“A labyrinth of snake pits and traps at every corner” : understanding experiences of Canadian women in building and construction trades through a feminist existential lens

Abstract

By 2010, women made up almost half (47%) of the entire Canadian workforce (Ferraro, 2010) and the majority of women work in the service sector with the highest concentration (82%) in the healthcare and social assistance sectors. While the number of women in the workforce has been increasing, there has not been an increase in the number of women in the building trades despite initiatives that have been steadily encouraging women to pursue careers in trades as a viable option to earn a living.<br />The stories of ten female tradespeople were examined using narrative analysis (Riessman, 2008) through a feminist existential lens using the work of de Beauvoir (1976, 1989). Women choosing to pursue a career in trades face much different consequences for their choice than their male counterparts. Through a feminist existential analysis, I argue that the basis of these issues stems from women being viewed as the Other. The major themes that arose from this study were ways in which women are both openly objectified and oppressed at work and how those actions limit their choices, and in turn their existential freedom, creating a space in which they end up working in bad faith.