I had been working just over a year in my first Forest Service job and was the inspector for our aerial fertilization contract. Northwest Pennsylvania, where the Allegheny National Forest is, had a terrible problem with deer. We used a helicopter to spread a granular fertilizer to give the tree seedlings a boost; to try to get them above the deer browse line as soon as possible. I’d been working with the three-man contract crew for several days. The pilot, mechanic, and project manager were all old enough to be my fathers, and they had been great to work with. They were conscientious, wanted to do a good job, and were easy to be around. As with any aviation project there tends to be a lot of hurry-up-and-waiting, and these down times were when we got to know each other. The pilot had flown in Vietnam and had some great stories. I was enjoying working on this project with these men.
Being a small forest in the East back in the early 90s we didn’t have a dispatch center. Every office had a base radio at the front desk, and whomever was working the front desk usually answered. There were other base stations scattered around in case others needed to talk or the front desk person was busy. And no one worked in the office on Saturdays outside of fire/recreation season. Which this was.
It was a sunny but cool spring Saturday, and we were waiting for the weather to cooperate so the pilot could get up in the air and start spreading fertilizer. The guys were standing around the back of their truck shooting the shit while I was sitting in my truck catching up on paper work. I had the windows down and could hear them talking, though I wasn’t paying much attention. Until I distinctly heard the pilot say to the others, “Maybe she’ll give us all blow jobs while we wait.” They all laughed.
So many emotions swept over me at once. Shock. Anger. Sadness. And then the worst one of all — fear. I was alone with these three men deep in the forest. No one was at the other end of my mobile radio. Cell phones didn’t exist. For the first time in my job with the Forest Service I was afraid. And it wasn’t fear of wild animals or being struck by lightning or falling off a rock bluff. I was afraid of these men who just seconds before I liked. And trusted.
I didn’t know what to do. I never once thought of confronting them. It was three against one. I never thought of just driving away, back to the office. What would I say to my male boss? I sat in my truck, my mouth dry, my heart racing, nearly sick to my stomach, fighting the tears. “Do not fucking cry,” I thought to myself. I didn’t think they’d rape me, but I didn’t know these men, not really. So, I did what a lot of women in my shoes have done for decades, if not centuries. I pretended like it hadn’t happened, that I hadn’t heard it. I did stay in my truck until it was time to actually start working, and I’m sure I couldn’t meet any of their eyes. When we finished up for the day I drove back to the office, dropped off my stuff, and went home.
I never told a soul.
Not my significant other. Not my boss. Not the contracting officer or any of the other women I worked with. Because I was fucking embarrassed. Because I didn’t want to come off as a candy ass. Because I didn’t want to be “that girl.” Because I didn’t want to bring up blow jobs with the 50+ year old, male Contracting Officer. Stuff it down, Duncan, and maybe you can actually convince yourself someday that it really never did happen. Thirty years later ,and I haven’t forgotten how afraid they made me.
This is the price of admission women have had to pay since we entered the workforce. Particularly a male-dominated, para-military organization like the US Forest Service. “What’s the matter, it was just a joke, can’t you take a joke?” “Geesh, lighten up, will you?” “We were just kidding!” “You need to grow a thicker skin!” “If you can’t take a little good-natured ribbing, maybe you don’t belong here.” “If you can’t run with the big dogs you best stay on the porch.” And the price fluctuates wildly.
Soon I went off on my first Western wildland fire assignment on a twenty-person Type 2 Initial Attack (T2IA) crew. We had five women on our crew which really wasn’t that unusual in the mid-nineties, and all five of us were Type 2 Firefighters. Meaning we were the lowest in the pecking order. We fire-hopped all across Washington for a 24-day roll. One fire camp was run by the Washington DNR (state) and was located at the fairgrounds outside Chelan. Three of us women headed to the shower after shift, and just as we walked up the woman running the shower unit flipped the cardboard sign around from “women” to “men.” There was only one shower unit as opposed to two separate units, one each for men and women, as in the previous fire camps. “Hey,” said September to the shower lady. “What about us? We need showers.” “Sorry, evening hours are for the men. Women’s hours are during the day.” A lot of women worked in support roles in fire camps (still do) – finance, plans, information – and so could shower during the day while the firefighters were out on the fire. “We’ve been out on the fire, too, with our crew. We’re dirty and we’d like to shower.” The shower lady looked us up and down like she didn’t believe us. “Looks like you’re out of luck,” she said, turning her back on us. “This is bullshit!” said September. “C’mon,” she said to Diane and me, and we walked back to our crew sleeping area. September walked directly up to our Crew Boss, Fred, and told him what happened. “Are you serious?” he asked. He was as surprised as we were. To his great credit he didn’t tell us to get over it or that we were out of luck or that we were being demanding prima donnas. “I’ll take care of it,” he said and walked off toward Logistics. The next evening when we got back to camp there was an additional shower unit. I don’t know if it was Fred going to Logistics to complain or if there had already been an additional one on order, but he stood up for us, and that counted.
At that same fire camp the WA DNR used male inmates as the kitchen crew. They cooked the food, served it, and cleaned up after us. In the chow line one night I reached for a bowl, and an inmate put his hand over mine and held it there on top of the bowls. I looked up, startled, and he smiled and winked at me. I quickly pulled my hand away.
We moved on to a new fire outside of Twisp. After a few days, a couple of us headed over to the showers after shift. They had big blue “tents” set up as the changing rooms. The tents were attached to the side of a semi-truck which had the showers inside. We’d change out of our dirty fire clothes, grab a large paper towel (really, they’re made out of paper), and walk the four steps up into the semi to shower. I don’t know who noticed it, but the guy who ran the shower unit had set up his lawn chair behind the women’s semi-truck. The four steps we had to walk up into the truck had no drape or tarp behind them. He’d moved his lawn chair exactly far enough back so that he could watch the naked women walking up and down the steps. He happily sat there like Jabba the Hutt perving out to all of us in our birthday suits.
The price of admission that roll – shitty hygiene, a stranger’s unwelcome touch, and good hygiene with a view.
I later snagged a spot on the Asheville Hotshots, one of three leadership development hotshot crews. Our Superintendent (Supt), Dick Kastler, had spent his entire career, up until that job, in California on hotshot crews and engines. In his late forties then, he said he hated it when his crews were all men. He actively recruited women. Said we just made things better. Watered-down the testosterone and bravado. He said women were problem-solvers and good with details and worked smarter. He and our other two overhead (male) were great. Once on assignment somewhere in the Southeast I overheard two of the younger guys on the crew complaining about “girls in fire.” “Girls just don’t belong in fire,” one of them was saying to the other. This was a 19-year-old guy who I could out push-up and out pull-up (by a lot) every day in PT. While I had learned to stand up for myself, I was also mature enough to realize that he had no power over me, no say in any decision about women in fire or me on this hotshot crew. I let it go and continued to kick ass in PT.
After pulling a 36-hour shift burning out for four miles on a fire in Texas the Supt sent three of us back to move the rigs and get them ready. We organized them, bagged up the trash, etc. I don’t remember exactly what we were doing or what I had said, but one of the other guys called me bossy. These were two guys who were friends of mine (and still are today). I was so pissed. I grabbed his gloves and threw them as hard as I could into the dark forest (it was night). “Fuck you,” I said.
The price of admission was now not coming from outside but was starting to be charged by my peers, and sadly, my friends.
As I continued to gain more experience and achieve higher fire qualifications I struggled more to be accepted, to be treated like I belonged there. It should’ve been the other way around. It got exhausting trying to prove myself over and over again. When I went out on an assignment as a single resource it was rarely taken at face value that I earned my qual – it always took a few days for people to see I knew what I was doing. But when a guy showed up there was no question he was qualified. I would get so frustrated and angry. It didn’t help that I looked younger than my years. I was Task Force Leader Trainee on a fire in WA. After a few days, the BIA engine boss, a good kid who had become my right-hand guy, asked me how old I was. “Thirty-five,” I said. “Oh, whew, good. We thought you were in your mid-twenties, and we were wondering how you got to be TFLD-Trainee so quickly.” Translation – we thought you were fast-tracked. I soon learned to just do my job, do it well, and let my actions speak. Folks would see that I knew what I was doing, did it well, and that I deserved to be there. But in the meantime, we would lose a few days of trust that often were very important.
When I was the Deputy Fire Chief (Chief 2) on the Klamath National Forest in CA, my vehicle was striped, and I had CH2 on it as my identifier. Most other regions hadn’t done this yet, but it had been a standard in CA for years. On my first fire assignment in CA since moving there I drove my rig, CH2, to the Shasta-Trinity National Forest for a fire assignment. On at least four or five different occasions, I was asked what my job was on the Klamath. This would be from people who would see me getting in and out of CH2. I would often point to my rig. They would just look at me, confused. Then I’d say “Chief 2.” “Oh! Shit, sorry.” It happened over and over. At one point a young man light-heartedly elbowed me, smiling conspiratorially, and said “Does Chief 2 know you’re driving his rig?” “Yeah. She knows,” I smiled back. He looked at me blankly. Like he couldn’t put it together. Finally, I said, “I’m Chief 2.” The look on his face was pretty funny, and he apologized profusely. I never lost my temper, I never got angry, but it was frustrating. Why the automatic assumption that there was no way I was Chief 2? Partly because there were very few women at that level. Partly because of the overwhelming numbers of men vs women in wildland, period.
After the fire on the Shasta-Trinity I was reassigned to the Moonlight Fire on the Plumas and Lassen National Forests. It was a big fire with a lot of resources. I was working on my Division Group Supervisor (DIVS) qualification. Division Supes are typically the highest level position on the actual fireline. Sometimes there are Branch Directors, but the DIVS are each in charge of a chunk of the ground (eg Division F) on the fire or a group of resources as (in a Structure Protection Group). It’s a lot of responsibility, and a DIVS will usually have numerous resources assigned under them – crews, engines, dozers, water tenders, and other overhead.
I was initially assigned to a quieter division under a qualified DIVS as my trainer. We had a mix of federal and state resources including a CALFire Dozer Boss/Dozers. My DIVS trainer asked me to tie in with the Dozer Boss and assign the dozers a task to connect some handline with dozer line. I drove over to meet with the Dozer Boss and pulled my rig up next to him. He came over and stood at my window, and I went into great detail about the task I was assigning him. When I finished and asked if he had any questions he said, “Wow, you have beautiful eyes.” Yeah. This was someone subordinate to me in the chain of command. And all he could do is comment on my appearance. It flustered me because I didn’t expect it. I have never expected this kind of behavior, and so I’m always surprised. I asked him if he understood the assignment and he replied that he did. I drove away, shaking my head and thinking to myself, what the fuck?
Later on that same shift, I had to tie in with that Dozer Boss again. CALFire personnel work 24 hour shifts (24 on, 24 off), and I needed to ask him if they were in the middle of shift or at the end. Drove up to him again, asked if they were working all night or rotating out. He said, “We’re here tonight then off shift in the morning. Why don’t you bring your sleeping bag out and spend the night with me?” For fuck’s sake. “No,” I said. “That’s not going to happen. Let’s just keep it business between us.” He just smiled. Again, I was his fireline supervisor and also outranked him in our day-to-day positions. Yet he felt like this kind of behavior was perfectly okay. Because, obviously for him, it had been.
A few days later I got moved to a different division that was considerably more active so that I could get a thorough and challenging trainee assignment. I found myself with about 10 hotshot crews including one of the crews from my home forest. At a lull in the action, I told the Supt and one of the Captains, both good friends of mine, about the CALFire guy hitting on me. They both shook their heads, but they weren’t really surprised. The Captain offered to go kick the guy’s ass. And while I appreciated the sentiment, I told him it wasn’t worth him getting in trouble over some douche bag. A couple days later the fire had blown out on our division so several of us (DIVSs, hotshot Supts, Branch Directors) were meeting with neighboring division resources and the night shift resources to develop a new strategy. As we gathered at the meeting spot, I saw the asshole Dozer Boss get out of his truck. “Shit,” I said. “What?” asked Johnny, my good friend and Supt of Klamath Hotshots who I’d told about this guy. “There’s that jerk who hit on me.” “Which one is he?” Johnny asked. “Don’t do anything,” I said. “I won’t, I just want to know which one he is.” I pointed him out. A few minutes later Johnny said to me, “Hey, do I need to pick up the dogs at the kennel when I get home?” I looked at him like he was high on meth. “What?” I didn’t know it, but the Dozer Boss had walked up behind me. Johnny said, “You know, since I’m getting de-mobed before you, do I need to pick up the dogs at home?” Now I was tracking! “Oh, no, I didn’t take them to the kennel, I had Joey come over and pet sit,” I said. I couldn’t look at anyone else, because I knew the other hotshot Supts were wondering what the hell we were talking about. They knew Johnny and I were not a couple. But Jonny didn’t stop there. He started laying it on pretty thick. He pulled his Nomex pants away from his waist to show how much weight he’d lost that season and said “I sure can’t wait to eat your home cookin’ this winter.” Oh, hell. I nearly busted out laughing, but instead I said “Well, you know how much I love to cook for you, Honey.” “Yes, you need to fatten me,” he continued. Right about then the Branch Directors showed up so we all gathered to talk about the fire. After that was over, Johnny and I were leaning on another Supt’s truck when that guy said “What the fuck was that about back there? Picking up the dogs?” We all cracked up. Johnny told Jay the story, and Jay said “Was it the blond-haired guy with glasses and a shitty mustache?” I said, “Yeah.” “Holy shit. Remember the old Looney Tunes cartoons? Where the Coyote would imagine the Roadrunner as a cooked bird on a platter? He was looking at you like that.” “Ewwwww, gross.” Then Jonny said, “By the way, Riva, smooth move when you said ‘What?’” We laugh about that to this day.
Did I report that asshole? No. I didn’t have any confidence that anything would happen to the guy. Doubted he’d be kicked off the fire, and I really doubted he’d face any repercussions back at his unit. Frankly, I was worried that I would be the one labeled as a “trouble maker” or a chick who couldn’t handle the tough work environment. My brothers looked out for me, and for that I was very grateful.
What wore me down the most over my career wasn’t the blatant harassment (although that certainly sucked) but the nearly constant subtle acts of discrimination and bias (conscious and unconscious) by mostly men but by women as well. That was much more prevalent. One of those instances occurred when I worked on a national forest in Florida. I had met and bought a house with my future husband, an enlightened and supportive partner who also was a firefighter and former hotshot but who had less experience and had lower qualifications than I did. We were out mopping-up a prescribed burn down the road from our work center. He and I were working with a young guy a couple years into his career. We blew out one of the rear dual tires on the engine driving over a palmetto stump. As the guys wondered aloud what we should do I said, “The same thing happened to me a few weeks ago. Since it’s one of the dualies, we can drive it back to the work center. There’s a floor jack and spare tires there. We can change it on the spot.”
It was like I had never spoken.
“Boy, I don’t know if we can drive it like that,” said one of them. “We may have to have it towed into town to Larry’s to get it changed,” said the other. Again, I told them we could drive it slowly back to the work center and change it there. Again, I was ignored. Finally ,the young guy got on the radio and called the Fire Management Officer at the work center. After he explained the situation, the FMO said, “Just drive it back here slowly, we’ve got spares and we can change it with the floor jack.” “I knew Mike would know what to do,” he said to my boyfriend.
I fumed. I was so angry it blurred my vision. But what was even worse, is that my own beloved boyfriend, the one whose support had been unfailing, had completely let me down.
I was mostly silent the rest of the day, and went off to mop-up by myself. When we got home, before we even went in the house, my future husband asked me what was wrong. He knew something was, but he really did not know. So, I told him. I saw the regret and sorrow in his face as he realized what he had done. I actually broke down crying out of sheer frustration as I told him how if the one man who loved me above all others, who encouraged me and was proud of me, could dismiss me and what I said because I was a woman, then I was doomed. I was fucked. There was no hope for me as a woman in fire any longer. I went on and on, blubbering about how it sucked having to prove myself over and over. That when a man steps on the fireline everyone assumes he has earned it, and only if he proves otherwise through his actions is he taken to task. That when a woman shows up on the fireline everyone assumes she was fast-tracked and so she has to prove herself first, through her actions, that she deserves to be there and lead others. Right then and there I seriously thought about quitting. Not quitting the Forest Service, but quitting fire. Which I loved. It was not the first time, nor was it the last, I thought about quitting fire.
Certainly, sexual harassment has, and is, taking its toll on women in fire. But I think it’s these constant and pervasive acts of bias that are driving far more many women out of fire, particularly once they start moving into leadership and supervisory positions. This shit beats us down, gradually but constantly. Most women are “one of the guys” while they’re at the lowest level. But when women start moving up ahead of their male peers, especially on the same module, that’s often when hostilities start. I’ve seen it time and again, and on a nearly monthly basis I have young women reach out to me who are struggling with this exact same thing. Some insecure dude (or dudes) is threatened by their intelligence and work ethic and begins to systematically beat them down. Constantly questioning their ability. Telling everyone she only got the job “because she’s a woman.” Making up lies that she slept her way to the job. It happens everywhere all the time. Still. And I used to say, “Hang in there, sis. Fight it. Don’t let them win.” But I don’t do that any longer. Just a few days ago I was on the phone with a young woman I’ve never met who reached out to me through social media. She was on the verge of quitting, giving up her wildland apprentice position, because of the way she was being treated by her module. She fought back tears as she told me, “I love this job so much. But I don’t think I can handle this abuse much longer. It’s not worth my mental health.”
As an awesome friend of mine said, “And we endure much of it in silence, or through humor, or through being grateful for good men in this field while simultaneously being let down by so many of them. ”
As women try to move into higher management positions, AFMOs/FMOs, I have witnessed and experienced the now “normative” hard core Type A “ops” bias; that mostly only people (men) who’ve been hotshots and/or smokejumpers for several years are of value in AFMO/FMO (and higher) positions. And, of course, this isn’t anything personal or against hotshots and smokejumpers. I repeatedly see men and women in high positions, who appear open-minded and say they support gender and ethnic diversity, continue to hold this attitude, and I think many of them don’t even realize their biases. It’s an insult to those who came up on engines, in fuels, aviation, prevention, dispatch. And for those of us women who do/did embrace and model the more “masculine” leadership traits that are expected in order to move up, we are often “punished” for those same traits. Bossy, harsh, abrasive, aggressive, a bitch, “too much.” Words rarely attributed to men in the same negative ways they are to women. This makes us “unlikeable” which somehow holds more value as a desired trait for women than men. Yet, for women who don’t model those traits, then that means they don’t have good “command presence” or show “strong leadership.” It often feels like a no-win situation because it actually is. And this has a name; it’s called the Double Bind, and it’s been studied extensively in private industry at the executive level.
The price of admission for a woman to be successful and advance in a career in wildland fire (in any male-dominated profession) is steep and doesn’t seem to be coming down any time soon. The numbers of women in federal wildland fire are on a sharp decline and have been now for a few years. I’m probably less optimistic now than I have ever been that things will improve. Implicit bias is extremely difficult to overcome. As a lot of us women have said, we can’t turn the freightliner ourselves. It takes men. And a lot of them to take the lead. To stand up and LOUDLY call BS. To model the right behaviors and be open to self-improvement. To sincerely examine their own biases. To be vocal allies. To want to make a better place for their daughters and nieces to work. I have heard from a lot of great men that they didn’t “get it” until they had daughters themselves. Many have honestly admitted they were once part of the problem. I wish it didn’t take them having a daughter to shift their behavior and mindset. I wish they were able to think of their sisters and moms and women friends on the first day they stepped into the job. I hope my pessimism is inaccurate. But if hopes and wishes were fruit and fishes it would be Christmas every day.
