Jo Farrell was judged ACT Australian of the Year for her work championing young women in the male dominated construction industry.Women have been trying to make their mark in the male dominated building and construction industry for decades. Less than 3 per cent of the trades and construction workforce are women and that's been the case since the late 1980s. Advocates in the industry are encouraging women to take up the tools but say there are still significant barriers to entry.
"It came about from rage and frustration to be honest. When I joined Kane in early 2020, generated a bit of buzz. You don't see a lot of women in leadership roles in construction, particularly in the size of construction companies that we have. And so there was a lot of people reaching out to me over social media, so LinkedIn and Instagram and others starting to tell me about their stories and their barriers and issues that they've faced. And it was like a tidal wave.
Ms Farrell says while part of this retention issue is unmatched expectations of what the job entails, sexism plays a significant role. "And then you've got the harder stuff, which is the sexual harassment and sexual assault. And we've seen a really negative uptick in reporting on that. Had a really bad run over the past few months from late last year to early this year with a number of younger women coming forward to me reporting incidences. And what I found was they didn't really understand what their rights and obligations were. They were really scared about talking about it.
"A good example is some of the most successful strategies for recruiting women in the past have been where there've been large organisations that can take on a group of women. So, you've got a critical mass going through training together, supporting each other on the site. Together, you can see that those are the kinds of strategies being adopted.
Queenie says all of the 10 women who graduated from their first program went on to gain employment in trade occupations, and five of those women entered the building and construction sector.