What It Takes to Be a Woman in the New York City Fire Department
At Narratively, a profile of former Marine and current FDNY member Sophy Medina:
Her friends often say, “Oh my god, you must work around hot guys all the time.” But Medina swears she’s never been attracted to anyone in her firehouse. “It’s also a bit taboo,” she says. She pauses, then adds: “And ya’ know, they tawk like this: Sophy, how ya’ do-win. Hey yo bada bing bada boom.” She admits she’s exaggerating as she imitates men in her firehouse, the way a sister would a brother, and as though she’s been given that right as a member of its tight-knit, devoted community.
The story makes me want to read about lady firefighters throughout history:
The first female firefighter was a slave. She volunteered in a New York City firehouse in 1818. Her name was Molly Williams and her achievement is often marked by a quote saying that she was “as good a fire laddie as many of the boys.” If true, Williams overcame a huge hurdle, one that exists almost two centuries later in the department, where females are still struggling to be considered physically competent and asexual enough to hang out in the company of men.
The first paid career U.S. firefighter, Judith Brewer, wasn’t hired until more than a century and a half later, in Arlington, Virginia, in 1974. The wives of the men in her house demanded a meeting to discuss the hire. Brewer was quoted as saying that they “were upset about their husbands bunking with a woman.”
It also adds some gender context to the issue of historical homogeneity in the FDNY, which was sued successfully in 2007 for discriminating against black and Hispanic recruits and now counts minorities as more than half of each recruitment class:
In 2000, there were a total of twenty women in the FDNY. Twelve years later the tally was thirty-four. The most recent probationary class accepted eight, the most of any class dating back to 1982, when females were first allowed into service. However, four of the eight females have since dropped out of training.
And, speaking of rad women in ultra-male fields, don’t miss this selfie from the first four women to make it through Marine infantry training. The woman holding the camera is nicknamed “Rambo” and she went through this whole ordeal with a stress fracture!