SA Firefighter
General Discussion => Women of the Fire Industry => Topic started by: rescue5271 on April 26, 2006, 08:36:34 PM
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recently I had a lady ask me about joining a brigade that was looking for members,so I said to her go along to one of their training session and see what its all about. she did this and really enjoyed it so they gave her all the forms to fill in and do the checks. all was going fine till the BFF1 came up and in the two weeks leading up to it she felt that because of two male's that she would never get on the appliances..... So she left and joined the SES and is still there...
Its true there are still brigdae's out there that will not let females on the front line and once again they loose a new member...........TIME FOR CHANGE.......
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I agree rescue5271 we should be allowing females to become volunteers and be allowed to go to the frontline rather than them being stuck in front of a radio at the sation or operations center
My mum was hesitant of joining the CFS 10 years ago due to most our brigade being made up of male members but this didn't stop her from joining and being put on the frontline
Its entirely up to the new recruits whether they want to be placed on the front line or in the comms room
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Thats no good, had to reread that message cause I thought it said the 2 males said she'd never get on the appliance, that would have been disgraceful if that happened, luckily I read it twice.
We got two female members in our brigade, one who happens to be my mum :-P Everyone gets along fine, no drama's.
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Unfortunately its something I notice in our area as well......
Particularly hard for the younger to get a foot in the door. Ive spent many hours talking to a few people, trying to convince them then can beat the "road blocks" (for want of a better description).
Not good at all!
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We have 4 females in our brigade and it made one male member leave as they all got there before he could, so he would often miss the truck. Responce time was made quicker as most live closer now and no need to waite if we have 5 members on the truck.
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sad....
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I was the first female Capt on Eyre Peninsula (and still the only 1) but I have found that nearly all guys are good to work with...it helps that I've now been a Capt for 8 years and have earned some respect.
The only guys that are a problem, would probably have issues with women in any environment ie mcp's very sad but true.
It is also VERY important that the girls go in with the right attitude and consider themselves to be on the same level. I loathe to have it highligted that I'm a female firefighter...I say that I'm a firefighter, like the other 15,500 in SA! We are all 1 team..and we have different areas of abilities.. women may not be as physically capable BUT they might be better at IMT etc..
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There are a couple of issues that I have to talk about.
1: I was a part of a CFS Station.
2: The reason that I left.
I was part of a CFS station for more than a year. I really enjoyed what I did and helping people. It was a way for me to feel a part of the community. The reason I left was because some of the males at the Station were sexist towards me. Why? Don't they think that I can do the job just as well as them?
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Thats disgraceful that people would be sexist towards you and make you leave. Taking away fun that you have being part of CFS because they feel inferior working with a female is disgraceful.
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My Mother went to join the fire service in the late 80s but they just turned around and said that being a fire fighter is a mans domain my mum had to wait another 10years before she could join in the late 90s. when she joined she was not allowed to become a fire fighter because the Capitan at the time refused her to be on the appliance so she had to wait another 6 to 18 months before she done her basic level 1 course. Now she is LT3 and happier than ever since these other members have retired. now our fire station has more females than ever and couldn't be any more happier. :-D and now my mother is looking at becoming brigade Capitan in 2 to 4 years time. :-D
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We had the same situation at our station but now has all changed we are all so happy with our female fire fighters. they are good to work with and all have fun
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As I have alreday said its about time some females took action against these brigades,talk first to the captain or the GO and if no luck take it to the VSO and follow the chain.... I have also seen this first hand from a friend who went to join a brigade and the guys treated her like crap and when I raised the issue with the captain he said he did not want feamles on his station..... Mind you its sad in this day and age that these guys get away with it and its time to do something about it.. My friend went and joined SES and is very happy,the sad point is that there is talk that they will join CFS as the town can no longer support ses/cfs... She is happy to transfer but at what cost???? Did you know that SES have 39% feamle members and that CFs have around 10%.... As a male I for one feel that females need to be welcomed into any service and we need all the help we can get... Mind you we are only human....
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I was not only the 1st female member at my brigade I was the 1st (and only) cadet. I joined under a captain who, to this day, believes that a womans place is in the kitchen. I have prooven him wrong on many occations and now there is 4 female members in my brigade. I was onlt told last week at training that even though he has 10+ years membership/experiance on me that many of the members would not take what he has to say seriously.
There is male members of my brigade that cant take the heat on the fire ground, but will still respond to the station to do radio and help out (they also do training ect) and are happy to make the cuppas when we get back!!!!
It just goes to show that sometimes women are as good as the men (if not better) at some things and vise versa!!!!! :lol:
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very stupid...
we have several females in the brigade, and although theyre not as physically capable as most of the males in the brigade, they are still great FFs, and if not for them we wouldnt get out the doors for day calls sometimes...
i dont see why we'd treat them any differant to the guys in the brigade.
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although theyre not as physically capable as most of the males in the brigade,
That creates a very stereo typical view though.... Some members of our brigade have a pre-concieved idea that this is the case for all women. This leads to the girls not being given a chance..... :x
Not having a go Medevac (just generalising your statement a bit)...... It may be true in a few cases, but we cant let these pre-concieved ideas creep in to far, as thats what starts the ball rolling.
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just goes to show you cant say anything innocent without comment...
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I think that stay at home mothers, with school age children, really are an untapped resource for the CFS. They could easily boost daytime crew numbers. I believe Mylor has quite a large proportion of females in their brigade and this are going rather well.
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Its time for all brigade's to be far and let females join and be front line firefighters,better still brigade's should remove waiting lists that they have once and for all. I know we will never fix some weight on equipment problems that female's (some) are unable to lift like RCR gear and so that is when we need to remember to work as part of a TEAM.... To those brigade's in particular to brigade leaders wake up and be proud that females are willing to join...
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Can't avoid waiting lists when you max out SFEC's...
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thankfully in my 19yrs of service, I've really only ever had trouble with 1 male..and he's such a chauvanistic pig that it wouldn't matter who you were..even the men have trouble with him.
It's refreshing to hear such acceptance in this forum of female ff and their abilities..I was the first (and only so far) female Capt on EP and have now been nominated for DGO at our next AGM - by my male peers.
We have good numbers of female ff but more importantly, they all contribute valuable skills and abilities to our service.
GO TEAM..
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remove waiting lists??? dont think that would work, especially in some areas where the waiting lists are HUGE...
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I will not mention brigade names,but a couple have day time problems and they re page so as to get a driver,funny that on their waiting list are a number of people who have a truck license but because they have a waiting list can not get them onto the active list till someone leave's.. Now that is madness,these people will move onto another service or another brigade or they may just lose interest in the CFS ......
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I thought that you could have as many aux as you wanted...maybe those who are not so active should be shunted to BA and off BF...then giving room for those who do want to be BF...we did this to our list recently..they are all still members ...and BA's CAN still be operational.
The only consideration I thought we had to worry about was the active BF's that are kitted out...in accordance with SOFC..I might be wrong.. :?
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Some brigades only have waiting lists so they can start new members all together at a particular time of year and train them at the same level. Its no good for some of the larger brigades to take on new people in ones and twos and be able to integrate them into ordinary brigade training. Of course this doesnt apply to transfers. You may have someone on a waiting list who can drive a truck but you need to know a lot more than that before you can start attending jobs.
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very stupid...
we have several females in the brigade, and although theyre not as physically capable as most of the males in the brigade, they are still great FFs, and if not for them we wouldnt get out the doors for day calls sometimes...
i dont see why we'd treat them any differant to the guys in the brigade.
Create a coup and you could be Captain :-D
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Report it, you should. that kind of thing makes me angry :x, Have you approached anyone about it?
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I agree with Manuel..I'm a female vollie and I wouldn't put up with any of that...they will continue if they know that they will get away with it.
I'm now a DGO and I would be ensuring that this kind of neanderthal behaviour be stomped out.
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Report it, you should. that kind of thing makes me angry :x, Have you approached anyone about it?
agree, i do, with yoda - sorry mannys statement. report it, you must. the chin, you must not take it on.
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Hey Firetruck stop using my nick name for other people
I am a "female" and have been a CFS vollie for 6 years, when i joined my brigade there was 2 women and one was a 1st lewy, many of our brigade members are from the old "school", where women should be at home etc... and I had to prove myself more than my brother who joined at the same time, my captain of the time was very supportive of women and so is our current one. I don't understand why there is such a stigma about "women" and being on the frontline at major incidents. I recall one of the first strike teams I attended I rocked in with my appliance got off for the briefing and in front of everyone one of the brigade captains asked me what I was doing there, women don't come on strike teams, when I looked around I noticed I was the only female there. If someone says something like that to either a male or a female there needs to something done about it, it is not acceptable in the year 2006 for this to be occuring.
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There is lots more women in interstate paid services than here, I wonder why that is?
(genuine question, no reading between the lines)
Its interesting how women are excluded from physical jobs, there has only ever been 1 female STAR force cop and no females in the SAS, they are not even allowed to try and join. If a woman can pass BFF1, then let them in as they are more than capable of minimum CFS standards, as someone has said some are even better than the blokes at jobs.
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I agree with you there, a lot of women are more sensible on the fireground, and they tend to think things through quite well, in comparison to those sexest ***** who go all tunnel vision at an incident. Our brigade only has one fully operational female firefighter, i would like to see more of them in the CFS, but if things happen as explained before, well i can see why they are not.
I agree with Manuel above, report it :wink:, and hopefully you can get those people out of the CFS :x,
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Actually PF, according to research done by the Bushfire Cooperative research Centre, (Beatson, R. 2005), South Australia has the highest female membership out of all the volunteer fire services in Australia, with 20 percent (hard to believe!). The Vic CFA has only 11%. Overall, the average percent of female operational volunteers in Australia is 14%...
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CFS Firey, Paid services, especially the MFB have a lot more women, unless their media just focuses on the stations that have female F/F's, but a lot fo what I see there are a lareg amount of females there compared to here.
I have seen a girl wearing a CFS shirt with "mini Bitch" written under a CFS logo while she was wearing it. What do people think of something like that the public could see. It is probably a mutual nickname at the station but the public will get a wrong impression from it.
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CFS Firey, Paid services, especially the MFB have a lot more women, unless their media just focuses on the stations that have female F/F's, but a lot fo what I see there are a lareg amount of females there compared to here.
I have seen a girl wearing a CFS shirt with "mini Bitch" written under a CFS logo while she was wearing it. What do people think of something like that the public could see. It is probably a mutual nickname at the station but the public will get a wrong impression from it.
Not the brightest idea...
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I agree with the name under the logo NOT being a good idea...different to have her actual name but it doesn't project a good image...and we do try to look professional..
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Intersting Small Flame from all members in attendance at that training exercise including officers they have said nothing sexist at all was said to any female. In fact small Flame it was more a concern if anything for the size of the people footing the ladder to the person on the ladder, judging by the name Small Flame tells a story...
You cant support someone of greater weight on a ladder safely, OH&S, safety first people, no matter what sex you are...
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Intersting Small Flame from all members in attendance at that training exercise including officers they have said nothing sexist at all was said to any female. In fact small Flame it was more a concern if anything for the size of the people footing the ladder to the person on the ladder, judging by the name Small Flame tells a story...
You cant support someone of greater weight on a ladder safely, OH&S, safety first people, no matter what sex you are...
When in doubt, play the sexism card :D
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Thats my point Toast...
These guys who were instructing are damn good fire fighters and were purely looking out for safety...if you are not taught right people will get hurt at the most important time... at a job
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When the siren sounds, when the pager alerts us, when we don our trusted yellow PPE we are all fire fighters, not men and women, we are fire fighters serving our community.
Each and everyone of us has limitations, barriers and hurdles to get over, we all just need to be big enough to ask.
When you wear the yellow, you are protecting your community and they don't care your sex, race, age or aptitude, what they care about is you being a professional and competent fire fighter and helping them in their time of need!
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Maybe Thats Her Nick Name But It Should Not Be Displayed To The Public Like That As It Promotes A Bad Image. I Would Actually Like To See That The Shirt Is Not Worn In Public.
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Just a friendly reminder;
Remember not to post names or identifying information about people here. No one has done it yet, but this thread has the potential there. Thanks!
:D
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yeah mate I will not discolse any potential info of where I saw the shirt or who was wearing it and what brigade they were from :wink:
Nah actually everyone should know it was................
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Only joshin :evil:
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Just to update, after followup etc, the comment was heavily misconstrued, and as I had hoped ,it was poorly worded and to do with the ladder itself etc. Its up to the other female involved whether she wants to take it further, but when i got my call, I made clear it was not an issue considering circumstance, it was more the revving that went on afterward.
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Good to hear Smallflame......
Glad its all being sorted out smoothly 8-)
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Some time ago our previous CEO said we had 17,000 volunteers and 450 brigades during the Sydney fires after a comment from the media about leaving our state under protected.He said If they asked us for another 1,000 they would have them.
Truth be known we have about 10,000 volunteers now.....as a lot of which we lost because of all the crap and politics in this service.
Remember when there was a survey paper about why you left the service etc from HQ getting around im sure most of it was due to inuendo against individuals.
Volunteers are a valuable resource and some towns cant afford to be sexist.
The life they save may be your own people :-D
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Some time ago our previous CEO said we had 17,000 volunteers and 450 brigades during the Sydney fires after a comment from the media about leaving our state under protected.He said If they asked us for another 1,000 they would have them.
Truth be known we have about 10,000 volunteers now.....as a lot of which we lost because of all the crap and politics in this service.
Remember when there was a survey paper about why you left the service etc from HQ getting around im sure most of it was due to inuendo against individuals.
Volunteers are a valuable resource and some towns cant afford to be sexist.
The life they save may be your own people :-D
So did people leave due to the 'crap and politics' or the 'inuendo against individuals' ?
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Sometimes you have to wonder why people join the service...and need reminding that what we do, saves lives and property...yes, the politics and red tape can be an issue (and I know that after my coronial experience) but only if you let it be a distraction and drop the ball..
For me it's more about contributing to my community...whilst working within the safe boundaries of SOP's...if anyone had come to court and seen how the lawyers bashed you over the head with documents that we use eg Response Plans...you would think twice about working outside of them..
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It does not matter what service or community group you are in there will always be people who will not let everyone do the job that they want to do for the better of there community. Its become more of a problem in brigades that have bad leadership and that those leaders will not allow females to do anything other than the radio or make a coffee. It is also time that male members got up and said something to these so called leaders,we should be happy that someone has come along and given their time to join the service. lets face it we are all getting older and the young ones can see what is going on but dont say a word till its too late.... rememeber we are a community based fire service who needs the support of the community.......
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Maybe these so called leaders need to be reminded of those 6% that are male...more of them and more problems usually than with the females who are there to do the job and not worry about stroking their egos.. :|
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sooo true, :x