麻豆社事件

As a child, Cora Saxton liked to make things鈥攆orts, whittled wood carvings, a flying saucer even鈥攕o when she became an electrician at 49, it felt like a perfect fit.

鈥淚 like the puzzle-solving and being able to look back at the end of the day and see the physical result of your hard work,鈥� she says.

This made it easier to bear some of the indignities鈥斺�渟ubtle challenges,鈥� she calls them鈥攐f working in an overwhelmingly male field. 鈥淟ittle stuff, like people walking by you to find the boss on the job鈥濃�攏ot realizing she was the boss鈥攐r having tools and ladders taken out of her hands by pushy colleagues. 鈥淚 call it roostering,鈥� she says. 

Saxton, who now works at the California nonprofit GRID Alternatives, thinks she had it pretty easy compared to other women in her field. She鈥檚 heard horror stories about threatening notes left in lockers, tools being stolen and destroyed鈥斺�渆ven people getting their hard hats peed in,鈥� she says.

The trades in general and electrical work specifically are . Only 2% of electricians are women, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). It鈥檚 also a sector facing a as the country looks to transition away from fossil fuels and toward electrifying cars and buildings. 

According to Rewiring America, an electrification nonprofit, the United States will need to make updates like installing solar panels, heat pumps, and electric-vehicle charging stations to help the country meet its . 

Getting more women working as electricians would help resolve a crucial labor shortage, but it could also help close the gender wage gap.

That is a lot of job opportunities for something so badly needed. As author and journalist Bill McKibben put it in an with the New York Times: 鈥淚f you know a young person who wants to do something that鈥檚 going to help the world and wants to make a good living at the same time, tell them to go become an electrician.鈥�

Getting more women working as electricians would help resolve a crucial labor shortage, but it could also help close the . In 2021 the median annual pay for an electrician was just over $60,000, compared to around $45,000 for all occupations, . But some master electricians six-figure salaries.

鈥淭here are 80,000 openings for electricians each year on average over the next decade just to replace workers who either retire or transition to different jobs,鈥� says Sam Calisch, Rewiring America鈥檚 head of research. 鈥淭hat is all before the IRA鈥濃�攖he Inflation Reduction Act, Biden鈥檚 signature climate bill, which is expected to increase demand for electricians by creating incentives for Americans to electrify their homes and buy electric vehicles. 

Experts point to a lack of investment in technical schools and a culture that emphasizes four-year college degrees as the main path to a successful career as a couple of reasons there aren鈥檛 enough electricians to meet demand. 鈥淲e don鈥檛 do a good job marketing ourselves as an industry in general, but particularly with women,鈥� says Allie Perez, a plumber and founder of Texas Women in Trades.

Perez, who has an eight-year-old daughter, founded Texas Women in Trades in 2013 because she was tired of being the only 鈥測oung, Brown woman鈥� in most professional settings. She also wanted to help connect more young women like herself with well-paid jobs that they might not have envisioned for themselves. 鈥淲e don鈥檛 share [enough] stories of women in the trades to show that they are also moms, daughters, friends, and cousins and that they are able to support their families on this kind of work.鈥�

Barriers to more women in the industry include widespread , lack of visibility, exclusionary unions, childcare, and a lack of support for caregivers.

鈥淭hat relationship-based, white male network鈥攈iring, retaining and training people and keeping people on the core crew from project to project鈥攊s the culture at most construction companies,鈥� says Connie Ashbrook, a retired construction worker and co-chair of the National Taskforce on Tradeswomen鈥檚 Issues. 鈥淚f you鈥檙e not friends with the boss, or if you鈥檙e not friends with significant numbers of your co-workers, then you don鈥檛 get to hear about the jobs.鈥�

In 2009, Ashbrook was part of a successful effort to convince state officials to invest $2 million in diversifying its highway-construction workforce. Funds went toward pre-apprenticeship programs and supportive services, like childcare and human resources. Though gains in hiring more women were modest, a 2022 report on the initiative . 

鈥淭his is the highest-paid blue-collar work you can get without a college degree,鈥� Ashbrook says. 鈥淣ot having access to these careers keeps women in poverty.鈥�

Nontraditional Employment for Women (NEW), an organization in New York that trains and places women, transgender, and nonbinary people in the skilled construction, utility, and maintenance trades, offers wraparound services as a way to retain recruits.

鈥淢ost childcare is set up to be very nine-to-five supportive,鈥� says Kate Krug, the organization鈥檚 executive vice president 鈥淚f you have to be out the door by 5 a.m., you have to pay someone to sit with your kids until it鈥檚 time to go to school.鈥�

At NEW, students have program managers who make sure, among other things, they鈥檙e ready for job interviews. 鈥淸That means asking], do you have childcare? Do you need childcare? Do you have a backup to your childcare? Do you have backup to the backup of your childcare?鈥� she says.

Tonya Hicks, who grew up in public housing in Mississippi, had to overcome discrimination on the basis of her gender and race鈥攕he is Black鈥攊n her quest to become an electrician. (Only about 7% of electricians are Black, according to BLS data). 

鈥淲omen and minorities have been of the unions,鈥� she says. 鈥淚t began as racism, and then just as time goes on, you know, people hire who they know.鈥� 

As an apprentice, Hicks was often relegated to cleaning the on-site office trailers. When she struggled to find work locally, she drove from her home in Meridian, Mississippi, to sites in Jackson and Birmingham, leaving her young son with her mother for stretches at a time.

Her endurance paid off: In 2000, at age 28, she started her own firm, Power Solutions, in Atlanta. Today she has a staff of nine that specialize in renewable energy projects and home retrofits, and starting last year began manufacturing electric vehicle chargers. She also runs Women Do Everything, a networking group for women in the STEM fields and blue-collar, male-dominated industries like hers.

GRID Alternatives, where Saxton works, recruits and offers women-only trainings. 鈥淭hat may encourage people who would otherwise perhaps be intimidated or just scared to try it,鈥� Saxton says. 鈥淎t the same time, we need men to be mentors and to support women.鈥�

The Biden administration has a commitment to getting more women into the trades; in November, plans were announced to the number of women working in the construction industry over the next 10 years. 

The IRA climate legislation offers tax incentives for contractors to hire apprentices鈥攕omething experts say could help reduce women鈥檚 higher from apprenticeship programs鈥攁nd Biden administration officials have 鈥渟ignaled that projects that include efforts to provide good jobs to workers, diversify their workforces, and provide training will score higher in evaluations,鈥� making it more likely that they will be awarded contracts, says Marina Zhavoronkova, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress.

鈥淎s government agencies, you have strings, you can pull it in a way that you don鈥檛 when it鈥檚 a fully private-sector project,鈥� Zhavoronkova says.

In February, the program office connected to the 鈥攍egislation designed to boost the semiconductor industry in the U.S.鈥攔eleased its , which stipulates that all applicants hoping to receive more than $150 million dollars must submit a plan to provide access to childcare for workers.

Hicks, the founder of Power Solutions, compared the task of transitioning the economy away from fossil fuels to the labor shortages during World War II, when millions of women took jobs in factories. Of course, after the war, many women returned to their homes. 鈥淭he only difference now is that we鈥檙e not going back,鈥� she says.

This story originally appeared in , an editorially independent, nonprofit news service covering climate change. Follow .