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Slow Progress, Dismaying Setbacks as Women Try to Expand Foothold in Firefighting Ranks

May 31, 2005

Depending on where one looks, there is ample cause for celebration or dismay among those who want gender barriers lowered.

San Francisco Fire Chief Joanne Hayes-White poses aboard the fireboat Phoenix with the Bay Bridge in the background in San Francisco, Friday May 13, 2005. In her department, 230 of 1,700 firefighters are women.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Her credentials are impressive: Coast Guard reservist, trophy-winning distance runner, veteran of risky Ground Zero duty on the morning the World Trade Center collapsed. Yet even Adrienne Walsh has felt the sting of resentment from men who do not want women alongside them in the ranks of firefighters.

Walsh last year became the first woman assigned to one of New York's elite Fire Department rescue companies. Within five weeks, she transferred out -- stunned that the company members chose to ostracize her. A few weeks ago she again took the trailblazing step, this time getting a warm welcome as she joined a rescue company in a different borough.

The eight-year firefighting veteran is proud of her achievements, grateful to many male colleagues who have supported her, yet frustrated by the slow pace of change in a department and a profession where -- because of attitudes and difficult physical tests -- women remain a tiny minority.