This one's for the girls.....

Let me say that I have rattled this all off and am posting it without thinking too long about it. Not that I mean to make an excuse, I truly believe everything that I'm saying, but just that I needed to work up a bit of courage to post it....

Its hard being in a male dominated profession. I've said this to my non-ems female friends and I usually get a chorus of, "yeah, what a burden, to be around all those men in uniforms, boo-hoo." And we laugh, and I-a happily married woman-shrug off the musings about turnout gear, and the finer qualities of a man carrying a gun, and I still insist that this world is difficult for a woman.

Let's get beyond the whole 'I can do anything you can do better' plane of thinking for a minute. If you're reading this, you probably already know that women are as capable of excelling in EMS as men. And if you're a man reading this, I have to say, this one isn't really for you.

Its for the Ladies.

Here's the real problem with working in EMS-and I imagine the same could be said for fire, although I have no first hand experience there-there is no room for your gender identity. I'm still getting my mind around this ladies, so bear with me, but when I leave work, and I shed my ill-fitting, made for a man EMS pants, and my boots, and my bulky job shirt, and I'm a mother to my son, and a wife to my husband, I feel feminine. I feel capable and tough, but there is still an inhearantly female undertone to the way I walk about in the world.
At work, there seems to be two main groups of women, those that fit in with they guys, and those that chase the guys. Good care providers? Sure. Fun to be around for 12 hours? Sometimes. But like me? No.
I'm bordering on insulting here, and I don't mean to be. Let me stress that I chased an EMS guy relentlessly. It turns out that he was the only EMS guy I ever chased, and now he is my husband, but I used everything I had to land him-not like I had to beg or anything, I mean, I'm not a troll.....but I was briefly sucked in to that world of feeling the need to prove my intrinsic womaness, in a world where I dress in practical, unflattering clothes and deal with things that are decidedly undelicate. And that's what gets me. The need to prove myself in the context of gender. Why do I feel that need? Why do I need to be a woman at work? I guess maybe part of the reason is that there are so many Men at work. And not men, little 'm', but Men, with raw steak and big trucks.
My work life is dominated by alpha males. Not just guys that are friendly and do their job well-although there are those too, and they're a breath of fresh air-but men that prove their manliness in every interaction, during every call, and in countless ways that could be featured in a comic strip. Why?
And is my feeling of gender neutrality related to the fact that most of what I'm exposed to is super macho or femanine wiles?

Do women that work in offices, that wear cardigans and heels think about this stuff? Do you? Am I completely alone on this?

I guess the bigger picture is that this kind of underlying concern about perception has bled over into my non-work life. I've often wondered about how my husband feels about my choice of career when we interact with other couples from his fire department, and the man does the fire fighting, and the scraping up of drunk drivers/overdoses/and the hauling away of crazy people, and the woman does the teaching/office/mom-ing. My husband of course knew what I wanted to do when he met me, and we went to medic school together. But I've noticed that even after 2 years of him being on the same group, some of the guys will still casually ask me what I do for a living. So, he obviously doesn't mention it-which can't really be held against him, because he's not that big of a talker, but I mean, it hasn't come up in 2 years, really?

Once I overheard a guy that I work with having a casual conversation with someone about his wife, who had just had a baby. He was asked if she was going back to work, and his response was an emphatic no. He said, "...are you kidding me? She's a basic. I don't want her on the ambulance. She's going to eventually go to school for [insert female dominated profession here]" Is that how men feel? When I work with my husband-OR, and this may be another subject all together, when I work with a man that happens to feel protective of his female partners-is he fighting the urge to step in front of me and protect my-my what, rosy view of the world? honor? My virgin eyes?-from the veritable shit show before us? And if he is DOES THAT REALLY BOTHER ME?

There it is folks, there's the root of it. The message that I'm sending that could send the womens movement straight back to the 1950s. Do I really mind being a member of the "diminuative" sex? No. I don't. But, and here's where things get all jumbly in my mind, I'm good at my job, and I can absolutely do my job without the assistance of a member of the male species, but at the same time, I want help to be offered. As if help, or assistance, or protectiveness from the male half of the partnership isn't offered, then I'm less of a woman, and more one of the guys...and being one of the guys is not what I want......and chasing the guys is not how I want to prove my feminity. So what else is there?
I'm not so foolish as to believe that I'm writing without ramifications here, I am more than aware that some women have to fight, tooth and nail to be tolerated, much less respected in their fire house or station. And that, folks, is complete shit. Gone are the days where scantily clad calendars hang in the day room, and the boys club should take notice of the rising number of female leaders in fire and EMS. I'm not saying that I'm on track here, or I'm starting some radical new wave of thinking for the womens movement. I'm just saying, this is how I feel. Where does this come from? And how do you feel?