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Comment by nozzlegear | Hacker News Reader

> Anyhow, I just don't see the point of pointing out that a few women do some or all of these jobs.

My point was more to address the claim that women can't do the jobs, when that's patently false and we can all see with our eyes that they do actually work these jobs right now. I don't mean to claim that the crews I see are 50% women and 50% men†. Obviously women work these jobs at a much lower rate than men do, and whether that's due to harassment or not is an interesting thought exercise but best left to someone other than me to chew on.

† One area that I do think is close to even is farm work, at least in my part of rural Iowa. Working on a dairy from age 14 to 20, and just living in the area for my entire life, I see (anecdotally) just as many women doing manual farm labor, driving tractors and handling livestock as I do men.

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The vast majority of women physically can't do the jobs as well as a man can, that is a fact. Yes, the women you see working those jobs are the exception to the rule, and would in fact be outclassed by a man with the same level of training and experience.

You're making the assumption that the jobs require exerting oneself to the peak of human physical capability. If that were so, then yes, a man is going to outperform a woman — I don't dispute that men are just biologically advantaged in terms of physical strength. But most blue collar work doesn't require the kind of physical prowess that only a man can reach at the extremes of our biology. From my own experience with farm and dairy work, the vast majority of tasks and labor are well within the capabilities of women regardless of biology.

Have you ever worked one of these jobs? I have. The average woman is not able to carry two 70 pound boxes of cable up four flights of stairs, multiple times and all day long, for ~$18 an hour.

Yes, I have literally said multiple times that I have personal experience working one of these jobs. From age 14 to 20 I worked on a dairy milking 800 head of cows, feeding them, scraping their barns and bottle feeding the calves. We did it without air conditioning in 110° heat and humidity, and we did it without heating in -25° cold and snow, because no matter how much I didn't want to work, those cows needed to be milked and fed.

It was tough physical work, and believe it or not most of my coworkers were in fact women, including my own sisters when they were old enough to get a job.

Feeding baby cows is not as strenuous as actual manual labor.

And again, ask yourself, who can do this job faster and more effectively? A team of men or a team of women?

It will always be the men, no matter how badly this bothers you.

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