There really is a difference between the sexes.
With the national anthem booming, the celebration at Drill Academy 40 on Terminal Island takes on a circus quality. The huge fire-station door yawns open, revealing the rookies  now orderly and marching forth  trailed by theatrical “smoke.” Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is a no-show, and so is Fire Chief Douglas Barry  off at a conference in Salt Lake City  so the grads are welcomed by Battalion Chief Emile Mack, who tells them the Los Angeles firefighter is an “American icon.”It is impossible not to notice that every one of the 42 rookies graduating on December 7 is male.
Three women were supposed to graduate. One was a 48-year-old grandmother  an emergency medical technician and former airport baggage handler who failed key physical tests just weeks into the fire-academy training. Another, a young former soccer player for Notre Dame, nearly made it through, but failed on drills to raise heavy wooden ladders against a building  as firefighters must do during a fire. The third was a tough former Air Force intelligence officer, terminated from the academy because she couldn’t maintain the grueling pace. [...]
[F]or years, nobody questioned the underlying assumptions pushed by the City Council and the city Fire Commission: that women wanted to be firefighters, that women were kept out, and that women had special skills needed on fire lines, just as female cops brought special skills to their jobs. If Bamattre was jettisoning standards and practicing the equivalent of grade inflation in order to slip women into fire stations, the thinking was that the ends justified the means.
“It is a political-correctness issue, more than one [that asks] whether it makes good sense or not,” says [former Los Angeles Mayor Richard] Riordan, chatting by phone during a ski trip to Whistler Mountain in British Columbia. “But that is a fact of life.”
Then, in 2005, City Controller Laura Chick alleged in an audit that Bamattre was engaged in a rollback of physical requirements. [...]
Then last May, a former drillmaster at the Frank Hotchkins Memorial Training Center testified in Superior Court that he had been ordered by two high-ranking chiefs to pass women, and had stood up to their double standard. “I recommended termination on 95 percent of the women that could not throw that ladder,” testified Captain Scott Campos, now at Fire Station 5. “And in all cases, it was overlooked  and they were sent to the field.”
Bamattre’s alleged lowering of standards “put people out in the field that weren’t qualified,” says Lima, who won a $3.75 million judgment after he claimed his superiors retaliated against him  for making life as tough for women firefighters as he did for the men.
And the LAFD has become a veritable goldmine for Personal Injury lawyers.
“They recruit them, and then they beat them up,” claims attorney Thomas Hoegh, who is handling at least two lawsuits against the Fire Department. “They encourage the women to join the department, then look what happens to them. They are all getting hurt badly.”Most of the injuries, he says, “are occurring during training activities. One wonders what is going on here. There is a double standard. They are encouraging them to join, then they do everything in their power to try to get rid of them.”
But firefighter Julie Wolf  one of the rare women working on the fire line at a fire station in Los Angeles  has a different theory about what is causing the endless cycle of female hirings, washouts, injuries and lawsuits.
“Some of the women can’t do the basics because of strength,” says Wolf, a tough-talking engineer at Station 63. “Captains document it, and all of a sudden it is a ‘hostile working environment’ against the captain… I have never seen a woman overdrilled, and it has never happened to me.”
Wolf is growing tired of the recriminations  from women. “That is what we do. That is our job. All of a sudden it is humiliating and hostile for a member to perform their job? I don’t understand that.”
As a result, she says, “I think they are a bunch of crybabies. When I come to work, I am a firefighter first and a female second. I come to work and do my job.”
As it should be.
Whomever the 15-member City Council and Villaraigosa decide to blame next, the fact is that Los Angeles is not unique. Cities trying and failing to turn women into firefighters range from New York, with its less than 1 percent female crews, to San Francisco, with its 13.8 percent  a stat that seems impressive, but which is generously padded with paramedics who do not fight fires or live at firehouses.Jon McDuffie, first vice president of the L.A. firefighters’ union, says, “You can throw millions of dollars into this,” but departments all over the country are struggling to recruit women. “We can’t all be wrong.”
When lives are on the line, one standard and one standard only should apply to all individuals who want to become firefighters, regardless of sex.
All else is, indeed, a boondoggle.
Comment by Sticky B on 1/25 @ 10:17 pm #
I’ve seen some of those women in SF and they’re……pretty manly.
Comment by Jeffersonian on 1/25 @ 10:26 pm #
I think I love firefighter Julie Wolf. I think it’s safe to say she’s not a regular at Mandy’s little cesspit.
Comment by B Moe on 1/25 @ 10:26 pm #
When lives are on the line, one standard and one standard only should apply….
In a culture that values self-preservation that is obvious, so why is it not obvious to so many of our fellow citizens?
Comment by Dan Collins on 1/25 @ 10:28 pm #
I want to be a governess, and nobody cares!
Comment by Phil on 1/25 @ 10:28 pm #
“In a culture that values self-preservation that is obvious, so why is it not obvious to so many of our fellow citizens?”
Did you see who we just elected as our President? I’m not sure self-preservation is of high concern at the moment. We’re back to the “If it feels good, do it” Clintonian days.
Comment by parsnip on 1/25 @ 10:31 pm #
Why Darleen, stabbing your fellow female government teat sucklers in the back?
Color me surprised.
Gotta keep the competition to a minimum.
Comment by B Moe on 1/25 @ 10:40 pm #
I rest my case.
Comment by Spies, Brigands, and Pirates on 1/25 @ 10:46 pm #
I want to be a wet nurse, but I’m afraid no parents will hire me even if I take the hormone treatments to become fully qualified. Can I sue?
Comment by Bob Reed on 1/25 @ 10:46 pm #
The twainin’ is toooooo hard!*sob, snivel, sniff*
Suuuuuuuure…And actual operations on the street are sooooooo much easier…
And, the consequences of not performing…Are, trivial at worst…
I don’t know what’s worse, the fact that staffing units with personell ill equipped to do the job may lead to civilian deaths, or those of their colleagues…
I don’t know about anyone else, but I always wanted to be sure that my wingman was competent and capable…
Worry about scoring EOE points in a less critical, and more forgiving, echelon
Comment by Challeron on 1/25 @ 10:56 pm #
Does anyone know what Parsnip does for a living?
Comment by Techie on 1/25 @ 11:04 pm #
Trolls here? I’ve always figured Jeff pays him, to keep the threads from drying up at ~30 posts.
Comment by Darleen on 1/25 @ 11:06 pm #
Bob Reed
The training is too hard for more than 1/3 of the men that apply, too. Being a firefighter is a job that involves a great deal of sheer physical strength — as opposed to being a paramedic with the fire department.
Jobs should be strictly sex-neutral. Make the standard, get the job.
Comment by AKA Pablo on 1/25 @ 11:08 pm #
Hormone treatments? That sounds sexist. You should definitely sue.
Meanwhile, the LAPD is engaging in it’s own brand of insane PC stupidity.
Comment by serr8d on 1/25 @ 11:20 pm #
I guarantee he’s not a firefighter, a police officer, a soldier, or a hero of any sort.
Comes carrying the smell of Doritos and ankle-deep cat litter, he does.
Comment by Vindicator on 1/25 @ 11:48 pm #
I think Darleen is afraid of strong women.
Comment by AKA Pablo on 1/25 @ 11:49 pm #
I think she’s afraid of having weak women where you need strong ones. Or men.
Comment by Vindicator on 1/25 @ 11:53 pm #
This is really about abortion, isn’t it?
Comment by Darleen on 1/25 @ 11:53 pm #
meya
You hide behind the name “Vindicator” and accuse me of being afraid of strong women …
Comment by maggie katzen on 1/25 @ 11:55 pm #
BWAH HA HA HA HAaaaaa
Comment by Vindicator on 1/25 @ 11:56 pm #
meya? You mean I was right?
Cool.
Comment by SSG RaTsO - Proud to be ODD! on 1/25 @ 11:57 pm #
I had a Champions character once that went by “Vindicator.” Big gun type.
Comment by maggie katzen on 1/25 @ 11:57 pm #
do you play the banjo, Vindicator?
Comment by Darleen on 1/26 @ 12:03 am #
uh, meya, you’re aware that I wrote this thread and checked out the IP address?
Comment by Darleen on 1/26 @ 12:19 am #
Trust me.
No, because two of the three IPs you’ve now used in this thread trace to meya (as well as other names you have used)
grow up
Comment by maggie katzen on 1/26 @ 12:19 am #
house boy! fetch my drink!
Comment by Spies, Brigands, and Pirates on 1/26 @ 12:35 am #
You hide behind the name “Vindicatorâ€Â
pwned. And ‘Hammered.
Comment by meya on 1/26 @ 1:05 am #
Ha. Du er smart for en Amerikansk.
Comment by Lt. York on 1/26 @ 1:50 am #
What a waste of time, meya.
Darleen…let me tell you a story.
http://wrestling.teamusa.org/news/article/7894
Glen Brand’s stepson from his second marriage is my friend Duane Rader.
About a dozen or so years ago, he wanted to be a firefighter. He was in a class with 11 men and 11 women.
Now, Duane really wanted to be a firefighter. He had trained and studied for several years. When the testing came up, he set the combined record [physical/intelligence] for the entire history of the Omaha Fire Department.
When it came time for the hiring, all 11 women were hired, and none of the men were.
A couple of years later one of the gals and a civilian died when she was not strong enough to pull a 220 lb. man out of a fire.
The same type of thing happened with the police force and former NU running back Scotty Baldwin.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0CE3D91639F93AA3575AC0A964958260
Shot by two women trying to bull-dyke him down during a psychotic episode.
Heck, two fully grown and hugely muscled linebackers had trouble taking the guy down…what made these two women think they could do it?
Comment by JD on 1/26 @ 1:59 am #
meya being mendoucheous is as predictable as the Cubs crushing the souls of their fans, again.
Comment by Vol on 1/26 @ 2:10 am #
I hope that one day we can move past sex race and religion in all aspects of our daily lives!
Comment by cranky-d on 1/26 @ 2:22 am #
Also I hope we get to the point that commas are no longer necessary. We’re not there yet.
BTW, if we apply the same standards to everyone regarless of sex, race, and religion, then I would think that would be a good step towards making those categories much less important.
Comment by SteveG on 1/26 @ 2:22 am #
I have a female friend who could do everything but the ladder carry/setup and the dummy lift.
Smart (top of the class academically as she held an honors degree in astrophysic or some such field and had been offered ascholarship to study for her PhD. She is strong, athletic, good looking… 5′4″ 115lbs of muscle and she still couldn’t get the leverage needed regardless of technique and weight training and drilling…. but after weeks of work she squeaked out a time.
She was a paramedic as well and was able to get through the academy and into a probationary job with a County Fire agency.
They dropped her when her probationary status was about to end. It might have been personality as she really likes men… a lot of them and tends to toss them aside which may have caused tension in the house. She also had a way of always being smarter than everyone, which although true, in a tight house can also be tedious.
But whatever the case really was, I really wasn’t shocked she was let go.
On the other side, I also know a 5-11 former volleyball player stunning blond, nice Christian girl who handled all the physical stuff fairly easily. She’d done forest serice hotshots, the guys all liked her and held the boundaries, but she decided not to go through with it and went for the beach pro circuit, then got married to a firefighter and had kids.
I have tremendous respect for women who earn their way without asking for corners to be cut or standards lowered
Comment by thor on 1/26 @ 4:41 am #
They should hire more women to be firefighters. I’d make a gaggle of women surround a fire and then have ‘em all talk about their day-to-day problems. No oxygen no fire. Simple.
Comment by Lt. York on 1/26 @ 4:41 am #
Comment by JD on 1/26 @ 1:59 am #
Ahhh, yes, but maybe not for long.
The Cubbies have some new, local [Omaha] owners.
Can’t wait to score seats at Wrigley…never been.
Comment by Lt. York on 1/26 @ 4:42 am #
No oxygen no fire. Simple
Laugh out loud funny…
Comment by thor on 1/26 @ 5:34 am #
Since Obama is God, I think atoms do a lot of touching, kissing, even fisting one another.
Fox News, you gotta love ‘em.
Comment by Simon on 1/26 @ 5:47 am #
“They recruit them, and then they beat them up,†claims attorney Thomas Hoegh, who is handling at least two lawsuits against the Fire Department. “They encourage the women to join the department, then look what happens to them. They are all getting hurt badly.â€Â
Most of the injuries, he says, “are occurring during training activities. One wonders what is going on here. There is a double standard. They are encouraging them to join, then they do everything in their power to try to get rid of them.â€Â
And when the Fire Department excludes female recruits, then old Tommy boy will be right behind those poor oppressed girls suing the Department for sexual discrimination.
Comment by Sdferr on 1/26 @ 7:06 am #
Hmmm, looks to me like PC engineering is one of those dirty, ineffectual jobs that someone has gotta do. Wonder how it pays?
Comment by N. O'Brain on 1/26 @ 7:18 am #
“Comment by Challeron on 1/25 @ 10:56 pm #
Does anyone know what Parsnip does for a living?”
Intestinal polyp.
Comment by N. O'Brain on 1/26 @ 7:23 am #
hor, on the other hand, has made a career out of being moral and intellectual slime mold.
Comment by PRESIDENT Barack H. Obama, esq. on 1/26 @ 7:32 am #
People burning to death is not as important as making sure women’s feelings aren’t hurt by the knowledge that most firefighters are men.
If you disagree, you are a horrid, horrid person.
Comment by Jeff Y. on 1/26 @ 7:40 am #
Darleen wrote, Jobs should be strictly sex-neutral. Make the standard, get the job.
While I agree with the general point of your post, I don’t agree with this. Many other factors ought to be considered, such as culture and cost. If only a very few women can make it in, then the costs of accommodation could be unreasonable. Also, male and female work cultures are very different.
I agree with one standard, but let’s not pretend men and women are the same just because they meet the same standard. Let’s not pretend that a standard captures the whole job. Traditional sex roles may still have their place.
Comment by Sdferr on 1/26 @ 7:48 am #
You know what’s a better job than PC Social Engineering? PC Engineering Engineering! Brilliant!
Comment by Bob Reed on 1/26 @ 7:54 am #
Darleen,
I couldn’t agree more about the job standards being the ultimate measure of who get’s the job…
I only used the term wingman because, well, that’s what they’re called…
I for one believe in both gender and race blindness in our society…
Comment by Kirk on 1/26 @ 8:38 am #
Me too. At least as long as it is the another race and the other gender that is blind.
Comment by otcconan on 1/26 @ 8:40 am #
“People burning to death is not as important as making sure women’s feelings aren’t hurt by the knowledge that most firefighters are men.
If you disagree, you are a racist.”
Fixed that for ya.
Comment by bigbooner on 1/26 @ 8:59 am #
Saw a video once (think it was San Francisco) where they secretly taped the women in the fireman’s training class trying to do some of the physical stuff. My wife and I thought it was pretty funny. The guys doing the filming got in trouble of course. John Stossell did a show about the difference between men and women. He did a segment about firefighters. Bella Abzug said they should invent “electric axes”. I shit you not.
Comment by Alec Leamas on 1/26 @ 8:59 am #
Housefires are sexist, or something, methinks.
The real object of this exercise, viz, putting women into these jobs, is to emasculate the kind of men who traditionally do them, and thus further emasculate the culture.
My uncle is a 6′5″, red-headed, broad-shouldered firefighter; two of his four boys followed him into fire service. He sort of stands out as a blinking neon sign that feminism is mostly stupid and dangerous. He’s the sort you want to see out your window at the top of the ladder after being awaken by smoke and sirens.
Comment by Jeffersonian on 1/26 @ 9:11 am #
The real object of this exercise, viz, putting women into these jobs, is to emasculate the kind of men who traditionally do them, and thus further emasculate the culture.
DING!!
Comment by Darleen on 1/26 @ 9:13 am #
Jeff Y
There may indeed be some things to be considered due to innate differences; however, the baseline from which to work is a sex/race/age neutral one. Very few jobs rely as much on physical strength and stamina like firefighting. Even paramedics are not AS physically involved. My eldest daughter was a paramedic for several years before becoming an RN … there were times called for physical strength (hefting very obese patients) but nothing of the sustained stuff that is involved in firefighting.
Comment by Darleen on 1/26 @ 9:18 am #
bigbooner, they covered that on page 3 and is was LA not Frisco
Comment by Alec Leamas on 1/26 @ 9:24 am #
“The real object of this exercise, viz, putting women into these jobs, is to emasculate the kind of men who traditionally do them, and thus further emasculate the culture.
DING!!”
The way you can tell is that feminists generally hold these jobs in low esteem. They hate baby-killing Marines, but want some level of parity in the numbers of women who have the opportunity to kill babies in the Marines. Remember when marriage was a Patriarchal institution for the ownership of womyn and the production of unpaid labor – to be utterly abolished? Now we want two fellows who can’t leave one another’s rear ends alone to dress in white gowns because they deserve all that wonderful exploitation that heterosexuals enjoy in marriage. Just another way to destroy things, as I see it.
Comment by BJTexs on 1/26 @ 10:07 am #
Here’s a very simple criteria that will be widely ignored in such circumstances:
If, in order to achieve a numbers based balance in a particular profession, one must suspend logic and common sense, then one should reevaluate the necessity of the balance regardless of accounting style figuring.
I know, I live in a radical world where critical thinking is actually a good thing!
Comment by Jeffersonian on 1/26 @ 10:28 am #
Alec, #53, I couldn’t agree more. The Belmont Club discussed this from the perspective of the Left as ichneumon wasp. Quite a propos.
Comment by Alec Leamas on 1/26 @ 10:51 am #
Feminists as freeloading wasps? I like it.
The thing of it is, I don’t know any woman in her right mind who wants to be a firefighter into her adulthood. Most normal girls just figure “gee, there are a whole bunch of other things that I could do competently, and I like men so I don’t feel the need to compete with them under a set of rigged rules” and leave things there, I think. You have to have a very certain kind of chip on your shoulder to go through life demanding that absolutely everything conform to your momentary whims and desires, and needing to experience the thrill of seeing big brother subjugate men. What kind of great cosmic injustice would it be if women just accepted that they can’t be firemen anyway? I don’t think it is such a big deal at all.
These must be the few girls who haven’t figured out that they can get the men to do the dirty business of putting out fires by batting their eyelashes and showing a little leg. If they play their cards right, they could get their mitts on the better part of a fireman’s disposable income too.
Comment by ushie on 1/26 @ 11:21 am #
I wanted to serve in the armed forces, but I’m too small and feeble (and have gotten more so over the years). Darn the physical training–! Just prop me up and hand me a specially-engineered gun that weighs 2 pounds and has a hair-trigger! What could possibly go wrong?
Comment by Jeff Y. on 1/26 @ 11:36 am #
Darleen wrote, the baseline from which to work is a sex/race/age neutral one. Very few jobs rely as much on physical strength and stamina like firefighting.
The differences between men and women are not just in the composition of muscles. There are huge cognitive differences as well. Ignoring such differences in the aggregate is unwise.
Comment by Tony LaVanway on 1/26 @ 12:04 pm #
I gotta give props to The Troll, 34. was really funny.
Don’t answer Troll,you’ll kill the moment
tony
south haven,mi
Comment by Sdferr on 1/26 @ 12:09 pm #
The femur-pelvis angle is different too, (which goes to the model’s crossover gait and sexy sashay) apparently resulting in higher knee injury rates in female basketball and soccer players.
Comment by MarkD on 1/26 @ 12:30 pm #
#34, winner.
Anybody know how to get coffee out of a keyboard?
Comment by Darleen on 1/26 @ 2:13 pm #
There are huge cognitive differences as well.
And which would those be that you would disallow females (or males) from any particular job?
Understand, I don’t want to shut women out of firefighting …only that they be treated exactly as men are in training and testing. Ditto any other career – from engineering to medicine to teaching.
Comment by Synova on 1/26 @ 3:58 pm #
Bravo to Julie Wolf.
I can imagine wanting to be a firefighter, and doing that every day for work. (I *seriously* considered asking for EOD when I joined the Air Force, and sometimes wish I had.) It’s not probably a *common* thing for women to want to do, but that’s no reason not to allow women in the job.
What I don’t have a lot of sympathy for is thinking that physical requirements should be modified so that women qualify. (If what is tested is simply *fitness* then different scores for gender or age make sense.)
Because another thing I wanted to be when I was a kid was a stewardess. What a person gets to do is limited by physical factors and while it truly sucks to be too short or too tall for some job or other… that’s life.
Deal.
Comment by Mikey NTH on 1/26 @ 4:25 pm #
#51 Darleen:
Such as carrying a heavy load of personal protective gear and then heading into a very challenging environment, and then having to move heavy weights, such as firefighting gear or a limp body (and moving a limp body, as anyone has who has tried to move a drunk friend in college, is physically taxing).
Comment by Alec Leamas on 1/26 @ 4:45 pm #
Also – even if a woman can perform an individual physical task once to qualify, what is often left unmentioned is the ability to perform a series of physically demanding tasks, particularly under time pressure. Add to this the longer rest and recovery times of women – you see where we are going . . .
I just can’t be convinced that the unavailability of a discrete class of “men’s jobs” to women is such a horrible thing – in fact, I think this actually helps to make the sexes appreciate the unique contributions of each.
Comment by bigbooner on 1/26 @ 5:04 pm #
GENDER NORMING: Grading student, not on merit alone, but on subjective gender expectations by staff based on student’s gender coupled with class performance. An attempt to “level the playing field.
Wasn’t the military doing this for awhile? And if so are they still?
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