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Yeah, yeah. Mhm, Yeah. Mhm. I thought, you know, this is possible. This is in my reach. And I could do it. And I could be a good firefighter, too. They're not getting the cream of the crop. These women, everything is

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gonna take a little bit longer for them to perform all the functions that they're going to perform. We're gonna take a little bit longer. It's the difference. A couple seconds between saving somebody's life and losing it. If I can do it, I will know. And I'm

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not gonna go out there, you know, on on the street fighting fires. If I honestly don't believe I can do it, I think a lot of the women might feel the same way. If they honestly don't think that they can cut it, they're not gonna put

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somebody else's life on the line. If they pass the test like you or I did, there wouldn't be any hostile feelings. I think the people of San Francisco are getting gypped. We're gonna have to prove ourselves that's much more than a Yeah, it's going to take

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us to limit. We're gonna have to prove ourselves. And once we prove ourselves and our once we just let them know that we want this job. We're gonna stay here and we're gonna stick it out. No matter what happens, no matter what the conflict is between

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us. Once we get over that, I think they're going to really like it. Are there any women? Firefighters? Yes, there are. When we have a lady firefighter who is a lieutenant now, boy and she has to be able to carry this on her back. Oh, yes,

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we all do. Better be pretty strong, cause this is pretty heavy for even Miss Nancy. Oh, mhm guys, everybody quiet. I have an announcement to me. After testing the evening group the other night, I found out that A J is now the strongest woman in this.

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These women are getting strong for a very specific purpose. They're part of a city funded training program designed to produce San Francisco's first women firefighters. Until recently, the city's fire department had been a white male bastion, not exactly welcoming others with open arms. They didn't hire

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the first black into the San Francisco Fire Department until 1954 and they took him 12 years before they hired the second. Up until 1972 they only had four blacks out of over 1800 firefighters. The last issuance of a job announcement, 1973 actually said men only that

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men women could not apply. That list was adopted in 1974 from 74 until 78 women could not be firefighters. In the mid seventies, Other cities across the country had begun integrating women into their firefighting ranks. San Francisco opened its application procedure to women in 1978. Few

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women applied, and none were hired. The Fire Department's hiring practices were challenged in court. The city selected its new firefighters from an eligibility list based on how well an applicant performed on written oral and physical tests. The courts told the city how to evaluate these tests

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and set up recruitment guidelines for women and minorities. In 1982 700 women were recruited. 79 of these passed the written exam and were put through a physical skills test. The department had spent four years revising the testing took months to complete, and after thousands of acts,

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swings and hose pulls, civil service still could not decide what a passing score should be so. Women firefighters from the San Diego and Seattle forces were brought in to take the test, along with the number of men from the San Francisco department. Their scores were combined

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in a computer analysis to come up with minimum standards for the eligibility list. Finally, in October of 1983 the Civil Service Commission announced the results of an examination process, which had begun more than a year earlier. Only five women met the new physical test standard, and

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none scored high enough to be among the 250 or so new firefighters the city would hire during the next four years. Faced with almost certain charges of discrimination, the commissioners voted to place the five women at the top of the eligibility list. Procedure labeled selective certification.

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Don't select the certification or special programs has been done to remedy UH, discriminatory practices in the past. We're not doing anything new. I I think it is desirable. I think it is legal, and I think we're going to be allowed to do it and perhaps even

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applauded for having done it. And in addition, the 74 women who had failed the test would be trained at city expense and permitted to take it again and up to 20 of the women passing this retest would be selectively certified as well. I think the commission's

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decision stirred up a storm of controversy. There has been no findings of discrimination within the San Francisco Fire Department, and what they are doing by advocating selective certification, in my opinion, is illegal. In my opinion, selector certification has existed in the past. For instance, at one

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time you have to be white, you have to be mailed. In order to be selected. You have to be quite in order to be certified. Although the training program for the test did eventually get underway, many of the women had doubts about the city's good faith.

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But they were mainly occupied with getting ready for their test. They didn't give us enough time to train, but if we had another month, we would we would be awesome. All of us and all the women have improved a lot enormously. They're running, they're lifting. It's

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just amazing. Women that really, really couldn't lift at all just are lifting a lot of weight, you know, almost their own weight. So the We're Taylor Evans in a number of other women stuck with the training program, but they were the exception, for the majority of

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the process has dragged on just too long. Nearly 60% dropped out, among them. Paula Gamut. We'll get together talking. I have little energy now that I'm not training and not working out really noticed that a lot, very much. So we'll see. Now you need to get

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back to trains and get your higher energy with your new job. That's right, you need if I'm going to sell, get those little golden silver ride things going. It's been two years since being our original training. I went a different direction. I got swayed. I started

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thinking about the Fire Department and why I wanted to do it. Were those good enough reasons? What were my fears about it? Do I want to be one of those crazy people running into a building when everybody else is running out? I had not planned on

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taking the test again and going down and watching these girls today being there, it really got me just like I want to take it. Paula could not keep her enthusiasm in check to see if she might be in good enough shape to take the test. She

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shed her business attire with borrowed sneakers, battled the dreaded hose pull one more time. This time around, the training was so different, and it was so much better the videotaped us. And then they took us Every week they videotaped us every week of the fire college.

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Then they took us back and they made us practice on which is not really fair. What about my brother and my cousins? Why don't they take them and retrain them so they can place the top of the list? He's gonna jump in front of 1000 guys

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to get the job. Yeah, don't let other people of San Francisco because they're paying for the best, but they're getting the work you started out. You got maybe one or two or one or two or five people that aren't qualified, and all of a sudden suppose

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you have 50 or 100. If this policy has continued, then you're really in trouble to say you have to run up three or four flights of stairs, I'm out of breath and I feel that I can carry myself. I worked out. And these women an extra

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committed or two to get up there. And what are you gonna do? Go into the room by yourself? You have a gleason valve that you have to put on. You're gonna have to put on by yourself on a fire. People are or the final over an

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aerial ladder. Hey, that's nothing we could do in two seconds from now. But no, the women don't have to do it. I don't know what they're gonna do when they get in the department. You look at cities like Okay. San Diego on the West Coast, Seattle,

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Portland. They've all had women that are doing very well. The guarantee will be that everyone that leaves that far college, whether male or female, will be qualified. San Francisco firefighter that the citizens can rely on to do a good job. Well, that's the bottom line. I

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don't know if every occupation, by its very nature, guarantees that a woman will be able to serve in that capacity. My parents still live in the same house from when I was born in Sacramento. Kitty Corner to a firehouse. I mean, I was brought up hearing

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fire engines going off, and I admired them and I had hero worship for them and everything. I always thought God, that would be just the neatest job. And then all of a sudden, here I am What? I guess I was 26 years old and I see

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this ad on the T. V and I just want that's what I want to do.