Neurosurgery, welding, venture capitalism, construction, film directing and the electrical trade – these are six jobs where U.S. women have made inroads but are still vastly outnumbered.
And one position, U.S. president, has never been filled by a woman. With presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton seeking to become the first to break that barrier, several women in career fields made up mostly of men told Reuters that they saw her candidacy as significant.
Neurosurgeon Linda Liau, MD, 49, Professor and Director of the UCLA Brain Tumor Program (C) removes a brain tumor from a patient at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles, California, U.S. May 26, 2016. Liau has been a neurosurgeon for 25 years, and has developed a brain cancer vaccine that is in clinical trials. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson Liau said: “It’s a very male-dominated profession. Currently there are about 3 percent of neurosurgeons that are women… When you walk into the room they assume you’re the nurse or the assistant as opposed to the actual surgeon… I think one thing that is impressive about Hillary is that she also has a husband and a daughter and is a mom. That’s where I think it would be useful for young women to have role models like that, who are strong, professional and do well in their professions, whether it’s a surgeon, a teacher, or president. I think ultimately the goal would be to be gender-blind completely, so the fact that we’re even talking about having a female president as a novelty is in a way sad… Hopefully my daughter will grow up without even talking about having a woman president; it’ll be a non-issue at that point.”
Dr. Linda Liau works with the precision of a master, peering into a patient’s head with magnifying loupes as she removes a brain tumor.
When Liau was called into an emergency room as a surgeon more than 20 years ago to help treat a car crash victim, another member of the medical team assumed she was a nurse.
Even today, the 49-year-old neurosurgeon sometimes gets a surprised reaction from new patients who were expecting a man.
Such an assumption is common in career fields dominated by men.
Neurosurgeon Linda Liau, MD, 49, Professor and Director of the UCLA Brain Tumor Program walks out of the operating theater after successfully removing a tumor from a patient at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles, California, U.S. May 26, 2016. Liau has been a neurosurgeon for 25 years, and has developed a brain cancer vaccine that is in clinical trials. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson
“I think ultimately the goal would be to be gender-blind completely, so the fact that we’re even talking about having a female president as a novelty is, in a way, sad,” Liau said.
Construction site worker Joundi White, 31, poses for a portrait at the construction site where she works in Los Angeles, California, U.S. June 16, 2016. Only 2.5 percent of U.S. construction laborers were women in 2014, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. White said: “I think it would make a difference [if there was a woman president] because guys are proud sometimes… they don’t want a woman president but I think that in generations to come we can all benefit from it. As a woman you have to learn to stretch your resources; a lot of women do that and it’s transferable into power positions. I think Hillary being president would be great. When I do have children, if I have a daughter, I’ll be able to say: ‘Baby if you want to be president, you can be president.’ It’ll be an attainable dream.” REUTERS/Lucy NicholsonOn a construction site, Joundi White, 31, has often been reminded of her gender. Early in her career, the reminders were pet names such as “sweetheart” and “honey.” Now, she can rarely shake the sense that she is outnumbered.
“I eat lunch alone,” White said. “I don’t have people to relate to at work.
“Don’t get me wrong, I identify more with the guys, but to them, ultimately, I’m just a girl.”
Construction site worker Joundi White, 31, walks down a railway track at the construction site where she works in Los Angeles, California, U.S. June 16, 2016. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson
Wearing a hard hat, White passes under heavy steel beams, walking along the commuter train tracks she is helping build in her working-class neighborhood in southern Los Angeles.
Welding instructor Darlene Thompson, 46, poses for a portrait at Los Angeles Trade-Technical College in Los Angeles, California, U.S. June 27, 2016. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson
Welder Darlene Thompson, 45, is also no stranger to the construction site, or to the hostility that she says women often encounter in the field. These days, she teaches others as an instructor at Los Angeles Trade Technical College.
In a heavy coat and blue gloves, she looks from under her helmet at the white-hot flame of a welding torch.
It was a fight to learn these skills. More than a decade ago, when she began receiving job training as a welfare recipient, Thompson had to argue for the chance to study welding. Public assistance administrators wanted to push her toward cosmetology or culinary arts, she said.
Thompson did not say how she would cast her ballot in November but said she would not vote for Clinton just because the candidate is a woman.
International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 11 union electrician Hannah Cooper, 28, works on a project site in Los Angeles, California, U.S. June 21, 2016. Only 2.4 percent of U.S. electricians were women in 2014, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. Cooper said: “I believe that we’re currently nationally less than one percent [women] and very few women are in management positions. I think about it all the time… It would mean a lot to me [if there was a woman president] and I think it would mean a lot to women in future generations. I think it’s a very powerful idea. Growing up in my society I was constantly aware or told, whether it was straight out or implied, what women can’t do, and what a woman’s place is, and how a woman should behave, and what a woman is capable of. Whether it’s intellectually or physically, on any level, and I feel like [a woman president] would chip away at that in the psyche of the next generation and I think that would be really powerful.” REUTERS/Lucy NicholsonA well-paid job as an electrician has opened up opportunities for Hannah Cooper, 28. For one thing, she was able to buy a house in the expensive Los Angeles real estate market.
Sometimes, she will encounter someone on a construction site who knows her mother, Kelly Cooper, who also was an electrician.
“Everyone remembers her because there’s only a few women,” Cooper said.
International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 11 union electrician Hannah Cooper, 28, (R) pose for a portrait with her mother Kelly Cooper, who was the first woman to join IBEW Local 11 in 1975 in Los Angeles, California, U.S. June 22, 2016. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson
Kelly Cooper began as an apprentice in 1975.
“You have to have thick skin to be anyone in the trade,” she said. “To be a woman in the trade, you have to have a particularly thick skin.”
She is now director of construction for the Los Angeles Department of General Services.
Venture capitalist Eva Ho, 44, who runs a seed fund, works on her computer in Los Angeles, California, U.S. June 21, 2016. Ho said female general partners make up around 3-4 percent of the industry. Ho said: “I wish gender wasn’t an issue, and I’m hoping that with Hillary gender will no longer be an issue. I think it’s amazing; I think girls, and boys, need examples of leadership that are represented by women… I think setting that example is super important, so I’m really excited for her to be the first woman president. There have been other woman leaders in other countries, so in some ways we’re a little late in the game, but better late than never.” REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson
Eva Ho, 44, is a woman working in the technology field, which is unusual enough. But she is also a venture capitalist, which is rarer still.
“In some ways the V.C. career has really been an old boys club, and it’s been dominated by white men for the last three or four decades,” Ho said.
A graduate of Harvard and Cornell, Ho said she was drawn to work in technology because of its ability to drive social change. But she came late to it, never having used a computer until college.
Venture capitalist Eva Ho, 44, who runs a seed fund, poses for a portrait in Los Angeles, California, U.S. June 20, 2016. REUTERS/Lucy NicholsonProducer Charity Burton, (L-R), producer/director/ actor Ursula Burton, and producer/director Maria Burton, of Five Sisters Productions pose for a portrait in Los Angeles, California, U.S. May 18, 2016. Women comprised 19 percent of all directors, writers, executive producers, producers, editors, and cinematographers working on the top 250 U.S. grossing films of 2015, according to San Diego State University. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson Producer Charity Burton, (L-R), producer/director/actor Ursula Burton, and producer/director Maria Burton, of Five Sisters Productions pose for a portrait in Los Angeles, California, U.S. May 18, 2016. Women comprised 19 percent of all directors, writers, executive producers, producers, editors, and cinematographers working on the top 250 U.S. grossing films of 2015, according to San Diego State University’s Center for the Study of Women in Television & Film. Charity said: “If Hillary is president then she is the commander-in-chief; she’s the leader of our country. And then women are seen as powerful figures, which will then translate to ‘oh ok, if a woman can run a country, a woman can run a company; then a woman can run a restaurant; then a woman can run a studio. It gives validity to women.” Maria said: “A woman in power in the real world, in the top position of power… little kids see that and it doesn’t seem uncommon. Then maybe women directors are hired more, and they put more interesting women onscreen.” Ursula said: “I don’t think it’s so much having any woman be president; I think there’s something about having an extremely qualified person. I wouldn’t vote for any woman who was running. But I think when you are talking about a candidate who is so qualified it really changes the conversation that she is a woman.”
For the Burtons, who work together as filmmakers through their company Five Sisters Productions, their career had its seeds in their childhood as the daughters of a writer and a former professional musician.
Both parents were feminists who thought their five daughters could do anything, said Ursula Burton, a director, producer and actor.
Now the possibility of a female president could help create more opportunities for women, she said.
“Having a woman president opens up the presidency for girls,” Burton said, “and it will shift the perception for boys of what girls can do.”