What is it Like to Work in a Male Dominated Career?
By Leo Wilkinson
The Fire Service
As the fire service are getting more and more advanced they made a move to encourage more female staff for all units. This is a good start to getting more of a variety of workers, but is it good enough?
If you get up a photo of almost any fire service do you notice how it's mostly males in the image? There may be a few females and that shows how the community have done well towards eradicating male domination, but is it good enough?
As the fire service grows they hope to defeat a big problem: male domination. Years ago, only men could work for the fire service, but as the world evolved they let women have the same rights as men. The fire service, along with many other industries, are hoping to encourage more women into this profession.
In certain companies you can get paid less for being female for example professional football. This is not the same in the fire service! This is not at all good, in my opinion, as everyone should be equal. It's really not fair to exclude females from jobs or the right to work so we should try our best to stop this! FUN FACT! Lewis FC were the first football club in the country to give the same rate of pay to their female players as to their male players
What is it Like Working in the Fire Service as a Female?
"On my training course there was sixteen people, but only 3 were female. At the time that was considered a high percentage. In the last count in east Sussex fire and rescue service 7 percent of fire fighters are female."
"The fire service has done a lot of work around inclusion and diversity in recent years including raising the profile of female fire fighters. This has involved training for current staff and recruitment campaigns focusing on minority groups. In fact the current Chief Fire Officer of East Sussex is female!"
"Personally I have never experienced a problem with my colleagues, with most of them feeling more like brothers or uncles. As far as I'm concerned its the best job in the world".
~Verna Lingard - crew manager
How can you start a career in the fire service?
You can get into this job through:
a college course
an apprenticeship
applying directly
a fire service training course
College
You could take a Level 2 or 3 Diploma in Public Services before applying to the fire service, although this is not essential.
Entry requirements
You will need to pass:
Behavioural styles questionnaire
Situational judgement test
verbal, numerical, mechanical reasoning aptitude tests
bleep test
physical testing
interview and role play
To find out more visit www.esfrs.org