Building Strategies: Equal Opportunity in the Construction Industry

Abstract

The building industry, as one of the last male bastions, has seen a significant degree of resistance to concepts such as 'gender equity' and 'affirmative action' and resentment at what is seen as the 'big brother' approach of the government's 'social justice' agenda. There is a widespread misinterpretation of 'equal opportunity', with men either taking the stand that women are not equal physically or that if they want equal opportunity they must demonstrate that they can do everything in the very same way that a man does on the building site. Recent work suggests that organizations which are proactive on equality issues have usually extended the equal treatment model to incorporate difference initiatives such as mentoring, fasttracking into promotion positions or going out of their way to recruit from minority groups. It is argued here that, in an area such as the building industry, it is crucial to combine both strategies if the issue of women's disadvantage is to be adequately addressed. This paper explores girls' experience of entry-level and trade training, the attitudes of male workers and contractors to female apprentices, and the issue of support from teachers, vocational guidance officers and parents. Queensland has been chosen as the site for this study because, after a long period of conservative rule, it had become the most 'backward' of all the Australian states in matters of gender equality. The advent of the Goss Labour Government (1989-96) provided opportunities both to 'catch up' and to learn from the limitations of earlier equal opportunity initiatives. You can use your brain instead of brawnAll of the women believed that a good female tradesperson can work effectively in any area

Analysing Gender Issues in the Australian Construction Industry through the Lens of Empowerment

“…These are less active stances to empowerment, looking at the barriers from others and the environment, rather than either personal or even relational factors of empowerment characterised by a more active approach (e.g., participation and engagement, motivation and control). Nonetheless, although not analysed in depth by the revised references, some of the literature points to the importance of personal factors, such as self-derived motivation, interest, proactive personality, aspirations, skill and confidence, to women's attraction, retention and progression in the construction industry [7,[46][47][48][49][50].…”

“…Personal attitude was not a factor largely debated in the literature, but an important point was highlighted regarding women's attitudes in the workplace. Participants in Pringle and Winning's [49] study negatively characterised women's shifting feminist views as 'whinging' or concession-seekers. It is a consensus among participants that "a good female tradesperson can work effectively in any area", and that they should not "be overly sensitive" and be able to take criticism, jokes and "smart remarks" [49] (pp.…”

“…Participants in Pringle and Winning's [49] study negatively characterised women's shifting feminist views as 'whinging' or concession-seekers. It is a consensus among participants that "a good female tradesperson can work effectively in any area", and that they should not "be overly sensitive" and be able to take criticism, jokes and "smart remarks" [49] (pp. 224-225), as also supported by others [8,46,50].…”

Apprenticeship for craftspeople in the construction industry: a state-of-the-art review

“…This criterion ensures that the scope of the present study is clear and distinct. As the study by Pringle and Winning (1998) is the first one with a focus on the subject matter of this review, the selected papers cover the period between 1998 and 2017. Thus, the study reviewed two decades of research in this area.…”

People, business and IT skills

“…This image blinds us to the diversity of surgical work let alone that performed by specialist physicians [14]. Similarly in the building industry our image of the 'typical' worker is a hefty bloke in a blue singlet, heaving bricks around [15].…”