Is Construction Intentionally a Male Dominated

Industry?

How is it that such a large industry can be so taken over by one gender? It is no
coincidence that the construction field has been flooded with men throughout the
years. The simple answer is the jobs within construction are not made to appeal to
women and are not advertised to them either.

Why Not Women?

Women and construction are not topics that are typically talked about in
correlation with each other. A lot of people assume it is because women do not have any
interest in this field. However, it has a lot more to do with the fact that there is a severe
lack of recruitment. There have also been stereotypes
that assume that construction is a male-only industry.

Social Media’s Impact

Look up the word construction on the search engine
you use most. If you click on images, you will notice
that there is an abundance of pictures of males doing various projects. For every tenth
picture with a male in it, there may be one with a woman working. Another factor you
will notice is that there are images that capture the dangerous sides to construction. For
example, tall buildings, large machinery, workers in hazardous conditions, and lifting or
using heavy equipment.

My Point of View
 As a woman myself, I can confidently say growing up I knew nothing about
construction. The closest thing I had to learning what it was, was by staring out my car
window as we passed large groups of men in the scorching sun, spending weeks building
a house from the ground up. Or I would see people
in the city hanging by a single rope, while
constructing skyscrapers. Although this always
caught my eye, I would never consider myself to be
in that position when I grew up.

Assumption of the Risk

With little knowledge or resources given to women, it is no surprise they would
have little interest working in the construction industry. We know what we see, and
what we see most of the time is the unappealing sides to what construction is. There is
no presentation given to us about all the positive parts of being in construction. We see
hazardous conditions, long working days in all types of weather, and big, intimidating
equipment. Historically women have chosen jobs and hobbies that have little risk
involved, so with this perception of what construction is, why would they ever choose to
work in this industry?