Female's on the tools?

[Frimsley]

Some random thoughts:

 

The ability to climb and manoeuvre around a tree is more to do with strength to weight ratio and agility than with brut upper body strength. If anything, women have an advantage there.

 

Certain jobs do require brut strength. Pick the most appropriate team member for those jobs.

 

I'm not convinced that strength isn't partly a social issue, rather than an an innate physical one anyway. I've travelled a far bit and seen cultures where women do a lot of the physical work. When a truck full of goods arrives in a Turkish village, it's the women who unload it. I once saw a Guatemalan woman struggling to get a large package onto the roof of a bus. A fairly sizeable young American guy offered to help her, then promptly crumpled under its weight!

 

I've worked with people of both genders who are good and people of both genders who are rubbish. And everyone has there strengths and weaknesses - again, match the team member to the job.

 

Personally, as a bloke, there are many situations when I'll squat to pee outside because I feel less conspicuous low down behind that bush.

[Mr Ed]

My experience of Women as workers in arb (as opposed to just climbing) is excellent. They tend to be very reliable, turn up on time, are fastidious about the cleanup, are not afraid to drag brash for hours on end, do excellent pruning, and have a great work ethic.

They do tend to have a chip on their shoulders about trying to prove themselves, and can struggle to start saws.

Having said that, I would always choose young women for ground crew over young blokes.

[Steve Bullman]

kathy has signed in, but not posted yet

[Linda]

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.[/quote

 

Use the words "Blacks" and "the black guy" instead of "female" and "her" in your original post and you can see where my "knee jerk reaction" was partly coming from.

[Old Monkey]

I don't know, we are inherently different men and women. More so than blacks and whites. Maybe it isn't PC to talk about differences but they do exist.

[High Scale]

I work with a lady grounds person every Tuesday, she works hard, does a great job, keeps us boys in order and is always ready to take the piss out of me.

[Footpad]

I can't see the problem myself it seems simple as for men if the women can get their tickets and pass the training good luck to them the rest is experience as with everyone that comes into our line of work.

[oldugly]

The problem isn't with the abilities of females, or the abilities of males. According to the original post the job entails running some very heavy saws in the trees. I am as male as they get, yet it would tire me out early, and I am not equipped for it anymore. Maybe twenty years ago I could use those monsters in the trees for 8 hours, not anymore. Women being somewhat smaller in general...you are asking them to handle a saw much bigger proportionally to their body weight, than the same size saw given to a large man.

That isn't sexist that is just the facts. I have four daughters, and the youngest is starting to learn to climb now. I am encouraging her any way I can.

However I would not expect her to be pushing 660"s or the like up in the tops of huge removals. Rather the the pruning saws and tools needed. I feel that is not sexist, rather it is tailoring the job to the worker.

 

If the original poster is involved in constantly doing monster removals...than he needs larger men. If a woman is exceptionally strong, or large for her gender, or both then I don't think there would be a problem. In general women are more intuitive, and more cautious than ment. Making them apt to perform better and safer in some situations than men.

 

Thse same characteristics however will limit their performance in other situations. The jobs need to be tailored to the worker, and the worker to the job in order to obtain efficiency, safety, and production. That's not sexist, its just plain facts.

[blue]

i work for a company with a female groundie/climber,she is the hardest worker out of all of them on the ground.in a tree she isn't the fastest but she is still learning and always listens to advice if offered,she is the first to admit her short comings when it comes to lack of strength and we just work round it.i think she will become a very skilled climber within a few years if she carries on at the rate she is going

[TheTreeWiseMen]

Women listen better than men do too......none of that eye rolling as if they know everything when you're explaining stuff or offering advice.