Builders who pull down walls: Mary Braid meets women who are learning that there is no such thing as a 'man's job'

By the factory door, two brickies empty heavy shovels into a cement mixer while two others erect a wall. In a far corner, near the painters, a foreman is revealing the mysteries of the U-bend to six trainee plumbers who are wearing overalls and yellow safety helmets. From glass-fronted offices, managers look down on more than 40 would-be plasterers, painters, plumbers, carpenters, brickies and electricians.

It could be any construction training centre, except for the total absence of men. Here all the trainees are female. And so are the trainers and managers.

Women's Education in Building (WEB), in west London, was founded by three tradeswomen in the mid-Eighties to help more women enter a male-dominated industry. The centre was converted by Takumba Ria Lawal, 40, who in the late Seventies became the first female carpenter to be hired by a private building company in Britain.

She can still remember managers and a union official telling her she would never get on a building site even if she completed the course. 'But they took me. It wasn't that long after the Sex Discrimination Act. There were 700 male trainees and me.'

When Ms Lawal first opened her tool kit, men came from every corner of the site to gape. A black woman was a double whammy. But interest was short-lived.

'I was obviously not the kind of woman they had hoped for. In my overalls and hat I looked like a boy. I remember having problems with the painters because I earned more than them. They hated working with a woman of higher status,' she says.

Ms Lawal saw herself as a pioneer. But almost two decades later females are so rare on site that the arrival of a woman still upsets the boys. Earlier this month Tracie Simpson, 28, a female brickie, told how men got out of lorries to stare at her at a Greenwich council repairs depot.

Four years of torment began with obscene taunts about her body, questions about her sexual orientation and threats to cut her pubic hair. It culminated in seven months' sick leave and a pounds 15,000 out-of-court settlement from the council. An industrial tribunal criticised her union, the Union of Construction, Allied Trades, and Technicians (Ucatt), for poor support and the council for ineffective management.

Ms Simpson claimed that the five trainee tradeswomen who started with her left after similar treatment. Ms Lawal, now WEB's training manager, is unsurprised. Sexual harassment on site is common, she says, but almost never comes to light.

WEB, the largest training centre for female construction workers in Europe, provides initial training for 70 tradeswomen each year. This week, Allison Ogden, WEB's project manager, is writing an article she hopes to have published in the Ucatt magazine. It contains a few home truths for the 200,000-strong union, in which tradeswomen still account for only 1 per cent of the membership.

She says: 'It is all very well for Ucatt to claim the glory for handling Tracie Simpson's case, but the fact is that our members allowed it to happen.' She claims that management in the industry is appalling, but the union fails to challenge members' prejudices: 'There are two things men think they alone can do. One is piss standing up and the other is make things. If a woman can do either of these she won't be popular.'

Ms Ogden insists that there is no physical reason why women cannot excel in trades traditionally dominated by men. Wages are the key to male monopoly. 'If it is well paid it will be men's work.'

Feminism propelled the trailblazers, but harsh economic reality and family responsibilities motivate today's trainees. Many are single mothers. They often have fathers or brothers who are builders. Ms Ogden says: 'They know what to expect. At interview we warn about sexism, but no one runs screaming from the room.'

Catherine Drayton, 30, is raising twin girls alone. She was a photographer, but the hours were a problem. Painting and decorating are creative, more lucrative, and the hours are flexible.

'I am slight and people worry that this is too physically demanding, but only bricklaying is really arduous,' she says. 'When I decorate at home, the girls are there with the sandpaper. They are growing up thinking that this is normal for a woman.'

But reluctance to work in a wholly male environment is common. Ms Drayton will work on site if that is the only way to provide for her children, but she would rather be self-employed.

Ms Lawal is disappointed that many women avoid site work. However, it can be difficult for those who try. Jean Gold, 38, a single mother of three, was one of WEB's first trainee electricians. She first approached a site in 1984. 'I asked the foreman if he needed electricians. He said yes. He probably thought I was looking for a job for my husband. I said I was interested. There were other men there and he said I would have to strip to the waist in the summer. I said no problem.

'He asked about qualifications and when he realised I was serious he got flustered. Eventually he said he could not employ me because he didn't have any lavatory facilities.'

Rob Cathcart, a Ucatt researcher, says that it is a catch-22 situation: 'The treatment of women will improve if more work on site, but women won't do it if they see it as a hotbed of sexual harassment.'

WEB remains optimistic. There is no shortage of trainees and night classes will soon be introduced. Ms Lawal says: 'Here we pound the streets for employers. We drag them here, show them what we are doing and try to change their attitudes. They are usually impressed.'

(Photograph omitted)