Gender Bending Careers

I'm a retired police officer. When I was hired 40 years ago, I was the second woman hired as an officer. There were matrons but not female officers who actually did police work.

I'm a construction manager. My office is mostly men. The only women are in administrative-type roles. The men don't like me (not that I care), but they do respect me.

Well, sure. There's our own MechanicMama.

My guy's daughter is a corporate attorney in Manhattan. At this moment there are ZERO female partners. However she and several other female associates are vying to change all that.

:)

I just put a roof on my house, does that count? I consider that part of my profession as a SAHP....house maintenance.

I know several male nurses (although I'm not sure that is too odd anymore). My friend's sister is a chemical engineer (that is probably dominated by males). I know several female truck drivers. I have a female friend who is a firefighter and O. who is a hazmat clean up person. I have a male friend who is a secretary/receptionist.

Oh, and I have a female friend who is a software developer/programmer.

I was a machinist before I went into childcare. I was trained in the Navy for the profession; as abyssmally sexist as my machine shop on the ship was, it was nothing compared to civilian shops. Hence, change of careers.

O. of my closest friends has a light-gauge steel construction business.

My sister drives a forklift at a lumberyard. Another sister trained to be a machinist too. (Left the industry for the same reason.)

Oh, and my dear friend who is deaf: she's a hardcore computer programmer in a very male-dominated field. AND before that, she had a business as a piano refurbisher/piano tuner. The deaf piano tuner-- that bends plenty of assumptions!

Wheres jim and mechanic mama?....lol

O. of our friends is a terrific male nurse. I also know a male kindergarten teacher, and my cousin is a woman working in construction. Oh, and I know several female firefighters/EMS/police.

Yes...my niece is finishing up her Senior year in high school and come January once she's 18 she will be able to legally become a firefighter/EMT...

I work in the insurance industry...my company has a woman CEO...

I have a FB/HS acquaintance that is a Plumber. She does ALL this guy stuff during the day...And then is a bombshell when she hangs up her tool belt!

She was someone I was in AP French Class with. She had always had a tomboy side!

When we found each other, I was not surprise she went into some manly profession:)

I always smile when I see female Auto mechanics. It is something that is find very interesting and complicated. I just do not have the attention span to learn the whose its and whats about how to work on a car.

At the time, my degree and jobs were. When I graduated from SMU, I was the second woman to get a BSME degree from there. I was also O. of the first women to get a Professional Engineer's License in TX. The field was definitely male dominated then.
I worked for Exxon for four years. No O. ever messed with me! Once a construction worker on site whistled at me. I let his boss know he would behave or I would hire another contractor for the job.
My next career was in Early Childhood Intervention. We only had O. male on staff. He was awesome with the kids and a great help as an aide.

I know from personal experience. I am a woman and have spent a lot of time working maintenance and construction jobs. Now I do a much more stero-typical job for a woman...I am a Nursing assistant. I honestly enjoy manual labor.

It wasn't really a "Career"but I worked for my dad's excavating business every summer in Highschool and the first 2 summers of college. I was a bulldozer operator and helped to install septic systems. It was very memorable on my resume, right next to 1996 Sweet Corn Queen, and Honor Roll Student.

O. of my really good friends I met because she was my husband's partner at their police department. She's also a volunteer firefighter & currently works full-time as a county EMT.

I am a design engineer in the oil and gas industry and I work at a manufacturing plant. All men except for HR and administrative roles. Our vendors are the same way. It can all be very manly but they know better than to mess with me very much. I will take some joking but there are boundaries I firmly enforce. I have worked at a place (big corporation) where I had problems with men keeping their hands to themselves and keeping their comments professional. I have learned to ask questions like "Do I need to staple my equalizer on my dress for this conversation?" Or "how would you like someone to treat your wife/girlfriend/mother/sister like you just treated me?" My only concession is I don't wear dresses or skirts since I would look like Olive Oil with my steel toed boots on.

In contrast my husband is in real estate where there are men but they are largely outnumbered by women. The big difference is women keep their hands to themselves and the jokes tend to not be so off-coloured.

Tarik is a professional Middle Eastern dancer based in New York City. He's a phenomenal dancer in a field dominated by phenomenal women. He is O. of Morocco's proteges.

I've got two friends - both around 28/30 yrs old - females. O. owns a trucking business with her dad - they detail and fix cars and engines and semi trucks and so forth. The other has worked with her family business her whole life - at a fleet car repair service (she doesn't physically work on the vehicles that I know of, but knows the business well).

When I started as a computer programmer, there were not many women in the field.
I've had a few doctors offices that had a few male nurses.

My husband is a third grade teacher, I am a housewife. :)

I can only speak to the financial field. I am in finance and 90% of us are females. The head honcho's are also females. I don't think that's weird at all. And I know plenty of women in power positions....YAY!!

Heck, I am in the power position in my house - no matter how bad my husband fights it :).

My daughter has a male teacher this year, and that's not so abnormal, but not so normal either. Also, male bus drivers are not as common as female ones, where I live at least.

Male nurses? Not as common as females.

For a few years in my early 30's, I had my favorite job ever in a woodshop that specialized in signmaking, but took on all kinds of creative projects. There were usually about 1 or 2 women and up to 12 men at any time. I was a designer, but filled in with all kinds of carving and finishing with power tools, and would routinely help carry heavy projects between work areas. I loved the physicality of the work. And I was foreperson for several months before I quit for lack of raises.

Oh, and O. of my best teachers ever was a woman who taught all the advanced math courses at my high school. She was the first female math teacher I'd ever seen.

I also designed and helped build the house I've lived in for nearly 30 years. A male friend studying architecture was impressed with the house, and way more impressed when he found out I had designed every detail.

Added: O. of my sisters worked as an electrical engineer for quite a few years.

My SIL is a fire fighter. She was the first female fire fighter in Cherokee County, GA! LOL!!! It was a big thing when she got accepted to the academy and graduated!

O. of the father's in Nicky's Cub Scouts is a nurse.

Has MechanicMama responded yet?! We have O. here! I think Marda was a police officer!! We have some rockin' mama's on this site!!!

My husband is a nurse. I also have a female friend from high school that is a heavy equipment operator, another female friend that is a construction laborer and a female friend that is an electrical engineer. I have a few male teacher friends, including a kindergarten teacher. I have a female EMT friend a female police officer friend, complete with firearms. So, I have a few hangin' around!

My BIL is a nurse and was an art curator before that. My SIL was pretty sure he was gay and you could have knocked her over with a feather when he brought home his girlfriend to meet the family. My husband (his twin) still laughs about that b/c he got into an argument with his sister over it and loved the look on her face! They've lived together for several years now. She is a doctor and makes more money- the whole thing is "flipped".

I have a female cousin who is a mechanical engineer and she'll be the first O. to tell you that she loves what she does, but college wasn't overly fun b/c she was in class with guys only all the time. She was the only engineering major in her sorority.

I currently work with a male preschool teacher. He's amazing, but he's such a novelty to the parents!