I was told: ‘Don’t be silly, women don’t become surgeons’

Women working in overwhelmingly male-dominated industries are used to raised eyebrows, and sometimes even outright insults. But, as five of them tell Joanna Moorhead, the rewards of their jobs more than outweigh the pitfalls.

It is 32 years since the Sex Discrimination Act became law, women make up almost half of the British workforce, and yet there are still occupations where women number less than 3% of all workers. Male-dominated industries, such as train driving and demolition work, tend to be better paid than their female-dominated equivalents, so there’s a clear economic reason why women might benefit from breaking into them.

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