By Kiera Hay
The Albuquerque Journal
SANTA FE, N.M. — In July, the Santa Fe Fire Department graduated its latest batch of cadets from the Fire Academy. In the 17-member class was Faith Applewhite, the first woman to graduate from the Fire Academy in the past couple of years.
Her lonely presence is indicative of a larger trend.
Over the past year, the Santa Fe Fire Department employed around 158 people. Only 12 were women. Of those, eight were firefighters. Currently, seven women occupy various positions within the firefighting ranks — about 5 percent of the department’s total staff.
“I think, of course, we would like to see more women in the department, more women in the field. I think women bring a lot of compassion to the field,” Santa Fe Fire Chief Barbara Salas said recently.
But, she said, “I think the fire service has been known as a boys club for a really long time. Firefighting never comes up in people’s minds as a career choice for females.”
A male-heavy fire department is hardly unique to Santa Fe. A 2008 study conducted by Cornell University’s Institute for Women and Work found that fewer than 4 percent of the nation’s firefighters are women.
Those numbers have remained low over the past few decades despite an increasing influx of women into other traditionally male fields, including the military.
The 29 fire departments surveyed by Cornell with the most women had, on average, a firefighting force that was 14.5 percent female. More than half of paid fire departments surveyed had never hired a female firefighter.
The co-author of the study, Francine Moccio, suggested that women aren’t getting hired or recruited into the fire services “because of an occupational culture that is exclusionary and unequal employment practices in recruiting, hiring, assigning and promoting women generally.”
Salas, who earlier this month became Santa Fe’s first female fire chief, is less harsh.
She said that Santa Fe’s low percentage of female firefighters may have more to do with social and cultural messages that still don’t affirm firefighting as a legitimate professional choice for women.
The traditional image of the male as firefighter still looms in people’s minds, right down to small, often thoughtless details. Salas noted that, even today, “I don’t know how many times on a daily basis someone will call me a fireman.”
Katie Cassidy, a battalion leader in Santa Fe with more than two decades of experience in the field, said firefighting was “like any other traditional male-dominated job. A lot of females aren’t educated or trained in it. They probably don’t think about it because it’s not out there as a female-type job.”
“I think we as a society, we talk about firemen, not firefighters. Young little girls in grade school or whatever, when we talk about fireman, it doesn’t give them the idea it’s something they could do,” she said.
Recruitment practices
Salas dispels one misconception — that most women can’t handle the physical requirements of being a firefighter.
Before entering the Fire Academy, everyone is required to pass a number of checks including written and physical exams, she said. Most of the women who express interest in joining the fire department pass those preliminary tests.
In fact, Salas said she has yet to see a women drop out because she failed to meet physical expectations. With her slight build and 5-foot height, the chief herself could almost be a poster child for pushing through those physical challenges, which include carrying a 50-pound hose up and down four flights of stairs and climbing a 75-foot aerial ladder to make sure she had no fear of heights.
“There’s probably quite a few females out there that could do the job, and just don’t realize the job is here,” Cassidy said.
Women also tend to bring some very desirable qualities to the field, according to Salas. She noted that every woman in the Santa Fe Fire Department has been trained as a paramedic, for instance, “which says a lot about empathy, wanting to care for people.”
“I think this is the greatest job in the world. I think having a job where you can help people and truly make a difference in their lives — I think that’s huge, and I think that alone would get people to come, especially women, and join the fire department,” Salas said.
Women in Santa Fe just aren’t lining up to join the fire department, she said.
“The key is to find the interest at that level, to get people to realize firefighting isn’t just for men, it’s for women as well,” Salas said.
Cassidy agreed. “I’d definitely like to see more females in the field, but I don’t think it’s a problem. With some education, we could probably get more females in the field,” she said. But Salas also said that, while the department does engage in some general recruiting activities such as school visits and job fairs, it doesn’t do anything to target women specifically.
Interest in joining the fire department is already so high — the city received about 300 applicants for the 20 positions in its last academy — that officials ultimately don’t do much recruiting at all, she said.
“We’ve never felt the need to go out and try to get more than that. Maybe we need to change the way we do recruiting,” she said.
At the same time, “I think it’s important to have women in the department, but we also want to hire people capable of doing the job. If women are capable of doing that, we want them as part of the team,” Salas said.
Sexual harassment
The Santa Fe Fire Department has been hit with allegations of sexual harassment in recent years. In 2008, Regina Bryant, an 18-year firefighter, filed a formal complaint against fellow firefighter and union vicepresident Paul Moreno, who she said exposed himself to her and cornered her at the firehouse while demanding she have sex with him.
Among other things, Bryant, who said the bulk of the problems started around 2006, also alleged she had been subjected to a hostile work environment with harassment that included pornographic materials being left in women’s restroom and in DVD players, and being called names by male co-workers. She also said she was retaliated against after she filed the complaint against Moreno.
Another fire department employee, administrative assistant Nora Salazar, also said Moreno exposed himself to her. Salazar filed a complaint with the state Department of Workplace Solutions — the former Labor Department — claiming she was discriminated against based on her gender and a disability and that she suffered retaliation after she reported the alleged discrimination.
The Human Rights Division later determined Salazar was without sufficient probable cause to back her complaint. Salazar then filed suit against the city and members of the fire department in state district court. The case was transferred to federal court, where it was dismissed this spring.
Bryant filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and she and the city entered together into mediation under the auspices of that agency. The case concluded, and Bryant is now retired.
Moreno, who denied wrongdoing, was placed on administrative leave soon after the allegations and eventually fired by the city.
The city’s human resources director, Kristine Kuebli, said confidentiality issues prevented her from disclosing the terms, if any, of Bryant’s settlement agreement with the city.
Kuebli said she and Salas are committed to ensuring “that type of behavior doesn’t happen again” — part of which means educating new fire recruits on sexual harassment issues.
“Unfortunately, sometimes it takes a case like Regina’s to really send a message,” Kuebli said.
Both Salas and Cassidy said they’ve never felt discriminated against while working for the Santa Fe Fire Department. Salas noted, “Gender has never been an issue for me. I’ve been very, very lucky.”
“I didn’t experience any of that, and that’s probably why it made it so easy to get in the position I did,” she said. “I think in the fire department you’re genderless. You have to prove yourself every day.”
Cassidy said she thinks of herself as “just another firefighter.”
“I don’t separate myself as a female firefighter. I’m just another firefighter like the guys are,” she said. “I stay physically fit, try to do my job. I think the guys respect that.”
Salas said many of the city’s female firefighters leave the force because of family commitments.
The department’s typical schedule of 48 hours on, 96 hours off, doesn’t work very well for women who can’t, or simply don’t wish to, spend that block of time away from their children.
“The women we’ve lost, other than to retirement, have been to motherhood,” Salas said.
The women who do stay have tended to do well in working their way up the ranks. If anything, the handful of women now at the department tend to be in higher positions. Besides Salas, they count two battalion chiefs (third in the hierarchy behind chief and assistant chief) and one fire captain (fourth down the line). The others are a fire engineer and two firefighters/ paramedics.
“These women have really proven themselves and been able to come up through the ranks,” Salas said.
The department has a strict policy built around promotions, requiring employees to demonstrate certain knowledge and skills. “The best people get the job,” Salas said.
Copyright 2009 Albuquerque Journal