{"id":24055,"date":"2026-02-22T06:56:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-22T06:56:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/?p=24055"},"modified":"2026-02-22T06:56:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-22T06:56:12","slug":"the-anxieties-just-lift-why-domestic-abuse-refuges-are-turning-to-female-tradespeople-women","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/?p=24055","title":{"rendered":"\u2018The anxieties just lift\u2019: why domestic abuse refuges are turning to female tradespeople | Women"},"content":{"rendered":"

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One of the main challenges in maintaining the 64 homes for domestic abuse survivors run by Refuge is the reliance on a male-dominated workforce of electricians, plumbers and decorators.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe presence of men can be distressing and could trigger past traumas for our survivors,\u201d said Lisa Cantwell-Hope, the head of property services at the charity. \u201cMale contractors need an escort to make our survivors feel more comfortable, and we always put a notice out to all our residents saying there will be a male presence in the building today. So it can be challenging and takes up more time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Data from the Office for National Statistics shows there were 48,000 tradeswomen in the UK in 2021, a growth of 41% from 2006, but it is thought this is still only about 4% of the total trades workforce, and construction is consistently ranked as the most male-dominated industry in the country.<\/p>\n

Regionally, the West Midlands has the highest number of tradeswomen (who make up 4.4% of all tradespeople, above London (2.98%) and the south-west (2.24%). In the East Midlands, north-east, Northern Ireland, Scotland, south-east and Wales, they make up less than 1% of tradespeople, according to 2023 data from My Local Toolbox.<\/p>\n

But there are clear signs that things are shifting and women are increasingly moving into the sector \u2013 the number of women taking construction and engineering apprenticeships rose by 73% between 2019 and 2022.<\/p>\n

This is welcome news for domestic abuse charities such as Refuge, which are slowly starting to shift from handymen to handywomen.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we could just use female contractors, I\u2019d be a happy woman, but there isn\u2019t enough currently,\u201d said Cantwell-Hope. \u201cBut having them makes our jobs a lot easier, and it makes it easier to get people in the refuges, because there\u2019s that common understanding of the sensitivity. They say they feel much more relaxed having a female in the property.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got to remember our refuges are people\u2019s homes, and as much as we need to maintain the building, we also have to make it therapeutically pleasing and comfortable.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/svg><\/span>The number of women taking construction and engineering apprenticeships rose by 73% between 2019 and 2022.<\/span> Photograph: monkeybusinessimages\/Getty Images\/iStockphoto<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The charity is working with TaskHer, an online directory of tradeswoman, to source female workers. The service was set up by Anna Moynihan and her husband in 2021, due to the difficulty in finding tradeswomen when renovating their home.<\/p>\n

\u201cI found that every time a tradesperson came to our house, they were a man and they would always speak to my husband and not me,\u201d said Moynihan. \u201cIt was really frustrating.\u201d<\/p>\n

After doing some research, they found there was huge unmet demand from consumers for tradeswomen \u2013 particularly from single women living alone, the LGBT community and women who for religious reasons did not want men in their home.<\/p>\n

They then started getting inquiries from domestic abuse charities. \u201cWe realised that they were having essentially the same issues that we had from a personal perspective, but on a larger scale,\u201d said Moynihan. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t necessarily about convenience, it was about creating an environment that the women who are living in their refuges would still feel safe in.\u201d<\/p>\n

They\u2019re now working with Refuge, and other domestic abuse charities, to supply female workers in London, with an aim to expanding outside the capital in the near future.<\/p>\n

Erin, a 26-year-old electrician in London, has been working with Refuge for the past few months doing everything from odd jobs to replacing consumer units in their safe houses.<\/p>\n

She said taking on the job was a no-brainer as it is rewarding to be able to put her skills to good use in a scenario where a tradesman might cause some apprehension.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you can make anyone feel more comfortable in a situation, why wouldn\u2019t you want to do that anyway?\u201d she said. \u201cYou can feel it in the air, the anxieties just lift slightly when you go in and they can see who you are.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said she\u2019s met very few fellow tradeswomen in her work, although numbers have started to increase in recent years. \u201cI was the only girl on my course at the time and I don\u2019t think they had another one for at least a couple years after that,\u201d she said. \u201cEvery day on the job and going around different sites, I never encountered any tradeswomen, never mind an electrician.\u201d<\/p>\n

She also said there\u2019s still a degree of sexism she encounters when doing jobs. \u201cYou get the older gents watching over and making sure you\u2019re doing it right. I\u2019ve got a baby face and I\u2019m only five foot two so that doesn\u2019t help things,\u201d she said. \u201cBut it does feel like things are starting to change. I know a fair few female gas engineers now as well as plumbers, and painters and decorators.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

#anxieties #lift #domestic #abuse #refuges #turning #female #tradespeople #Women<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the main challenges in … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24056,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24055"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24055"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24055\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24056"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}