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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 | 15 comments | 06 Nov 24 00:24 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source | bottom
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naming_the_user ◴[06 Nov 24 01:47 UTC] No.42056718[source]▶
What comes across from the article to me is the class barrier more than the gender one - basically it's a posh person finding out what the "real world" looks like.

Shop talk and banter are fairly universal. Any difference is going to be a target. Thin bloke who doesn't look strong enough? Ginger hair? Tall guy, short guy? Weird tattoo, etc. Definitely the one black guy or the one white guy is going to get shit. But is it malicious? Almost certainly not.

The other thing, which in my experience is relatively common worldwide, is that working class communities are more accepting of male-female dynamics. In academia and in highbrow society the tendency is to basically sanitise every social interaction. When you're in an environment where that isn't happening then you can't suddenly ignore it any more.

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esperent ◴[06 Nov 24 04:11 UTC] No.42057157[source]▶
> But is it malicious? Almost certainly not.

Honestly, it often will be malicious, or will quickly become malicious if you don't take it graciously. And why should you? It's not acceptable to make fun of people for being skinny, ginger, shy, black, white, female, or any other things that the in group considers non-standard for whatever weird reasons.

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jdietrich ◴[06 Nov 24 05:41 UTC] No.42057399[source]▶
Without wanting to indulge too much in macho tropes: A welding shop is inherently dangerous. If you spend long enough in one, you are going to get seriously injured at some point. You are going to be the first responder when someone else gets seriously injured. Surviving in that environment requires a certain level of toughness. I'm not defending bullying, but some places aren't supposed to be welcoming.
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1. esperent ◴[06 Nov 24 05:52 UTC] No.42057432[source]▶
I just looked it up. Welding is definitely not a safe profession, but it seems like severe injury rates is around 3.5 per hundred workers throughout a whole career. Definitely not "most". And about the same or slightly less than carpentry (4 per hundred), which from personal experience is a profession filled with decent and friendly people.
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2. lazide ◴[06 Nov 24 06:41 UTC] No.42057601[source]▶
There is no way that is correct. What data are you using? [https://www.bls.gov/iif/fatal-injuries-tables/fatal-occupati...]

BLS is combining solder/brazing with welding. And has no concept of industrial vs fab, etc.

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3. TylerE ◴[06 Nov 24 07:05 UTC] No.42057722[source]▶
It's not so much accidents as the lifetime occupational exposure. Metal fumes are nasty.
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4. bumby ◴[06 Nov 24 14:59 UTC] No.42063320[source]▶
You are conflating serious injury with fatalities.
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5. lazide ◴[06 Nov 24 15:28 UTC] No.42063781{3}[source]▶
That sheet is fatalities. It’s literally in the URL and at the top of the page. See column ‘Total fatal injuries’.
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6. potato3732842 ◴[06 Nov 24 16:38 UTC] No.42064902[source]▶
There's a lot of potential for petty injuries that'll be a nuisance for weeks to months. Minor burns, slightly smashed fingers or hands, some real good cuts, etc. Not a lot of potential for serious injury though above the baseline of your environment (i.e. air conditioned shop vs muddy trench)
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7. ◴[06 Nov 24 17:05 UTC] No.42065381{4}[source]▶
8. bumby ◴[06 Nov 24 17:08 UTC] No.42065456{4}[source]▶
Right. But the post you are refuting is talking about "serious injuries" not "fatalities".
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9. lazide ◴[06 Nov 24 17:16 UTC] No.42065582{5}[source]▶
they were claiming numbers an order of magnitude less than fatalities.
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10. ◴[06 Nov 24 17:29 UTC] No.42065805{6}[source]▶
11. bumby ◴[06 Nov 24 17:31 UTC] No.42065835{6}[source]▶
Per hundred workers. Your link is in absolute units of fatalities, their claim is a rate. At the very least, you need the number of workers (which is also available in BLS data) to refute their claim.

The data shows roughly 454k workers in the welders, solderers, and brazers occupation series. With their claim of 3.5 severe injuries per 100 worker-careers, that's about 16k severe injuries. If you assume an average career is about 25 years, that's about 636 severe injuries per year, compared to the 48 fatalities per year. So it's an order of magnitude higher (which I think is the direction most people would expect).

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12. lazide ◴[06 Nov 24 17:51 UTC] No.42066214{7}[source]▶
thanks for tracking that down! I stand corrected.
13. Baeocystin ◴[06 Nov 24 22:58 UTC] No.42070886[source]▶
I did a couple of years at the NASSCO shipyard in San Diego as a welder after the first .com crash.

The (literal) toxic work environment is why I left welding, even though I genuinely enjoyed the work. But I was already starting to see real changes in my health, even though I was super careful about respirator use, etc. What really sealed the deal was learning that my shift lead, who I thought was a good decade older than me, was actually a few years younger, but had just been welding longer, with the body damage to show for it.

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14. TylerE ◴[07 Nov 24 00:22 UTC] No.42071727{3}[source]▶
Yea, that’s one thing that really stood out to me when I did a 2 year mechanical engineering program - mostly training to be a cad jockey. Some of my teachers looked waaay older than they should have, and the welding instructor was the worst.

Now think of how many guys there are out there doing it with no repository protection and the good ‘ole safety squints.

15. lazyasciiart ◴[07 Nov 24 03:21 UTC] No.42073026[source]▶
Sounds like a kitchen.