Although I have a good gig as a full professor at Iowa State University, I’ve daydreamed about learning a trade – something that required both my mind and my hands.
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So in 2018, I started night courses in welding at Des Moines Area Community College. For three years, I studied different types of welding and during the day worked on a book about the communication between welding teachers and students. I wasn’t the only woman who became interested in trades work during this time. Recognizing the good pay and job security, U.S. women have moved in greater numbers into skilled trades such as welding and fabrication within the past 10 years.
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From 2017 to 2022, the number of women in trades rose from about 241,000 to nearly 354,000. That’s an increase of about 47%. Even so, women still constitute just 5.3% of welders in the United States.
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When I received my diploma in welding in May 2022, I’d already found the place I wanted to work: Howe’s Welding and Metal Fabrication. I’d met the owner, Jim Howe, when I visited his three-man shop in Ames, Iowa, in January 2022 for research on a second book about communication in skilled trades.
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Howe’s shop focuses on repairs and one-off fabrication, not large-scale production of single items. Under Howe’s tutelage, I’ve fabricated skis for the machines that make the rumble strips in the road, shepherd’s hooks for bird feeders, fence poles and stainless-steel lampshade frames. I’ve repaired trailers, wheelchair ramps, office chairs and lawn mowers.
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Work tables at Howe’s. My table is the one in front with the pans on it. It’s difficult to use the table in the middle because everyone piles parts there. Jo Mackiewicz
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The bottom of an aluminum lawn chair that has been repaired with tig welds.
I fixed the slats on an aluminum lawn chair by bending aluminum strips and TIG welding them to the chair’s sides.
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Both my experience at Howe’s and my research at nine other fabrication facilities in Iowa have shown me that – at least for the time being – tradeswomen must find workarounds for commonly encountered challenges. Some of these challenges are physical. These could include being unable to easily reach or move necessary material and tools. Or they could be emotional, such as encountering sexism. As I explore in my forthcoming book, “Learning Skilled Trades in the Workplace,” this is true even in a welcoming environment like Howe’s shop, where I work with a supportive and helpful boss and co-workers.
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Only 5.3% of welders in the US are women. After years as a writing professor, I became one − here’s what I learned

Being a woman in a welding and fabrication shop means finding workarounds for getting tasks done.

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