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“Also men might have jealousy sleeping with/competing for her; and if she is hurt or captured, men will run ridiculous risks, endangering themselves and the unit, to try to rescue her.”

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I used to work around a lot of old-timer union trade guys. One in particular was an older, close-to-retirement ironworker and one of our foremen. Great guy. Even though union he understood AND would coach his guys about the “the company that hires you needs to be successful, or you won’t have a job.”

He would often give his opinion on matters one of which was women in combat...heck this had to be in the early 80s:

“You know, I think that’s dumb as hell. Imagine on the front lines in the trenches. You got a mix of guys and gals, and you know damned well there’s four guys trying to buddy up to one gal over time. As soon as the order goes out to go over the top, the gal gets her a$$ shot, and then four guys run over to be the rescue hero, and then they get their a$$ shot. That’s a bad problem”.

I have often thought about what that ironworker said, and it always made a lot of sense to me.

I also recall the Ironworker Local business agent coming in the shop one day and going off about the mandate they allow women in the ironworkers’ union. As I recall the BA saying: “They need to be careful what they wish for.”

After about two weeks when the first three gals were brought into the union, a call went out for some “rodbusters” (steel reinforcing bar for concrete) on a project in downtown Columbus OH. So the BA sent two out for the labor call, and they were set to work on busting #8 and #11s. (1” and 1-3/8” diameter respectively) One of them lasted two days and drug up (quit). The other gal ended up hurting her back on the job within two weeks and then sued the Local.

The business agent had a lot of resentment about the women being assigned to “lighter duty” tasks on sites where less muscle was required. These tasks traditionally were given to older guys that had done their time and didn’t have quite the horsepower that the younger hands had.

The Pipefitters Local BA had the same sentiment. He had a real hard time seeing a gal on one end of a joint of 3” steel pipe and a guy on the other end each going up an 8’ ladder to get the joint into hangers. (My dad told me he and another guy would do this with 6” steel pipe when he was a sprinkler fitter. My dad was also a bull-strong freak.)

We men and women have our differences. They complement one another. Play off those strengths.