Women In The Collision Repair Industry; Why Not? Part I

Recently, I read a question posed on Body Shop Business by a young lady who is in college and pondering her choices upon graduation. She is, or has been, pursuing an art degree but feels she would possibly be better suited to become a part of the collision repair industry. I\’m almost sure that the parents who paid for her art degree may have a different opinion, but overall my thoughts are, sure, why not? If it turns out that this was definitely not a good fix, then she at least gave it a try. You have to admire her sense of adventure. How many women do you know that are PDR Technicians?  I looked it up and there is no record of a woman PDR Technician. Does that mean that there shouldn\’t be?

This young lady goes on to say that her interest in this field comes from a love of cars. She believes that combining her love of art and love of cars would be an awesome melding. She wants to know if there is a place for women in the auto body trade. Her concern, just like mine, is that after researching it she also discovered that there are almost, if not no, examples of women in this trade. She continues in saying that she spoke to a woman in the front office of the muffler shop she had visited to get work done. This front office person said that no one would hire her even if she did pursue it because she would cause too much of a distraction to the men working in the back. My first thought was that she would cause an attraction issue, but the woman said that it was because the men would not feel that she would be able to do the actual job or simply didn\’t know what she was doing. I think that\’s poppycock.