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Comment by itbeho | Hacker News Reader

My aunt owned and managed a welding shop for over 50 years. She'd disagree with most of what you wrote. The opportunity is there for people that want to work hard and learn. There is in fact a fairly good tradition supporting women in the trades, (in the US at least) especially during and after WWII. See "Rosie the Riveter" for example, which is where my aunt got her start.

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This harkens to some of the points some other commenters have made in this thread. Earning $7/hour in 1970 for a welding job is equivalent of $95k/year in 2019 money.

Similarly, getting a start and sticking it out is just as difficult for women today as it was in the pre-war era. The post war period has been ingrained as the normal baseline in our collective imaginations, though it is anything but normal.

I am willing to wager that Rosie the Riveter isn't the norm for the US and if she or your aunt was trying to make it as a welder, they both will not find the supportive environment that existed post-war

After the men came home from the war, the first thing most of them wanted to see, is for Rosie the Riveter to be sent packing back to the kitchen, so that they could get their jobs back.

There are indeed women working trades, but not many of them. In Canada, for instance, they are 4.5% of the skilled trades workforce. [1]

[1] https://globalnews.ca/news/3823621/women-skilled-trades-manu...

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