Episode #69: Welcome to the She Builds Show, I'm your host, Stefanie Olson. Today for Thanksgiving, I'm sharing an encore of what it's like to be a woman in a male-dominated industry, it's my life pretty much every day. But even from childhood, I always fit in with the guys and had a hard time fitting in with the girls, it never came easy to me to just have girlfriends. I'm pretty confident in my abilities and as a young child, this can make for some pretty catty relationships, so I preferred hanging out with the boys over investing in female relationships. The skill of being a good friend to a woman in my life has had to come through my maturity, and I highly value these relationships and know how important they are to me now, but when it didn't come easy as a kid, it was really difficult, so being in an industry where it's mainly male-dominated, for me, I kind of feel right at home. But, I also know that some women, for them, it can be really intimidating. My dream is for the construction industry to not feel that way, for women to be able to come in willingly and get welcomed with open arms. I'm hoping to be the doorway for women to come through and feel comfortable, but I see the answer to maybe some of this problem, the men in the industry need to really combine forces with the women, we need to be on the same team, we need to really have them encourage, teach and hire women who want to learn and just make it something that's normal to see men and women on a job site... That would be my dream. Happy Thanksgiving!
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