—or I'll at least try to. Win, lose or draw, at times I'll have some people come up to me who are really difficult personality styles to deal with. Once I prove myself, they shake my hand and tell me I've proven myself as a woman in the skilled trades. I like to refer it back to them: I don't identify on this job site as a woman in the skilled trades. Here I identify as an ironworker, a welder, a boilermaker—a skilled trades professional. That is how I like to identify.
We need to change the workplace culture. We need to work on the emotional maturity and dysregulation that's in the culture. I think we need to really hold people accountable for the behaviours that happen in the workplace. We have to figure out how to create solutions around this. If we want to create a diverse, inclusive workplace culture, we have to include everyone in the conversation. We have to start gathering men as our allies to be part of this conversation, and sometimes just make it their idea, because that works better.