‘The anxieties just lift’: why domestic abuse refuges are turning to female tradespeople

One of the main challenges in maintaining the 64 homes for domestic abuse survivors run by Refuge is the reliance on a male-dominated workforce of electricians, plumbers and decorators.“The presence of men can be distressing and could trigger past traumas for our survivors,” said Lisa Cantwell-Hope, the head of property services at the charity. “Male contractors need an escort to make our survivors feel more comfortable, and we always put a notice out to all our residents saying there will be a male presence in the building today. So it can be challenging and takes up more time.”Data from the Office for National Statistics shows there were 48,000 tradeswomen in the UK in 2021, a growth of 41% from 2006, but it is thought this is still only about 4% of the total trades workforce, and construction is consistently ranked as the most male-dominated industry in the country.Regionally, the West Midlands has the highest number of tradeswomen (who make up 4.4% of all tradespeople, above London (2.98%) and the south-west (2.24%). In the East Midlands, north-east, Northern Ireland, Scotland, south-east and Wales, they make up less than 1% of tradespeople, according to 2023 data from My Local Toolbox.But there are clear signs that things are shifting and women are increasingly moving into the sector – the number of women taking construction and engineering apprenticeships rose by 73% between 2019 and 2022.This is welcome news for domestic abuse charities such as Refuge, which are slowly starting to shift from handymen to handywomen.“If we could just use female contractors, I’d be a happy woman, but there isn’t enough currently,” said Cantwell-Hope. “But having them makes our jobs a lot easier, and it makes it easier to get people in the refuges, because there’s that common understanding of the sensitivity. They say they feel much more relaxed having a female in the property.“We’ve got to remember our refuges are people’s homes, and as much as we need to maintain the building, we also have to make it therapeutically pleasing and comfortable.”The number of women taking construction and engineering apprenticeships rose by 73% between 2019 and 2022. Photograph: monkeybusinessimages/Getty Images/iStockphotoThe charity is working with TaskHer, an online directory of tradeswoman, to source female workers. The service was set up by Anna Moynihan and her husband in 2021, due to the difficulty in finding tradeswomen when renovating their home.“I found that every time a tradesperson came to our house, they were a man and they would always speak to my husband and not me,” said Moynihan. “It was really frustrating.”After doing some research, they found there was huge unmet demand from consumers for tradeswomen – particularly from single women living alone, the LGBT community and women who for religious reasons did not want men in their home.They then started getting inquiries from domestic abuse charities. “We realised that they were having essentially the same issues that we had from a personal perspective, but on a larger scale,” said Moynihan. “It wasn’t necessarily about convenience, it was about creating an environment that the women who are living in their refuges would still feel safe in.”They’re now working with Refuge, and other domestic abuse charities, to supply female workers in London, with an aim to expanding outside the capital in the near future.Erin, a 26-year-old electrician in London, has been working with Refuge for the past few months doing everything from odd jobs to replacing consumer units in their safe houses.She said taking on the job was a no-brainer as it is rewarding to be able to put her skills to good use in a scenario where a tradesman might cause some apprehension.“If you can make anyone feel more comfortable in a situation, why wouldn’t you want to do that anyway?” she said. “You can feel it in the air, the anxieties just lift slightly when you go in and they can see who you are.”She said she’s met very few fellow tradeswomen in her work, although numbers have started to increase in recent years. “I was the only girl on my course at the time and I don’t think they had another one for at least a couple years after that,” she said. “Every day on the job and going around different sites, I never encountered any tradeswomen, never mind an electrician.”She also said there’s still a degree of sexism she encounters when doing jobs. “You get the older gents watching over and making sure you’re doing it right. I’ve got a baby face and I’m only five foot two so that doesn’t help things,” she said. “But it does feel like things are starting to change. I know a fair few female gas engineers now as well as plumbers, and painters and decorators.”