Female firefighters lead the charge for change and urge women not to give up – ABC News

When Melinda Sharpe began training to become a firefighter, she was the only woman in her course.

While her colleagues relaxed in hotels between gruelling training days, Ms Sharpe went home to breastfeed her one-year-old baby and got her two other young children to sleep.

"I'm not a quitter so it was something I was determined to do no matter how tired I was," she said.

"I was up two to three times a night while I was doing my recruit course and expressing [breast milk] on my lunch break.

"[The other participants] were pretty much childfree so they didn't have the responsibilities of family life."

She wants to inspire more women to enter the male-dominated field but warns it is not easy.

Supplied: Melinda Sharpe

Ms Sharpe, a former emergency department nurse from southern Queensland, passed the auxiliary course in 2017 and began on-call work at Inglewood, near Goondiwindi.

She is now a full-time firefighter in Toowoomba, west of Brisbane, after three attempts at the challenging assessments.

Supplied: Melinda Sharpe

"On my first two goes I failed the physical test," she said.

"There's a beep test, claustrophobia test, then a set of online aptitude tests that you need to pass.

"We then go to a physical test, which is quite difficult, quite intense."

While she was physically smaller than most of the men, she was expected and determined to perform "like any of the boys".

"There's no difference for males or females. We all do the same testing," she said.

"Women are fighting to be treated equally."

Out in her community, Ms Sharpe is working to challenge people's assumptions that fire trucks are driven by firemen.

"I've jumped out of the truck before when we've pulled up in public and you'll hear a mum say to their little child 'Oh look, the firemen are here'," she said.

"And the mum will see me.

ABC Southern Queensland: Lucy Robinson

"I'm not one to jump in and correct someone but you can see that they've noticed it's not all firemen, it's firefighters.

"Just being a female out in the community will allow other females to see females in the role and maybe consider it as a career."

Several years into the role, she is beginning to see more women enter the profession.

Four women now work in Queensland Fire and Emergency Services' south-west region, up from two 12 months ago.

Nursing helped prepare Ms Sharpe for some of the confronting scenes she faces as a firefighter.

"I've seen it all. I'm not fazed by gory things," she said.

She prides herself on bringing a caring nature to the role.

ABC Southern Queensland: Lucy Robinson

"I'm not saying the men aren't caring but they can be a bit more abrupt," she said.

"[But] there are no issues being in a male-dominated profession really.

"The only thing that's changed from my nursing is basically the tea room conversations I'm learning a lot about old cars and sport."

Elsewhere in the emergency services, women are determined to turn around the gender imbalance.

Group leader of the Dalby State Emergency Service, Tanya Mudie, has spent the past two years handmaking hundreds of hair bows for female volunteers in south-west Queensland.

It's part of her self-funded 'Empowering Women' project, aimed at building up the confidence of the women in the service.

"It was very much a boys' club. There was the mentality that it was man's work that we were doing," Ms Mudie said.

"We do take the same tests, we have the same training, but I feel like a lot of the time the women are behind the eight ball and feel like we can't do it because we don't have that formative background a lot of men have.

ABC Southern Queensland: Baz Ruddick

"For example, I'd never held a chainsaw, I'd never been in a boat."

Ms Mudie says while the journey to success is often tougher for women, they are increasingly taking on leadership roles in emergency services.

"We're able, we're empowered, we can do it," she said.

"Women are finding their voice a lot more than they have before."

Continued here:

Female firefighters lead the charge for change and urge women not to give up - ABC News