Sisters in the Brotherhood,
by Jane LaTour," is an oral-history of women who,
against considerable odds, broke the gender
barrier to blue-collar employment in various
trades in New York City beginning in the
1970s.
It is a story of the fight against deeply
ingrained cultural assumptions about
what constitutes women's work, the
middle-class bias of feminism, the
daily grinding sexism of male co-
workers, and the institutionalized dis-
crimination of employers and unions.
It is also the story of some gutsy
women who, seeking the material
rewards and personal satisfactions of
skilled manual labor, have struggled to
make a place for themselves among
New York City's construction
workers, stationary engineers,
firefighters, electronic technicians,
plumbers, and transit."
