Women in Construction - Bronwyn Gardner

With August being the month in which we celebrate women for their contribution to our society, it was an honour and a privilege to have Bronwyn Gardner, a contracts manager for Grinaker-LTA Building East, address Association members on her experiences as a Women in Construction.

Bronwyn is in her eighth year in the industry having started in 2003, after graduating from University with an Honours degree in Construction Management.

Rather than rattle off her CV of past and current projects, Bronwyn angled the topic towards her personal experiences, difficulties, challenges and also the benefits of being a woman, working in an environment that is traditionally male dominated. 

Addressing the 100 strong audience, Bronwyn very eloquently explained that the reasons for the industry being male dominated, aren’t by any means sinister.

“I don’t need to tell you that this is obviously not anything that has been carefully pre-construed or planned so as to keep it male exclusive, but its rather one of those things that has “just always been that way” as a result of previous historic events and schools of thought, and even to a large degree, the personal choice of women themselves not actually wanting to work in what is often perceived as an unglamorous or dirty environment.”

This she says is largely due to a lack of knowledge or understanding in that the mere mention of construction, instantly conjures up images of hard physical labour, as opposed to a “professional” career.

In citing her own reasons for pursuing a career in construction, she eluded to the fact that the more traditional career paths that woman in our society favor, simply aren't for her. She also noted that her father had an influence.

“My father has always worked in construction and one of my favorite childhood past times was visiting my dad at work when he worked for the construction company named Cementation back in the day when they were still around, and then he later joined Grinaker-Building himself. So I guess you could say then that I partly grew up on building sites.”

After graduating from Natal University’s four year construction management honours degree, being the junior on a construction site in Ulundi followed, which proved an invaluable experience.

“During the day I was learning the art of setting out, conducting DCP tests and being hands-on involved in the manageable sized project. Pouring concrete with 1 cube buckets and 2 mobile cranes until 10 at night was considered the norm (you can imagine my delight when I discovered the joy of a concrete pump on my next project!), I was also introduced to the animal that is the subcontractor as well as quickly learning the art of “making a plan”. Being the junior on site and in the days before the luxury of having a fulltime SHERQ officer on a project, both quality and safety became my baby on site as well. It was then that I was introduced to Master Builders KwaZulu-Natal and met Neels who had to deal with my numerous questions and phone calls regarding a topic which I had never been exposed to before. “

“As a female on site, rather than feeling shunned or judged, instead I felt like I had inherited 4 fathers from the site clerk to the QS to the foreman and senior manager who had endless patience with my 5000 questions per day and never allowed me to even drive alone. This latter point actually proved for some amusement in that with Melmoth (which is where we were all living during the contract) being a small one-horse town where local news travels faster than a runaway cane fire, once we actually got to know some of the locals, apparently I was the source of much gossip of who I actually “belonged” to when I arrived with a different man every night at the local garage to buy bread and milk!!! Jokes aside though, as much as I was looked after, I also appreciated the fact that none of my colleagues wrapped me in cotton wool and rather both encouraged my growth and exposure to all aspects of running a site.”

Bronwyn also informed the audience that whilst it's unnecessary to single handedly erect a tower of scaffolding, offload pockets of cement, excavate a trench or crack open a beer and down it in an attempt to prove your compatibility with a site environment, it is definitely more challenging for a woman to establish both herself and her function within a site team and find the correct niche.

“In my experience, I have found that one of two scenarios seem to initially occur on site. The first situation arises where your superiors are reluctant to assign you any significant tasks, and it almost seems as though your manager is scared to put you to work at all in case you break or cry! A mutual understanding had to then be developed here, where we both had to accept that as a woman there are certain activities that I was physically unable to do, but by the same token I am not a china doll! Alternatively, at the other extreme, I have been in a situation where I was given work, and a considerable amount of it at that, but now it’s you gentlemen who need to understand that just because we are female, does not mean that we were born with an inherent love for paperwork and that our life ambition is to file documents, fold drawings or type reports! It’s just this initial transition stage that you have to work through, in defining what you are both capable of, and willing to do, and thereafter (hopefully) find your niche as I did.”

Projects that feature prominently on Bronwyn CV include:

• Palmgate apartments on the Umhlanga Ridge
• Umlazi Mega City Shopping Centre
• Virgin Active at Gateway
• Westwood Shopping Centre
• The Palms Hotel

On the future of women in the Industry:

“Whilst we are finding that there are more and more woman entering the industry in what can be considered the more “professional team” functions of architects and engineers, in terms of women physically on site though, there is very evidently a considerable way to go before the South African construction industry comes in line with the international norm, however, we are definitely heading in the right direction. In fact, who knows, there is no good reason why in the future there won’t be fully female-staffed construction projects, from management right down to the plant operators. In days gone by this would have been as probable as an authenticated Elvis sighting, but right now we probably have the resources within our own country to make this a current reality."

Ernest Roper | Webmaster