The role of women’s networks and why visibility is important

Georgina Ralph is a Crew Manager working in a busy fire station in Leeds. She also heads up the West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service’s Women’s Network. She has just marked ten years in the fire and rescue service and says she joined because she was inspired by firefighters who came to her primary school.

It’s heartening to hear about the impact that community fire safety can have on a child’s life and at an event to celebrate International Women’s Day, she tells me with huge passion, “it’s the best job in the world.”

I ask her if much has changed in the last decade and she says she’s seen a lot more women looking at the fire service as a career. In her service there are over 90 women firefighters which make up 10% of the total operational workforce. “When I go to an incident, I’m not the only woman anymore. There can be three of us at an incident and it’s wonderful.”

Nationally, the percentage of firefighters who are women remains stubbornly low at just under 10%. Although when Georgina joined in 2016, the national figure was just 5%. There are only six women Chief Fire Officers across the UK. In West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service, the most senior operational woman today is at Group Commander level.

Standing up and being visible is hard, says Georgina. She is comfortable with being the ‘face’ of the women in her service, adding: “I know that a lot of women don’t want that. They don’t want to be in the spotlight and I respect that. Visibility is really important and you can see it at incidents, on social media and in other ways showing that women can do this job.”

Influencing uniform and fit

Against that backdrop, Georgina is upbeat about the impact the Women’s Network is having in her service. She talks about the strategic influence they are having to change policy that affects women, starting with what they wear.

Zooming in on uniform and fit, Georgina laughs when she recalls: “When I first joined, I looked like I was wearing my dad’s uniform.” She quickly qualifies this by saying the is the first in her family to join the service but her point is well made: uniform designed for men does not fit women.

“Everything back then was too big, ill fitting, massive, but just recently we’ve just had our first full issue of female PPE,” she says.

“We’ve listened to research, listened to staff and worked collaboratively to implement better sizes and better fitting uniform and PPE. We have some work being done behind the scenes, and I can say in my opinion where we are now is a massive improvement to where we were a decade ago.”

Georgina also talks about how she and the Women’s Network are seeking improvements in workwear as well. This means, for example, the everyday polo shirts where the material needs to be more breathable for women experiencing menopause. Later I speak to CFO John Roberts about fit when it comes to trousers. He tells me that getting the balance right between durability, cost and fit is a perennial problem.

The WYFRS Women’s Network is one of five networks in the service. DCFO Dave Walton is the strategic lead for them and gives the network a direct line into the senior level decision making process.

“We are able to communicate issues eloquently. It’s not just us having a moan,” she adds, with slight tongue in cheek. She recognises the value of the collective voice and sponsorship at a senior level. “It’s about our safety after all,” she reminds me.

And there are other allies in the service, notably the procurement department. “They have been amazing,” she responds when I ask her how those buying the kit for them know what women need and take that challenge to suppliers.

Part of the buying cycle is carrying out trials and Georgina says that those trials were traditionally done by men in the organisation. But not anymore.

“We’ve created a pool of women testers drawn from across the service who can take part in trials for a whole range of kit. Our greatest success so far has been for PPE used for water rescue where they trialled male and female samples from each supplier to work out what was the optimum fit for women.

“It’s been hugely beneficial to hear directly from those who wear the kit and know when we have to go further to find what works best for them well before they need to wear it an incident.”

This conversation took place in the margins of a special International Women’s Day event where staff and visitors were invited to watch a performance of Trailblazing, a one-woman play that shares the experience of women firefighters through the decades. It’s a powerful and at times poignant portrayal of how women in wartime, in the 1980s and today based on lived experience and historical records.

Ironically or perhaps inevitably, Jane who plays all three parts in Trailblazing, told me afterwards, that the trousers she wears for all her performances don’t fit quite right and were clearly meant for a man.

You can learn about Trailblazing in an interview with Professor Shane Ewen for the Emergency Services Times podcast. Listen below.