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Only 5.3% of US welders are women. After years as a professor, I became one

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254 points Michelangelo11 | 6 comments | 06 Nov 24 00:24 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source | bottom
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gaze ◴[06 Nov 24 01:23 UTC] No.42056630[source]▶
I just bought a gas lens set for my welder and it included cups called the BBW and the FUPA. When I was taking MIG classes, they had a jar of anti-spatter gel called cooter snot tip dip. Can’t imagine why women are so rare in the profession…

I’ve been a tourist in a number of different trades, and welding beats them all for hostility and resistance to safety practices. You get called a pussy for wearing a mask, but of course the manganese fumes from welding steel will give you brain damage. I’ve been advised to run cutoff wheels far above their rated RPM, which risks explosion. It’s sad because welding might as well some combination of knitting and calligraphy but with metal. It’s great.

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kleton ◴[06 Nov 24 01:41 UTC] No.42056696[source]▶
Cooter is a Black dialectal term for a turtle originating from the Mandinka language, and you can see a turtle on the logo of that product.
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maxerickson ◴[06 Nov 24 02:19 UTC] No.42056823[source]▶
https://crittergoo.com/collections/goo
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reportingsjr ◴[06 Nov 24 02:36 UTC] No.42056885[source]▶
Hahaha, wow. The other products on that page do a wonderful job of disagreeing with parent’s explanation.
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1. stavros ◴[06 Nov 24 03:22 UTC] No.42057041[source]▶
There's a "one eyed snake" product too, why are we not complaining about how men will be driven from the profession with such sexist talk?
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2. maxerickson ◴[06 Nov 24 03:41 UTC] No.42057087[source]▶
Sexualizing the product name at all is more hostile to women than the reference is hostile to men.
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3. worthless-trash ◴[06 Nov 24 04:03 UTC] No.42057129[source]▶
Are you suggesting women are less able to take hostilities than men ? Since now we have inuendos from both.
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4. esperent ◴[06 Nov 24 04:14 UTC] No.42057171{3}[source]▶
Context matters. In a 95% male profession, making hostile comments about women is absolutely more of an issue than similar comments about men. And vice versa in a predominantly female profession.
5. maxerickson ◴[06 Nov 24 05:04 UTC] No.42057310{3}[source]▶
I'm suggesting that the "inuendos from both" is the wrong analysis and that the workplace issue would be the sexualization of the product name being used as a tool to harass women (there would probably also be comments made to men, but harassment would predominantly be towards women).
6. conscion ◴[06 Nov 24 14:04 UTC] No.42062448{3}[source]▶
Hostilities from men towards women are much more dangerous and women have the correct response to be more vigilant about them.