Yeseline made a “wrong” enrolling in high school and dropped out in the second year. She liked her father's job, construction manager. So this year she is learning how to build walls, glue tiles, tiling and many other tasks that are taught in the middle cycle of construction. In the class there are 30 and there is another girl. “Differences? None, we carry the bricks like our classmates and no one treats us in a special way because of our condition, neither teachers nor classmates”.
Yeseline Álvarez (Sant Joan de Vilatorrada, 2003) is one of the young women who offer their testimony in the EDT Women Days project that has started this course at the Escola del Treball in Barcelona, sponsored by Dualiza Orientación. Its objective is to make visible and encourage the presence of women in highly masculinized FP cycles. A group of students has enthusiastically joined in photographing themselves on posters, going to schools or receiving visits from students. “It's just that you don't have to think about it too much, if you like welding, then mess around”, encourages Lucía Zamora (Barcelona, 2002) who has finished the average level of welding and is studying the higher level of metallic constructions.
The most masculinized grades, where the female presence does not reach 10%, are the IT and industrial families (electricity and electronics, energy and water, mechanical manufacturing, IT, installation and maintenance, carpentry, chemistry or vehicle transport and maintenance). , according to Educabase statistics, from the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training. In online studies it is different. Women, who use this system to a greater extent than men in general terms, are more in “virtual classes” than in face-to-face industrial and computer science classes . And more, the older they are, according to Rodrigo Plaza, of the Federation of CC.OO. who is preparing a study on the matter.
"I didn't know where I was going, to be honest," says Lucía, "but I didn't know what I wanted to do and at the open doors of the center I saw that there was a very good atmosphere in the welding group, that is, they not only learned but They were having fun and that was what I wanted”. She adds that she did not mind that it was a "man's job" and that this feeling is not present in the classroom. In addition, she has observed that welding is a delicate task that requires a lot of pulse and a perfectionist desire, qualities that more than fulfill, coincidentally or not, her partner and herself. "Many hands tremble." At the automobile company where she did an internship, they greeted her with “come on, a girl!”, But “I think that what attracted attention was my height”. Lucía wants to continue her studies with a specialization course in welding to become a welding teacher.
Also Yeseline wants to continue with a higher grade of building projects. As there are only 20% of places reserved in higher cycles for middle grade students, you need a high grade to enter, which is already being worked on. "My goal is architecture and, to get there, I have chosen a longer path, but with a good base."
Esther Francisco (Barcelona, 1991) has crossed the bridge in the opposite direction. She has a university degree in social education, a profession –very feminized– that she has practiced for years, she is now studying the higher cycle in carpentry design and furniture. “At a certain moment in my life, with work settled, I stopped and asked myself what I really wanted to do in the following years. I had designed furniture, I liked wood, why not make a living out of it?” she wondered. "And if I'm wrong, nothing happens, life is trial-error." She thought that she would only find boys in her class, but she assumed it. The surprise is that five more girls enrolled. It may be a coincidence, although she prefers to believe that this uptick is the first sign that things are changing.
His choice satisfies him and projects him into the future. “Professions such as furniture design have high job placement and good salaries, so I estimate that I will earn the same as I earned as a social educator, a profession that, by the way, could be better paid,” concludes Esther.
Gemma Miralles (Vilafranca del Penedès, 1999) liked to repair telephones and that is what she wants to do (and, in fact, she already deals with the phones she has fixed for her family and friends). “I arrived at the Escola del Treball and enrolled in robotics but a teacher guided me better:“ if you want to do this, yours is a higher cycle of electronic maintenance ”, she told him. In the 2021-2022 academic year, there were only 6% of women in the student body in all of Spain.
Berta Benavente (Girona, 2002) is the only classmate. She comes from doing a higher cycle of electromedicine. She ruled out engineering because what she wanted was the material process of touching the plates, bathing them in chemical liquid, welding them. She admits that she was afraid she wouldn't meet anyone of her gender, but she overcame her shyness and enrolled anyway. "And nothing happens, you are one more."
Another of the degrees in which there are hardly any women is in computing and telecommunications (14% in total). It happens as in engineering, formations are very unattractive to girls when they are of age to choose them. Anna Aguilar (Barcelona, 2005) is studying the first year of the intermediate degree in telecommunications installation.
Anna comes from a training and insertion program (alternative to ESO) where she learned the rudiments of computing. "I'm not one to study, I wanted to be a kindergarten teacher, but now I like programming and repairing computers and if I get good grades I can continue and do the higher cycle," she says. Otherwise, she will study a cycle of education technique. She does not believe that there are differences between her and another student, and the rest of her classmates. "You forget that you are a minority."
The Industrial School has been working on the gender issue for years. Figures above the average have been achieved, such as the six students in construction, another as many in carpentry, three in computing or two in mechanical manufacturing and welding. 40% of the students in this center are girls. "This is a work of breaking stone", argues the director, José Luis Durán, "but it is an objective that generates enthusiasm and gets the involvement of many people, such as the teaching team of the center". The computer science students will prepare a website where the testimonies of the students and their classmates will be collected. Also from alumni. For their part, vocational training students from another center, the Escola de Mitjans Audiovisuals de Barcelona, will design the audiovisual promotion.
