The guy working under the hood of your car, wiring your home or responding to a fire in your neighborhood may not be a guy at all. It may be a woman who isn't afraid to go against gender stereotypes and follow a nontraditional career.
The U.S. Department of Labor defines a nontraditional career field for a woman or a man as one in which at least 75 percent of the work force is the opposite gender.
Traditionally, women have worked in education, health and service-related jobs, while men have dominated in labor-intensive, scientific/technical and supervisory roles - but data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics' Current Population Survey (1983-2002) show that trend may be slowly changing.
Although the percentages are still small enough to be classified as nontraditional, the number of male nurses, dressmakers and secretaries grew significantly - along with the number of female police detectives, civil engineers and airplane pilots - between 1983 and 2002. Many occupations once thought to be gender-specific are creeping toward gender-neutral.
Career counselors say that people working in nontraditional roles may face more challenges than do their co-workers in terms of bias and lack of mentors, but those who make it also achieve the satisfaction of working in jobs that suit their aptitudes, skills and interests. As Kathy Crawford, a firefighter with Cobb County Fire and Emergency Services, tells young students: "You can do anything you want to do. You just have to want it bad enough."
Kathy Crawford, firefighter
Growing up, all Kathy Crawford wanted to do was play basketball.
"I don't know what I'd be doing now if it wasn't for my passion for sports. I didn't want anything interfering with my playing, so I did my schoolwork and stayed out of trouble," she said.
She played for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and then professionally for 12 years in Europe and China. When it was time to retire from playing, she knew she didn't want a regular 9-to-5 job, and a friend suggested firefighting.
She enrolled in a six-month program and was the first African-American female firefighter in Greensboro, N.C., in 1993. She broke similar ground when she began working for the Cobb County Fire Department in 2000.
"It wasn't scary to me. The thought of not making it never occurred to me," she said.
At 6 feet tall, "I knew my physical condition and size wasn't an issue, and I grew up with five brothers, so being around men didn't bother me."
She said the discipline of sports prepared her for the rigors of the job.
She did wonder about her ability to make good decisions in dangerous situations. An early experience tested her mettle. Sent upstairs to open windows after a townhouse kitchen fire had been put out, she entered a smoky bedroom. The firefighters hadn't realized the fire had spread.
"I could hear and feel the fire but couldn't see it. I had no hose or radio, so I backtracked out, so as not to lose my bearings. That taught me that, even if I was on my own, the training would kick in," she said.
While Crawford never experienced any spoken bias, early on there was a subtle message that she didn't belong on the front line as a woman or an African-American. That changed when she moved to Atlanta, which she found more progressive and multicultural. Twenty-nine women are among about 700 employees of the Cobb County Fire Department, and the chief is a woman.
Crawford has been promoted to firefighter 2 and is studying for the driver exam next year.
"My crew is like my second family. We live in a dorm with cubicles the days we're on," she said. "It doesn't bother me being the only woman.
"Firefighting works on the same concept as basketball. It's a team. You can't do anything by yourself. After a bad call, we all blow off steam by kidding around."
She said she enjoys the work, the pay, the benefits and the time to pursue a balance of interests.
"What I really enjoy is the excitement of never knowing what will happen each day," she added.
Lenny Lasater, electrician
In the mid-1970s, Lenny Lasater dropped out of pharmacy school and persuaded her roommate's father to hire her as a coal miner in Alabama. Unions were being pressured to hire women at the time.
"The pay was $7.45 an hour, which seemed like a fortune, and I was young and strong. I liked experiencing my physical abilities and the idea of being a trailblazer," she said.
An accident convinced her that the job was too dangerous, but coal mining gave her the confidence to enter an IBEW apprenticeship in Tennessee in 1978. She went to class six hours and worked 40 hours a week for four years to earn journeyman electrician status.
"It was pretty awful back then. There were guys who hated me being there and said they'd do everything they could to see I'd fail," she said.
"Hands-on learning was a good fit for me. I could watch it, do it and perfect it through practice," she said. "When it comes to skills, I think putting gender bias on an individual is just wrong."
Lasater worked on a series of industrial and commercial jobs, where she continually had to prove her worth.
"It's dirty, physical work. You're outside on nice days and awful days - and lucky if there's a port-a-potty," she said.
Guys wanted her to go home and have babies and complained that they couldn't curse around her. One foreman told her he didn't want her there and had her carry 120-pound bales of conduit off a roof by herself to prove she could "pull her weight."
"I just dug in and worked hard. When we left the site, the old foreman told me he wished he had a whole crew just like me. I had earned his respect," she said.
Changing job sites often meant having to re-prove her skills, but her ability to read blueprints and keep up with technical changes brought roles of greater responsibility.
"I just wanted to learn, to be good at it, and I was lucky enough to work with a lot of men who were willing to teach," she said. "I'm good at trouble-shooting. You have to use all your senses and deductive reasoning, be observant and patient. I think being a woman helps there."
In 1990, Lasater relearned residential wiring and started her own business in Decatur. She's never had to advertise; her clients come by referral.
"Being an electrician has turned out to be a decent living and offered me a lot of flexibility," she said.
"I tell young women that this is a tough job and it takes a toll on your body, but if they want to do it, they should come on and do it. I'd love to have an apprentice."
Kerry Guthrie, automotive mechanic
In 2000, Kerry Guthrie was able to purchase (with a business partner) the Decatur shop My Favorite Mechanic.
"Sometimes I have to pinch myself to make sure it's real," she said. "I'm grateful every day to have the opportunity of doing what I love to do."
"You don't get rich in this business, but we have a steady clientele and make enough profit to purchase new equipment to keep up with the industry. I have no complaints," she said.
The shop has 16 racks and eight employees. Guthrie's especially proud that My Favorite Mechanic is a Blue Seal-certified shop, because 95 percent of her staff are ASE (Automotive Service Excellence)-certified.
Guthrie learned how to tinker with machinery while growing up on a farm in Tennessee.
"I like knowing how things work and fixing something that's broken," she said.
Her skills were partly born of necessity. "When you get your license and your first vehicle is a '66 Ford pickup, you better know how to work on it or you're going to be sitting home on Saturday night," she said with a laugh.
After college, she ran a doctor's office before moving to Atlanta. She learned to be a mechanic through on-the-job training with Margie Seals, the shop's original owner, who had learned her skills in the Army.
Guthrie loves doing the physical work and often helps out in the garage after hours, but her true talent is running the shop, which she likens to running a family practice - dealing with symptoms and diagnosing problems.
"There's a lot more to it than people think - talking to customers, ordering parts and knowing how to schedule the work efficiently," she said. "You want to give the work to the person best suited for it, but there are so many unknowns when you start working on a car."
Unlike Seals, who experienced bias when she first opened the shop, Guthrie said that she rarely has met with adverse reactions from co-workers or customers because of her gender.
"I'm not going to pretend everything is equal. Women have less upper-body strength, so they have to rely more on assistive equipment," she said. "On the other hand, I pay closer attention to detail, have good communication skills and, when it comes to electrical wiring, my little hands can get into tight spots.
"Some customers tell me that they trust me more because I'm a woman. I'd rather they trust me because of my work. I want to keep them coming back because we offer a fair price for a good job."