"No skirts or flowers here, it disturbs my men."

It is like the army: construction is perceived for men - by men, for men, and projects are built by virile men. No sissy authorised on site or in the office.

The truth is that we men, no matter our hierarchy in an organisation, have too much ego to accept an order from a woman for something considered as a man's job. If we accept, we still feel the need to make a comment. And if the order is given in front of other men with authoritative manners, a man' sensitive ego can open doors to what Chinese call "loosing the face", and to what comes with it.

Men grow up with this perception that women have no technical skills, until the day we meet one who proves we are wrong, yet we will put her in the "exception" category. For example at home: "Darling, stop trying to drill this hole in the wall. Give me the tool box, I will do it faster. Why don't you watch TV or play with the kids?"

Education starts at home, and continues at school. Teachers think construction offer just on site jobs. The off site jobs required to produce and manage these on site jobs, such as the architect, the surveyor, etc... are out of sight.

I was at a seminar last night. From the 60 delegates, 5 were women. A good representation of the industry I guess. 3 where business development managers, in other words, sales people. I was not surprised, but I was wondering why don't we have more women present? What could they be doing now, more important than participating (joining) in this event (the industry)? And what could be the glass ceiling issues faced by women in the sector since the chief executives of all public listed construction companies are men?

I've thought:
"It is 6.30 pm and the event will finish at 09.00 pm. Assuming these 5 women were representative of the whole industry, we don't have more because most are at:

1.Home, someone must take care of the family. (No time to network, which prevents career progression because the boss prefers pro-active people, always on the road, who bring new business)
2. Home, not interested to know what's going in this male dominated industry. (Let them take the decisions and tell us what to do. Just give me my salary)
3. Somewhere relaxing or shopping (this event is not interesting , maybe the next one)
4. Not aware of this event (i.e. not aware of career opportunities in construction)
5.?
"
Being objective, all I can say is that with women making up only 10% percent of the UK construction workforce, to increase this number, women, united, will have to fight hard.

Help yourself ladies, and do not expect much from the virile men. It is like at home.