‘The anxieties just lift’: why domestic abuse refuges are turning to female tradespeople | Women

One of the main challenges in maintaining 64 homes for victims of domestic violence by Refuge is the reliance on a male-dominated workforce of electricians, plumbers and decorators.

“The presence of men can be distressing and trigger past traumas for our survivors,” said Lisa Cantwell-Hope, head of property services at the charity. “Male contractors need a companion to make our survivors feel more comfortable, and we always post a notice to all our residents telling them there will be a male in the building today. So it can be challenging and takes more time.”

Data from the Office for National Statistics shows there were 48,000 female tradespeople in the UK in 2021; this is a 41% growth on 2006, but this is still thought to be just 4% of the total trades workforce, with construction consistently ranking as the most male-dominated sector in the country.

Regionally, the West Midlands has the highest number of tradesmen (4.4% of all tradesmen, above London (2.98%) and the south-west (2.24%). They make up less than 1% of tradesmen in the East Midlands, north-east, Northern Ireland, Scotland, south-east and Wales, according to 2023 data from My Local Toolbox.

But there are clear signs that things are changing and women are increasingly entering the industry; The number of women taking on construction and engineering apprenticeships increased by 73% between 2019 and 2022.

This is welcome news for domestic violence charities like Refuge, who are slowly transitioning from mechanic to mechanic woman.

“I would be a happy woman if we could use female contractors, but there aren’t enough women right now,” Cantwell-Hope said. “But having them makes our job a lot easier and it makes it easier to get people into shelters, because there’s a shared understanding of sensitivity. They say they feel much more comfortable when there’s a woman on the property.”

“We must remember that our refuges are people’s homes, and as much as we need to preserve the building, we also need to make it therapeutically welcoming and comfortable.”

The charity is working with TaskHer, an online guide for tradesmen, to provide resources for female workers. The service was founded by Anna Moynihan and her husband in 2021 due to the difficulty of finding tradesmen when renovating their home.

“Whenever a tradesman came to our house, I saw that they were men and they always talked to my husband, not me,” Moynihan said. “It was really frustrating.”

After doing some research, they discovered that there was a huge unmet demand for tradeswomen from consumers, especially single women living alone, the LGBT community, and women who did not want men in their homes for religious reasons.

They then started receiving inquiries from domestic abuse charities. “From a personal perspective, we realized that they were actually experiencing the same problems as us, but on a larger scale,” Moynihan said. “It wasn’t necessarily about convenience; it was about creating an environment where the women living in their shelters could still feel safe.”

They are working with Refuge and other domestic violence charities to provide female workers in London, with the aim of expanding beyond the capital in the near future.

Erin, a 26-year-old electrician from London, has been working at Refuge for the past few months, doing everything from odd jobs to replacing consumer units in safe houses.

He said it was a no-brainer to take the job, as it was rewarding to be able to put one’s skills to good use in a scenario where a tradesman might have caused some concern.

“If you can make someone feel more comfortable in a situation, why wouldn’t you want to do it anyway?” he said. “You can feel it in the air, when you come in the anxieties go away a little bit and they can see who you are.”

He said that he met very few tradeswomen in his job, but the numbers started to increase in recent years. “I was the only girl on my course at the time, and I don’t think they had another course for at least a few years after that,” she said. “While I was at work and wandering around different places every day, I never came across a tradeswoman, let alone an electrician.”

She also said she still encounters some degree of sexism when doing business. “Have the older gentlemen watch over you and make sure you’re doing it right. I’m a baby face and I’m only six feet tall, which doesn’t help anything,” he said. “But I feel like things are starting to change. I now know a few female gas engineers, as well as plumbers, painters and decorators.”