We'll Call You If We Need You: Experiences of Women Working Construction (ILR Press books)

At a time when feminism seems mired in the hermeneutics of gender--whether, for instance, there is such a thing as feminine discourse or a feminine management style--We'll Call You When We Need You serves as a refreshing reminder of what movements like feminism and affirmative action truly stand for. Twenty years ago, Susan Eisenberg showed up for her first day as a union electrician, only to be refused entrance by the building's security guard. He thought she was a terrorist; as Eisenberg puts it, "In 1978, that seemed more likely than that I might actually be an apprentice electrician." Also in 1978, the federal government first put into place its ambitious time lines for opening construction work to women; in three years, the Department of Labor anticipated, women would constitute 6.9 percent of the industry's workforce. Perhaps predictably, this never came to pass, and what women did find work in the trades did so in the face of considerable hostility, abuse, and even physical violence from their male coworkers. We'll Call You When We Need You is the story of how these women persevered, learned their trades, and in the process prevailed. Eisenberg allows their voices to speak directly to the reader, intertwining interviews with her own observations on topics ranging from job training to sexual harassment. The 30 women represented here speak with passion and humor about their lives as carpenters, electricians, and plumbers, using 20 years of experience to evaluate what feminism and affirmative action have achieved--as well as what they have not.