout.

 

maybe you need to bring more women into the profession.

 

my 2 cent

 

jz

[Mangoes]

There needs to be more women in the industry. I have had a great number of opportunities to encourage a few aspiring women Arborists (a girl doesn't have to climb to prove adept as an Arborist) in my past experience as an instructor. As an istructor at the college I had more males enter the course, physically unable to climb, than females......food for thought.

 

True physique will be a factor, but whatever I'm not a big guy and I have to work smarter than someone like Ed might have to.

 

Now to the comments of class and such, less sensitivity is in order. Humans classify and categorize, our judgment and scrutinizing nature. It is why we have Latin nomenclature. We classify sex, attitudes, skills, language, skin colour, country of origin, religion, sexual orientation, financial class etc etc etc. Some of it is negative, some of it is good all of it is genetic and subconscious.

[Jamie]

Women are set up to be less physically strong but i'd bet that this lass could handle a decent sized saw

 

That was the first image that appeared when i googled women bodybuilder

 

Jamie

[Mike Hill]

Linda

 

The point of my post was to ask opinions and show my experiances of working with female climbers,nothing more.I showed my experiance's and others have given their opinions.I run an open and inclusive crew,I try and foster a family attitiude amongst my staff and knee jerk reactions like your post only serve to divert the discussion from the original topic.

[Old Monkey]

Linda

 

The point of my post was to ask opinions and show my experiances of working with female climbers,nothing more.I showed my experiance's and others have given their opinions.I run an open and inclusive crew,I try and foster a family attitiude amongst my staff and knee jerk reactions like your post only serve to divert the discussion from the original topic.

 

I used to work for the Forest Service over here in the States. We had a coed fire fighting crew. We trained everyone who was interested in running saws how to run them. The problem we ran into was the old Stihl 044s were hard for the women on our crews to start. They could run them and use them fine but starting was always difficult. Now with decompression switches I don't think that would be much trouble.

 

As for female employees hiding out from tedious ground work, I've seen a lot of guys do that too.

[MattyF]

Women are set up to be less physically strong but i'd bet that this lass could handle a decent sized saw

 

That was the first image that appeared when i googled women bodybuilder

 

Jamie

that looks like a dude!

This girl laura i had work with me for a while i would of given her a full time job but shes a single mum ......could only start at 9 then some times wanted to be home earlier as no baby sitter,then some funny thing with her wages due to child suppport...still she would put most men to shame with her ability to drag brush and carry timber,liked to talk alot though.....

I think in time any body could make a good climber ...but all new climbers have to have the determination and ability in the first place before being given the chance to prove them selves after training in the work.

I believe the main problem is employers are not that patient and some individuals should just not be in a tree regardles of sex unfortunietly the only wommen climber i have seen at work was one of them