New York works to recruit more female firefighters
NEW YORK — As a New York City firefighter, Sarinya Srisakul didn’t work with another woman for five years, and when she did, she took pictures because it was so rare.
“We were so excited to see each other,” she said. “For me, that just doesn’t happen.”
There are only 37 women out of 10,500 uniformed firefighters in New York City, about a third of one per cent, among the lowest percentage of any department in the United States.
But that number is expected to grow after a record number of women took the latest exam following heavy recruitment spurred by a court order two years ago. Six women entered the fire academy just this week.
“Out of a city of eight million people, there cannot be only 37 women who are qualified enough and interested in being firefighters — that’s just ridiculous,” said Srisakul, president of the women’s firefighters association, which has made boosting numbers a priority.
She is working to help women pass the rigorous physical exam and meet fire-academy expectations to graduate into the job.
In the U.S., the firefighting profession remains overwhelmingly male, with women making up only 3.4 per cent of the total workforce, according to federal labour statistics.
Arguments for why there are so few women on the job are common: They don’t want to work in a dangerous, dirty industry, and they just aren’t strong enough to deal with the physical demands, which include wearing up to 56 kilograms of gear or carrying unconscious victims down a darkened stairwell.
“We’ve tried to recruit women. The reality is for whatever reason, it doesn’t seem to be an attractive job,” said Steve MacDonald, spokesman for Boston’s fire department, which has 18 women out of a force of 1,470.
None of those arguments really holds up, according to Marc Bendick, an economic consultant who did a study on female firefighters nationwide. He found that men and women who take the physical fitness test known as Candidate Physical Ability Test, developed by fire chiefs around the U.S., pass at about the same rate as long as the test is administered fairly.
Bendick said other big-city fire departments have more balanced numbers, such as 16 per cent in Minneapolis and nearly five per cent in Denver.
And he noted that previously male-dominated jobs, such as military combat and policing, have already made better strides.
Bendick’s study, which researched the experiences of about 600 female and 600 male firefighters, cited as reasons for the lack of women in firefighting an unreasonably high physical standard unrelated to the job duties, a lack of recruitment and hostile behaviour by male colleagues.
To recruit more women, the FDNYlaunchedanaggressivecampaign, including attending events organized by Nontraditional Employment for Women, the U.S. military and female athletic clubs and organizations. Candidates are offered additional support through the mentoring program that pairs current female firefighters with female candidates.