She's a lumberjill and she's okay

Published on Sunday 28 October 2007 01:19

AT LONG last it's OK for lumberjacks to wear suspendies and a bra. But only if they're a girlie just like their dear mama.

The European Union, in a move worthy of a Monty Python sketch, have decided to lavish public money on encouraging women to don checked shirts, pick up razor-sharp axes, and head for the forests of Scotland.

The Forest Industries Recruitment and Retention Strategy is organising a series of events to help promote forestry and construction work to women.

A FIRRS report outlining the scale of the challenge said: "There is a misconception that women are poorly suited to working in these fields. This view stems from the existing gender imbalance in the industry, ignorance of the range of jobs and outmoded but prevalent gender stereotypes."

Jenny Tizard, of the Scottish Resource Centre for Women in Science, Engineering and Technology at Napier University, claimed forestry was a male dominated industry and faced a bleak future unless recruitment trends were reversed.

But John Midgley of the Campaign Against Political Correctness felt the female-only recruitment drive was patronising and unnecessary.

"People really could not care less about what sex the people are who are chopping down trees," he said.