Women at Work

Britain has laws to make sure that women have the same opportunities as men in education, jobs and training. But it's still unusual to find women doing dirty or heavy jobs.

Nikki Henriques is a car maintenance engineer in London. She used to be a secretary. Barty Phillips, a journalist with The Observer, a Sunday newspaper, asked her why she wanted to work with cars.

"My first reason was independence," she said, "I also wanted to use my hands, and I like learning about how things work. Many people prefer to have a woman repair their cars, too."

Nikki didn't find it easy to become a car maintenance engineer. She went to a Government Skill Center—a special sort of college where people can learn a new job—for twenty weeks. "For ten weeks I was the only woman among four hundred men, and some of them were rude to me, just because of my sex. It was also very tiring—from 8 in the morning to 5 at night, with only 30 minutes for lunch."

Now Nikki works freelance—that is, she's self-employed, working for herself and not for a garage or a company.

Barty Phillips also spoke to Rose, who works as a general builder in Sheffield, an industrial town in the north of England. Like Nikki, Rose used to be a secretary. "I didn't enjoy it at all," she said. "I wanted to do more practical work, and I wanted to be self-employed."

Rose joined a women's building co-operative, and she learnt her job from other people and from experience. However, many of the women in her group have been specially trained. Most of the jobs they do are improvements to buildings and general repairs.

"People often say, 'Oh, women aren't strong enough,' but I don't think strength is important," said Rose. "The important thing is to get used to doing a different sort of work."

Rose would like more women to come into the building industry. "Everything built at the moment is a product of man's world. If women become builders, they will be able to understand the production of their houses and their towns."