The role of women in firefighting has been subject to significant changes over the years; many ancient civilizations had firefighting groups which accepted women, but by the advent of organized firefighting in the 18th century, gender roles had changed such that firefighting was considered an unsuitable profession for women. Despite this, many women continued to work informally in firefighting roles, and in parts of the world were able to break into organized fire departments, especially during times of war. With the advent of the second-wave feminism movement in the 1960s, many women began to push for anti-employment discrimination legislation which would permit them to work as firefighters, which was often met with considerable opposition from often change-resistant fire services steeped in tradition. Today, women work in both support and frontline firefighting roles in both career and volunteer fire departments worldwide, and in many countries have held high-ranking positions such as fire chief or chief fire officer. Despite this, female firefighters continue to face significant challenges and discrimination not faced by male firefighters, including employment discrimination, misogynist and sexual harassment, and facilities and equipment which are inaccessibly designed; as a result, women generally make up fewer than 20% of total firefighters even in the countries where they are the most well-represented, especially in career departments.
History Many ancient civilizations had a form of organized firefighting. One of the earliest recorded fire services was in Ancient Rome. The Aboriginal Australians had been managing and responding to wildfires for thousands of years, with women being involved.
Firefighting became more organized from the 18th century onwards with the rise of insurance companies and then with the rise of government fire services in the 19th century. In 1818, Molly Williams was recorded as being the first female firefighter in the United States; as a slave in New York City, she joined a volunteer engine company. Young women in boarding houses in the United Kingdom were taught fire drills, including high ladder rescues. During World War II, women served in the wartime fire services of the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand both in support and frontline roles.
As a result of the second-wave feminism movement and subsequent anti-employment discrimination legislation, official obstacles to women were removed from the 1970s onwards. The first female career firefighter in the United Kingdom (Mary Joy Langdon) was recruited in 1976, while the first in New Zealand (Anne Barry) joined in 1981. In response to this change, many fire departments began requiring recruits to pass overly restrictive fitness tests, which became an unofficial barrier to women joining. This led to court cases in a number of countries.
Nevertheless, the percentage of women recruited by fire departments has been low. In the UK, women make up 5% of firefighters which is less than the percentage for police officers (29%), paramedics (38%) and military personnel (10%). A report by the London Fire Brigade found that discouraging factors included the portrayal of firefighting in the media, a lack of information available to young girls and unrealistic ideas about the role. Other issues include shift patterns that are not suitable for mothers with young children.
Terminology For much of the last century, firefighting was a male-dominated or exclusively male profession. As such, firefighters were commonly called "firemen", an informal title still used by some civilians today. The title "firefighter" has become the universally accepted terminology in NFPA training materials and is used by English speaking professionals and trained volunteers as both the basic rank and overall job title that is often paired with the addition of a firefighter's EMT certification level (e.g., "Firefighter-Paramedic Jane Doe").
Challenges Since women have only begun to be widely hired or accepted as firefighters in the last few decades, many fire services have had to make difficult adjustments. In many places, the fire service is steeped in tradition and formalized, paramilitary relationships.The Guardian 16 April 2012 "Burning issues for female firefighters" A 1998 article in Fire Engineering noted that firefighters tend to form tight-knit communities which value "strength, courage, and loyalty" but can be "resistant to change". Even if women are socially accepted members of the fire service, it is often justified on the basis of gendered assumptions that they will bring more balanced decision making and nurturing qualities to a team of firefighters, as opposed to simple equality of opportunity.
Health In 2017, a study of female firefighters' occupational stress in the U.S. found that 40% of the women had engaged in binge drinking in the previous month, and 16.5% screened positive for problem drinking. According to the study, "problem drinkers were more than 2.5 times as likely to have been diagnosed with a depressive disorder or to have symptoms of post-traumatic stress." Those with less than seven years of service were the most likely to report issues with drinking.
In Canada, a lack of health coverage is often an issue for female firefighters in certain provinces. Although many cancers are covered as known occupational risks because of overexposure to fire, smoke, and toxic fumes, breast cancer is not yet covered nationwide.
Although women in the fire service are generally more healthy and fit than their male coworkers as well as women in the wider population, they experience higher rates of miscarriage and preterm births. This may be linked to occupational hazards such as environmental toxins, heavy lifting, and irregular shift work. In 2012, the International Association of Firefighters in the United States recommended that all fire departments create policies on pregnancy and/or maternity leave, but in a study in 2018 nearly a quarter of female firefighters reported that their departments had no such policies.
Facilities and equipment One major hurdle to entrance into firefighting for women has been a lack of appropriate facilities; the issue of sleeping quarters and bathing areas had to be solved before women could participate fully in firefighting as an occupation and as a culture, as communal showers and open bunk halls were designed for men only. Today, fire stations in most countries, as public entities, must either follow gender equity law or face judicial injunctions and thus they are now designed to accommodate firefighters of both genders; however, some female firefighters continue to report gender-related accessibility issues.
A pan-Canadian study found that equipment, services and resources for female firefighters are often inadequate. Gear is often not made for women and offsite there is often no proper facilities for feminine hygiene needs.Lesmana, M., Poulin, C., & Gouliquer, L. (2015). The experience of female firefighters: Confronting Ageism and Sexism. Poster-presentation at the 76th annual convention of the Canadian Psychological Association, Ottawa, Canada, June 3–6.
Discrimination Women were banned from working as firefighters in many countries at many times. For example, from 1945–1947 in Australia pre- war bans on single and married women being employed in certain industries including firefighting were reinstated as part of demobilisation.
The second-wave feminism movement of the 1960s led to increased legal challenges against bans on employment of female firefighters. For example, in 1979 communications centre worker Anne Barry applied to join the New Zealand Fire Service as a career firefighter and her application was rejected on the grounds of gender, but in 1981 she won her two year battle with the Fire Service Commission and was allowed to apply to join the NZFS as a career firefighter, passing the recruit course that same year ranking 3rd overall in her cohort. Newly imposed and overly restrictive fitness tests introduced by fire services in response were also subject to legal challenges; in 1982, Brenda Berkman won a lawsuit against the New York City Fire Department over its restrictive fitness test - she and 40 others then joined as the department's first female firefighters. A similar lawsuit led to the Supreme Court of Canada ruling in 1999 (in the case British Columbia (Public Service Employee Relations Commission) v. BCGSEU) that fire departments could not use restrictive fitness tests unless they could justify the need for them.
A 2015 study on women in the wildland firefighting profession in Australia found that 55% reported seeing gender discrimination of others, while 45% reported experiencing it themselves.
Sexual dimorphism There have been occasional charges of some departments lowering standards so that they could hire more women. In 2005, Laura Chick, the Los Angeles City Controller, stated in a report that LA Fire Department Chief William R. Bamattre lowered physical requirements for female recruits and ordered that women be passed even if they failed their tests. However, many female firefighters reject any form of accommodation or special treatment, in part because they wish to prove themselves in the same way as their male counterparts, and in part because they fear it will make them a target for harassment.
Sexual harassment Studies have found that women working in male-dominated professions, such as firefighting, experience more sexual harassment that those working in traditionally female-aligned professions. This increased rate of harassment is worsened further when women are in the minority, as they often are in the fire service, because the majority group in such circumstances tends to view those in the minority as token representatives of their group rather than individuals.
In a 1995 survey conducted by the organization Women in the Fire Service, 551 women in fire departments across the United States were asked about their experiences with sexual harassment and other forms of job discrimination. In response, 88% of fire service women responded that they had experienced some form of sexual harassment at some point in their fire service careers or volunteer time, with nearly 70% of the women in the survey said that they were experiencing ongoing harassment at the time of the study. Of the 339 women who indicated that they had complained about harassment, only one-third (115 women) listed positive-only outcomes (such as investigating/taking care of the problem and disciplining the harasser), while 26% said that they were retaliated against for having reported the incident.