"When I’m in a fire camp," says fire fighter Diana Clarke, "I look around and try to find a woman who’s forty years old or thirty-five or fifty, like all the men I see. I’ve never seen her I realize the role model has to be myself." These are women who, whether they like it or not, are ground breakers; they must contend with condescension and hostility on the job, and perhaps at home, just because they are women; they must cope with policies and facilities not designed for women; they must develop job skills without teachers, self-concepts without role models. For some, like sailor Theresa Selfe, the strain is too much: "There is no place out there for intelligent, sensitive people, much less women who give a damn about themselves." Others, like steel hauler Mary Rathke, love their work: "I always thought that once I approached forty, I’d look pretty ridiculous in a semi. But the closer I get to forty, the more I think I'll change that to fifty."
In these pages, the author has collected the first-hand accounts of women who have formed very personal techniques of dealing with the conflict between being a woman and being "one of the guys." For them, work in the trades is a way to avoid conventional office jobs or to make more money than in traditional work. To gillnetter Sylvia Lange, her trade is her lifestyle; to truck assembly line worker Nora Qualy, it is a necessary evil, a way to support her family.
Young, middle-aged, or retired; college-educated or high school dropout; rebellious or conservative; gay or straight; black, white, Japanese-American, Mexican-American, or Native-American—the women in Alone in a Crowd share openly with us their unique experiences.
