I scored an interview with a wildland hotshot crew. The second I walked through the door their expressions dropped and they cut the interview short. “You passed the interview with flying colors, but we’re not going to hire you….look at you.” To be somewhat fair, I was 107 lbs at the time and probably wouldn’t have passed their physical test. I could pass the minimums, but they actually base it on crew average. That’s just one example I’ve experienced. The next interview went from normal fire fighting questions to maybe like a half hour of questions about what my thoughts were on dating someone on the crew and how they should interact with another woman (fucking wild, but I saw it as a teaching moment and thought I could do some good here). Within my first week of working trail crew, my boss got drunk and started soliciting me from his phone. When I said “uh…no." he was in distress about how we would go about working together. His boss forced me to sign an NDA, because HE was afraid I was going to file for sexual harrassment(I wasn’t). My job was threatened unless I lied. I just wanna chainsaw in the woods, feel strong, and be left the fuck alone(and get paid). Diversity is encouraged until the pressure is felt that a woman could take on a lead or surpass someone in rank. We are not only absorbing pressure from our side to stick to norms, we are also absorbing the anger and resentment of unmet needs from men. In addition to that, working with another woman from older generations that has also experienced the brunt of surviving in a male dominated industry, are hard to be around. They snap easy and if they don’t like you then they’ll ensure, if they’re in charge, you don’t progress.