Representation Outside of the Office Setting

Robert Fina and I recently gave a talk in Charlottesville, VA, focused on sustainability and the next 100 years of trails.

It was well received, sparked engaging conversations about what is next and we and the group we spoke to have actionable items we are working on together coming out of the talk.

While all of that is exciting and what anyone could hope for coming out of a talk, something happened that I did not foresee:  Nearly every woman in the room came up to me that evening following the talk and personally thanked me for being there and talking about the technical issues our legacy trails face.  The theme in their comments to me, “We don’t see women doing this.”

The “this” they refer to is doing the physical work, pursuing the skills and expertise, leading crews, teaching trail skills and being out front publicly on technical trail issues.

I know there are more of us out here doing this kind of work.  They’re in my phone contacts.  They are in my Linkedin feed.  

But that doesn’t mean that women in the trails community see themselves represented.  

In the professional trailbuilding community, there are indeed few women.  In Bentonville, AR, this spring at the Professional TrailBuidlers Association Sustainable Trails Conference, all the female attendees (nearly all) got together for a networking session.  We made up fewer than 10% of the conference attendees.  

Fewer than 10%.  That included women from non-profits and land managers.  The women doing this as their own business was on the order of 1%.  

A conference is not an accurate representation of an industry.  However, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, the share of females in attendance was on par with female representation in occupations such as welders and construction managers.  (The 1% number is on par with the share of women workers in the steamfitter and electrician trades.)

Why does it matter?

The outdoor recreation industry needs infrastructure for recreation.  Our public lands need trails that protect the lands while providing access.  

Many of our legacy trails have maintenance backlogs that exceed available resources.  Many of our trail systems need management approaches that improve accessibility and reduce maintenance needs.  Many of our public lands need sustainable trail systems, period.  

There are not enough people today trained and educated in trail planning, trail building, trail maintenance and trail management to meet the needs of land managers (local, state and federal), non-profit partner groups or professional trail builders.  

Like with other industries, there are women in non-profit roles and in the environmental resource management roles, but we lack women in the myriad other roles needed to meet the needs of the trail planning, building and management community.  

Why do we need women in these roles?

For starters, these are dynamic and rewarding jobs and careers that pull from a variety of skills — from spatial visualization, problem solving, interpersonal relationship navigation, GIS, writing, teaching, machinery operation, artisan skills such as stonework and carpentry, community engagement, marketing — the list goes on.  There is absolutely nothing about trail planning, building, maintenance and management that makes men better suited for the work than women.  

Second, with all the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion talk flowing on social media and in marketing campaigns, I see very little DEI in trail planning, building and management (back to the PTBA conference, fewer than 10% of conference attendees were women, only a fraction of the women were non-white and none of the women were differently abled).  There are generational barriers from institutionalized racism and bias that feed into the lack of racial, ethnic, gender and ability diversity in trail planning, building and management.  How are we going to get to more inclusive trail systems when the folks planning, building and managing them remain mostly white and male?

As an aside related to inclusion, Robert and I last year started reviewing at our trail workshops how to pee/poop in the woods as a matter of course at the safety talk.  Why?  We noticed that some folks weren’t drinking during the workshops.  We asked why.  It was because they had never gone to the bathroom out in the woods and weren’t comfortable admitting they didn't know what the protocol was.  It was mostly an issue we were seeing with women and it can lead to dehydration and heat illness during a workshop, both significant medical issues.

Another related aside, at a trail building machinery workshop I attended recently, I was the only female.  No big deal.  The site was a staging area for a trailbuilding project and it was an open field with some pallets of stone and a few random construction items.  There wasn’t a place for me to go pee without exposing my bare ass to either the road nearby or to the class participants.  I’m not shy and I didn’t particularly care, but I’m not on equal footing with the men when it comes to peeing with decency.  I guy can walk off a ways, keep his back to the others, and just pee.  The amount of body parts exposed is (a) not much and (b) really not visible from a distance.  My exposed ass as I squat is very visible from a long distance.  I decided the passers by on the road could get the show.  (Before the SheWee comments roll in, I don’t feel I need to own a special piece of silicon that I need to keep track of to be able to pee.)

Had a woman helped organize the workshop (or ran it), she would have taken one look at the field and realized there was no place for someone to squat to pee (or who just wants a little privacy).  Rearranging a few pallets of stone would have done the trick.

Third, we need women visible in these roles to provide representation and pave the way for other women.  In Bentonville as we went around the room with introductions and we each introduced ourselves, the number one thing shared by the women over 30 was “Had I realized in school that I could have a career in trails, I would have pursued it sooner.”  They were mostly talking about a career in trails, period, not as a woman pursuing a career in trails.  But as the few of us who do own trail businesses introduced ourselves, and the new PTBA President, Dawn Packard, introduced herself, women in the room lit up with realizing that there were actually female trailbuiders out there.  As conversations evolved and it came out that two of us are chainsaw instructors - many of the women asked about getting saw training from either us or if we know of other female chainsaw instructors.  

Representation matters.  It matters when I am teaching a chainsaw safety class and some of the male participants, for the first time in their life, see a woman not only handling a chainsaw but teaching the class.

It matters when I teach other women how to start a chainsaw.  I know how hard it can be to learn.  It matters when they see me flood a saw and I shrug it off — because it doesn’t make me any less skilled (and, really, the guys flood them, too).

Representation matters when I am on a trail maintenance roundtable at a women’s trail conference and it comes out that I am chainsaw instructor and head up the saw training program where we volunteer our time.  It matters when women approach me afterwards saying “I want to learn to run a chainsaw.  My husband says it’s too dangerous and won’t let me touch ours.” 

Representation matters when we teach rigging workshops and it is me teaching the technical details and me leading the gear setup in the field while Robert works to get a line up in the tree.  The class participants see Robert and I both as competent - they see  that I’m not following any female gender norms - they see a woman doing and teaching technical, skilled trail skills work.

Representation matters when we do hazard tree work and lead the crews, teaching them the gear and safety aspects and they see me felling hazardous trees.  The women on the crew are invested and very interested in how they can do this level of work.

Representation matters when I take a skills workshop from the talented and respected Erin Amadon of Town 4 Trail Services LLC and I love her style of teaching - methodical, quiet and humorous - and soak up seeing her share how she has to really use her body mechanics to efficiently swing a sledge hammer (because she’s not a big guy).

Representation matters.  Period.  From designing, building, maintaining and managing trail systems.  From work in the field to work at the desk, it not only matters that women are doing the work - it matters that women are seen doing the work.

It is not enough to be behind the scenes.  

We women need to be out front, on social media, at conferences, at the meetings, in the articles, listed as authors, speakers, machine operators, instructors, researchers, business owners and the public face of public lands trail system initiatives.

Women need to be supported and fostered to do this work. Encouraged to do this work. Sought to so this work. There are many ways to bring women into this work, but meanwhile, the women who are doing the work need to be seen.

The original article and photographs can be seen on LinkedIn.