Bigger picture people
Ill-fitting PPE or mass suicides. Where do your priorities lie?
I deliberately gave the whole “Women n Construction Week” thing a miss this week. Oh, don’t get me wrong. I remain a committed and vocal advocate for more women right across the construction and demolition sector. If the rest of the sector could get past its aversion to ovaries and fear of bosoms, we could fix the industry skills shortage overnight. The industry might even smell better as a result.
There are two key reasons why I swerved the annual clamour to be seen to be progressive and welcoming.
The first reason is that it is 2024. We should not even need a Women in Construction Week to give women their moment in the spotlight. Women already play a key role and will do so more in the future. Tracey from accounts shouldn’t be forced to put on the PPE bought especially for a photo opportunity before being paraded across social media just to tick an inclusivity box for her employer.
But there’s anther reason I gave the whole thing a miss this year in particular.
I fear that the Women in Construction movement has been supplanted; hijacked; and some of its true purpose lost.
Rather than focusing upon (a) eradicating the rampant sexism that persists in the sector and (b) making girls and young women aware of the career prospects that are open to women, organisations have got their ill-fitting knickers in a twist about ill-fitting PPE that is unsuitable for the ladies.
As a dedicated follower of fashion myself, I sympathise and empathise. I would not want to work 10 hours a day in clothing that was uncomfortable or unflattering either. Forcing women to wear man-shaped clothing is as big a no-no as expecting them to use male toilet facilities on site.
But that is not the issue. It never has been. And only those seeking to earn those coveted “woke points” would suggest otherwise. Make sites less toxic and inhospitable for women; we can worry about what they’re wearing after that.
Besides, there is a much bigger issue at play here. And without wishing to sound like a conspiracy theorist, you could argue that the call for high vis’ trousers that can accommodate the hips of women is merely a distraction from an issue facing the men of the sector.
According to the latest available statistics, 507 construction workers took their own lives in 2021. There is widespread speculation that the reason we don’t yet have the latest figures is because there has been a further rise in the industry suicide rate.
Of that 507 that took their own lives, 503 were men. Suicide in construction is not a male-only problem; but the figures are heavily skewed towards those with XY chromosomes.
These are people dying. Dying from desperation. Desperation caused partly if not entirely by their work environment.
I am not suggesting for one moment that the lack of available female-friendly PPE is not an issue. It unquestionably is. But if I was handed a magic wand to cure just one of construction’s ills, I am sorry but the ladies would have to make do a little longer with square outfits.
The truth is, the female PPE issue is an easy fix. Employ sufficient women and the problem will go away because the PPE suppliers will rub their hands together in glee before producing custom-fit and woman-shaped workwear to satisfy the increase in demand from this previously untapped market.
The problem of male suicide is a far more difficult nut to crack. It requires root and branch changes to long established working practices. And it requires a buy-in from every company working within the sector.
Perhaps that is why companies and organisations are so keen to pursue the female-friendly PPE agenda; because eradicating male suicide from the sector would require them to make some real change, and not just talk about it.