It’s not a man’s job!
kicked off her office high heels and retrained as an award-winning plasterer, yet trolls tried to ruin her career…
As a working mum, there’s nothing more frustrating than waiting in for an unreliable tradesman. You’ve done the school run, booked the morning off work – and if they do pitch up, the chances are you won’t get a quote because they think the job’s too small.
So, when I was made redundant from my glamorous office job and given a £10,000 pay-off, my husband Andy asked what I would like to do if I could choose any career.
‘I want to be a plasterer!’ I replied, without any hesitation. It couldn’t be more different from the job that I’d been doing as a software engineer in a Liverpool law firm, where I’d had to wear smart suits, make-up, and high heels every day.
I was a real girlie girl, I loved getting dressed up at the weekends for a night out. But the thought of working in the trades had always interested me.
It certainly wasn’t a random decision. When I was a poor student, I had been seeing a lad who was a plasterer, and he always had rolls of cash! During the holidays, I’d labour for him and really enjoyed the work.
So, I decided to swap my high heels for steel toe caps and use my £10,000 redundancy money to buy myself a transit van, some tools, and go back to college to learn my new trade.
There were no other women in Liverpool in the profession back then – even now only two per cent of ‘tradies’ are female. So my business model would be built on skill, trust and reliability – where the elderly, single mums, victims of domestic violence, and people of a nervous disposition could feel safe having a woman working in their homes.
The first six months were absolutely brutal. Andy, an ex-Royal Marine, was also setting-up his own business as a health and safety consultant, so I was working all day, then doing night shifts at the Co-op to put food on the table.
I hardly saw our daughter Megan, who was two at the time, which broke my heart. I missed out on all those valuable bonding moments like bath and story time. I was exhausted, both mentally and physically.
Of course I was expecting to face some sexism, but I was quite surprised at how many women were not happy to see a fellow female turning up. One refused to give me the job of plastering her ceiling, saying she didn’t trust me to do it properly because it was man’s work!
On the other hand, I was employed by men who assumed
that I’d be super-tidy on the job, just because I was a woman. When the business really took off, I got lots of recommendations from satisfied customers. And the majority of my male colleagues were incredibly supportive and happy for me.
However, it was in 2017 after I won a national award as Plasterer of the Year that I experienced animosity from some jealous tradesmen. The bad feelings escalated, and I became the target of a sexist campaign to destroy my reputation.
Social media is a fantastic tool to build a business profile and I was so proud of my achievements. But some men started posting comments on my Facebook and Instagram pages saying that my work was terrible, that I was incapable of doing the job, and that I was too weak to even pick up a bag of cement.
It was so unfair. It’s not as if I was even taking their work as most of them lived on the opposite side of the country. I ignored them and worked twice as hard to prove I was capable of doing the job. I even took on two more plasterers – both men.
The following year, I won Construction Trade Business of the Year – and that’s when a vile hate campaign started against me on an online trade platform. There were shocking comments about my appearance and work, and I was told to get back in the kitchen.
But when a pornographic image was posted with the photoshopped face of my then 11-year-old daughter, I saw red. They might defend their previous trolling saying it was just banter – but this wasn’t banter. It was disgusting and I was devastated.
I could take everything they threw at me – but to bring my daughter into their bitter, jealous grudge was just pathetic. How would their wives and daughters feel if they knew what they were doing? Of course the picture was posted anonymously, and the police said they couldn’t do anything about it at the time.
Megan had just started high school and Andy and I kept it from her. She just thought some guys were being rude about me because I was a woman working in a man’s world. I felt so defeated – and at that point, I could’ve easily thrown in the towel.
Then Megan brought home an essay she’d written at school. The title was Who Is Your Hero?, and she’d written My Mum!. She said how proud she was of me for standing up to the bullies. That gave me the resilience I needed to keep on going.
Instead of letting these cowardly men force me out of the industry, I started doing talks in local schools about countering sexism at work, and encouraging girls to join the trades.
I offered work experience places and apprenticeships. I also asked the teachers to point out the girls who weren’t interested in academics but wanted to earn money.
I’d take my designer handbag in and explain how I bought it by plastering two ceilings. The work is hard – but the rewards are good! And it’s important for them to know you can work in construction and be feminine.
I love to get my nails gelled every two weeks, have my hair done, and get dressed up at the weekends. I’d like to have fake lashes too, but they’re not user friendly as the plaster gets stuck in them, so I have to make do with lash lifts instead!
Now, at 48, if I’m going to break down barriers and be a good role model, I have to make it real. And I couldn’t be prouder that my steel toe cap work boots sit next to my fabulous raspberry-coloured high heels!
I WORKED TWICE AS HARD TO PROVE THAT I WAS CAPABLE
● Fix Radio is the UK’s only national radio station dedicated to builders and the trades. Instagram.com/ @thepinkplasterer