These are strong hands, veined, tanned, and made for creative labour. I know enough after my first day, that from these hands, from these women, ordinary as they may seem to anyone else, flow stories worth telling, are bringing something big and beautiful into being.
I look at my own hands with their unique history. They are the hands of an older woman who has held and nurtured two babies now in their twenties, has built two households, one from the rubble of the last and a career based on helping to nourish others. My hands still caress my daughters’ silken hair, my arms hug them with the full force of mother love, but I can only look up to the lights of the house from below. From my tiny home, my life is constructing a new story.
And perhaps I know intuitively that’s why I am here, before logic kicks in. After two conversations with Kym from SEA HQ based at Ground, Currumbin and Nick Tani, Business Development Officer TAFE QLD, I have speed dialed my way into a Women in Leadership course, read small print, Women in Construction, offered through TAFE. The next day, I look for M building and head for a huge open-air workshop/classroom.
Inside are half finished tiny houses, a big sandpit, piles of timber, wooden horses and workbenches. All of it makes me feel intensely uncomfortable. My palms are sweaty and I glance down at my lumpy wrist, a visceral reminder of the three broken bones of the last 6 months and in awe of the capacity of my body to heal and express both trauma and resilience.
Ray, our teacher, meets my greeting with a cheeky, crinkly-eyed smile. I meet his gaze and instantly feel safe. This man has built shelters and taught first aid for the homeless in the UK, got pregnant women off snowy streets. A self proclaimed “old fool”, because he jumps off cliffs in service of others, Ray believes he can build up women like me to believe we can build anything, even a house. Just by bringing out of us what’s already inside.
I’ve joined the class at Week 3, Framing and Cladding, and already I feel behind. Me and my body are freaking out. What will I have to lift, use, carry, build? The other 5 women arrive and I instantly feel in good company. Sharon from Canada, didn’t read the fine print either but figures she might one day construct a tiny home. Deb is creating her own range of magnesium sprays and colloidal silver. I overhear Narelle talk of building a lab for her business and Lou, with the beautiful strong hands, practical Lou, has renovated a house and is now enjoying plant styling after a career in teaching and interior design. Unser, from Turkey, is a bundle of open-faced happiness.
And me, I am building a new life by design, that’s evolving as I evolve. It will be steeped in community, connection, country and cultivation; of food, good conversation, dance, music, story telling, woman medicine, woman wisdom.
God No! My wistful idealism is shattered as I squat in front of a house frame to measure and cut panels with a circular saw and nail them to a frame. My resistance to straight lines, precision, numbers, measuring accurately, using power tools, the business of building, my resistance to taking on the system that has created inequity in access to financial stability, housing and shelter particularly for women of my age, to confronting my own inner patriarchy that has allowed men to disempower me, tumbles out as shame and anger.
I fire my first nail from the nail gun I can barely lift, fuck you, fuck you, fuck you….
My measurements are all wrong, I’ve cut the panels short, there are gaps in the cladding, someone has stolen my pencil, where’s my spirit level square thingy? I feel like a child having a tantrum in the sandpit after someone stole her spade. The other women are getting on with the job, measuring and squaring up panels and their cladding is progressing up the frame. And mine? A huff and a puff and this little piggy’s house blows down in the next gust.
Week 4 Hang a Door
After 45 mins of F expletives from me and hysterical laughter to make a young tradie blush, Sharon and I have screwed in the hinges in the dying moments of class, and the door swings open. My body is awash with serotonin as I take this euphoria out into the soft afternoon light as we each disperse to our own separate lives.
The beachfront is calling. At my favourite drive by, I order with a demented grin on my face. I want to shout to the young guy behind the counter, to the world, I hung my first door today but instead I say I’ll have chutney with that.
My Saturday’s start like this. I think of all the ways I can’t build; my physical limitations, my precious ego, my inexperience, my aging brain that seems to not want to hold onto numbers. It’s only in companionship with others and a feeling like I belong that I discover our shared vulnerabilities and challenges. When we put our “thinks” together as Sharon says we find a way through.
Ray wants this for us. He wants to be a part of our future; to see ineptness, frustration and confusion melt into triumph, accomplishment and agency, over whatever we believe limits us – powerlessness, not feeling good enough, fear of failure, and success – different for each of us I imagine. He’s motivated by the same desire that’s brought men with mental illness and drug addiction out of institutions into his workshops and hardware stores where they feel safe, valued and mentored into a renewable life.
Ray could easily swap his TAFE fleece for a saffron robe and become the Buddha of Carpentry teaching wisdom, compassion and “don’t forget to get your thumbs out of the way” and “wear your safety glasses.” In the midst of our stormy personal lives he is committed to seeing us thrive in his classroom. I imagine his take on the ancient Zen Buddhist saying would go something like this, “before enlightenment, cut wood, sharpen chisel, after enlightenment, cut wood, sharpen chisel.”
As the day progresses we learn that not only is Ray an “old fool” – the 0 in the tarot card deck – he is also old school and loves old tools. Though it’s his mission that we befriend the rattle gun, jigsaw, reciprocating saw, multi tool, planer, and router, potentially dangerous looking objects, he wants us to know how to use simple tools. Who knows when power will run out? Today we are developing proficiency with a router as we learn to fit a lock and door handle and it’s only until we learn how to sharpen and use a chisel that our lock drops into the hole with a satisfying clunk.
In the course of the day, in the lunchroom, over the workbenches, crouching on the floor, measuring, cutting and laughing at our inaccuracies, we hear each other’s stories and we become bonded as the Chippy Chicks. Someone starts a What’s App group, Empowered Women, and it’s rapidly populated by images of us on the em powered tools. Camaraderie grows trust and barriers to closeness dissolve as I learn of the others life stories and dreams.
We all want to build or know how to build something. Unser wants to build a space for her hairdressing salon, I want to build a lovable loo, composting toilet and bathouse with a deck. Ray shows us the planter boxes the other midweek group are building and how to make a picture frame in 10 mins. All good teachers know that when there is safety, when there is trust, when a seed of inspiration is planted, the heart is activated and it flows through the hands as action.
My Saturdays end this way. We have high fived each other into doing the Cert 1 in Carpentry and building our own tiny home, flat packed and ready to be assembled anywhere. Let the logistics take care of themselves. As we say our goodbyes, Trudy, new to the class today, is off to buy some doors from Bunnings, Unser is going to fit door handles she has at home, Narelle with a knowledgeable eye is going to look over the work of her tradies who have been doing exactly what we’ve learnt. And I’m simply a witness to beauty unfolding.
Week 5 and 6 Deck to Fix
Out of the blue, no warning, I get tragic news from my brother about his wife. Now even writing these words feels unreal, unreadable, incomprehensible. I fly toMelbourne on the next flight and by default miss the next two weeks of the course, decking. Ironically I have already been floored and decked, punched in the guts by this news. Only as we are leaving last week, Unser too has to race back to Turkey for a family emergency.
Our numbers are dwindling and it looks on paper that we have lost interest but it’s furthest from the truth. Families and caring for loved ones in a crisis comes first. Everything is coming to a pointy end: we need letters to the power brokers; we need women to show up in numbers ready to take up tools to secure ongoing funding enabling other women to be empowered to build. (1)
In a quiet Melbourne moment, bringing me out of grief and exhaustion and remembering my life back home, between flower and food deliveries, kids to check on and arrangements to be made, I write a letter of support for Kym, one of many she will present to stakeholders at a meeting on Monday.
“I, Belinda Rennie, want to share with you the desperate situation that many women of my generation are facing. This is not a rental crisis, nor a housing crisis, it is a systemic crisis that routinely disadvantages women from having access to safe, affordable, stable and private places to live and therefore contribute to society.
A gender pay gap of 13.3 per cent (2), women as primary carers that mean part time work becomes the only option and 23 per cent less super on retirement (3) makes saving for a home deposit let alone buying a home are out of the question. It’s the perfect storm for unaffordable housing for women of my generation. COVID 19 has significantly worsened this situation through loss of businesses and income and the need to drawdown on existing super to survive. With Australia nearing recession the financial outlook is bleak and women are the most vulnerable group affected by homelessness.
One woman’s efforts to make a practical structural difference to women’s housing and health is Kym O’Connell at SEA (Sustainable, Environmental, Affordable) HQ at the Ecovillage Currumbin. I wholeheartedly support her endeavors in seeking ongoing funding for Women In Leadership (WIL), Women in Construction. Her passion and dedication to seeing women thrive in the construction industry are ground breaking.
As a woman without sufficient super, not owning my own home and in an unstable relationship, the odds are stacked against me. Building my own tiny home and certification under my belt, I could have a chance of turning my life around.
Women make up only 2% of the construction industry and it’s only getting worse through a toxic macho culture that keeps women out (4). Incremental change such as provision of necessary certification, building skills and knowledge, I and other women can build living spaces that reflect our unique needs and aspirations.
By investing in training and education, we can break down the barriers and create opportunities for women to thrive and succeed. I’m experiencing firsthand the confidence that mastering new and practical building skills has given me. Let’s make this opportunity available to more women.
Thank you Kym for leading the charge and the change WIL follow.”
Week 7 and 8 Cut it Straight
Only a few days back from Melbourne and reeling in my own private soup of sadness, I show up to class to join a conversation Lou and Ray are having about She Sheds. What would it be like if there was a place where women could go to learn and build, repair and restore and be mentored by skilled women in a safe environment?
There are over 1000 men’s sheds around Australia, websites, organizations, and funding and only 56 active Women’s Sheds (figure updated 2021) (5). Women want to learn more than macramé; it’s just finding them in numbers to justify the funding.
Our final days of the course are spent on individual projects. Ray helps me assemble my lovable loo/composting toilet with a recipe given to me by my “consume less, live simply” mentor Katrina Julienne, which involves cutting, measuring, and drilling all with precision. Others are working on planter boxes and picture frames. Between whirring saws, drilling, sanding and sawdust, there is an air of industry and companionship, support, and deeper connections. We are She Shed in action.
Kym arrives to join us around the lunch table and hand out our certificates and asks us to share our story. The devastation wrought by the 2022 floods is a big theme, and the need to rebuild homes and lives in the aftermath. Imagine being cut off from neighbours, alone, flood waters rising and watching everything just wash away; cars, renovations just finished the night before, destroyed. Learning to build and repair is a vital skill for full catastrophe living in the Anthropocene. Women more than ever, need to feel comfortable with a drill in their hand and a can fix attitude.
We are capable of so much more than we believe and what we’ve been told. Or allowed to do. We need to write letters, tell our own stories, our deeply personal stories, as richly textured and grainy as the wood we hold so other women can build meaningful lives for themselves and the next generation.
- Personal communication with Kym O’Connell, SEA HQ
- Workplace Gender Equality, Australian Government, Media release, 23 February 2023
- What are the real costs of Australia’s housing crisis for women, Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute, 8 March 2023
- Women in Construction: Smashing down the walls that keep them out, Monash Universtiy, 7 March 2022
- Men’s Sheds, Australian Government, Department of Health and Aged Care