When Corinne was in grade school, she used to play touch football at recess with some of the boys. She was convinced back then that she wanted to play football on the high school team 🏈. I told her that she probably wouldn’t be able to because the boys would be bigger, stronger, and faster than she would be. She was angry 😡, offended 😤, and shocked 😲 and insisted that she held her own at recess.

The feminist in me was darn proud of her for standing up for herself and believing in herself. After all, when I was in high school, I would play half-court basketball 🏀 with the boys in P.E. class because I wasn’t afraid to go up against them. I was lanky but just as tall as most of them. The realist in me tried to make Corinne see the realities of human physiology and the fact that tackle football was not likely to be an option for her. I gave her the genes that made her incredibly clumsy on her own, let alone in team sports.

As she has gotten older and realized that her passion is performing on a stage 🎭 as opposed to on a field, she understands what I was talking about back then. Some of the boys on the football team stand more than half a foot taller than she is and outweigh her by at least 50 pounds. Not to say girls can’t play football. There IS, in fact, a girl on her high school football team, but as I explained to her in grade school, that is still the exception and not the rule.

Don’t get me wrong. I wholeheartedly believe that women should be able to pursue any career that they want. From a physiological standpoint, however, men are typically bigger, stronger, and faster than their female counterparts. They just are. And women will have to push themselves to become bigger, stronger, and faster if they want to compete in some professions. (Little secret for people who don’t already know this, some of them already do.)

I majored in journalism in college, and I remember the “scandal” when female reporters wanted access to locker rooms for interviews after games. Today, you see interviews outside the locker rooms before and after games. You’re just as likely to see a woman reporting on the sidelines at NFL games, and she will be just as knowledgeable about the sport as anyone else.

There are still careers that are dominated by one gender or the other, but many of them have changed…and absolutely for the better, I think. When I was a kid, doctors, pilots, construction workers, plumbers, electricians, CEOs—primarily men. Flight attendants (then called stewardesses), teachers, nurses, nannies—primarily women. I think we are still too split by gender in most of these professions. I work in Human Resources, also a predominantly female field. But I do think we’re moving in the right direction. Corinne is named after a doctor, after all.

Now if we could just get people comfortable with the idea of a female President in the U.S. 🤔

A while back, I read a book about a female firefighter 👩‍🚒, another field typically dominated by men. It’s a romance so more about love than the main character’s career choice, but the challenges of breaking into an atypical field were definitely a plot point.

Book Review

⭐⭐⭐⭐
4 Stars for Things You Save in a Fire by Katherine Center

358 pages
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Publication Date: August 13, 2019
I originally received an advance copy of this title from NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press.

Publisher’s Description

Cassie Hanwell was born for emergencies. As one of the only female firefighters in her Texas firehouse, she’s seen her fair share of them, and she’s a total pro at other people’s tragedies. But when her estranged and ailing mother asks her to give up her whole life and move to Boston, Cassie suddenly has an emergency of her own.

The tough, old-school Boston firehouse is as different from Cassie’s old job as it could possibly be. Hazing, a lack of funding, and poor facilities mean that the firemen aren’t exactly thrilled to have a “lady” on the crew—even one as competent and smart as Cassie. Except for the infatuation-inspiring rookie, who doesn’t seem to mind having Cassie around. But she can’t think about that. Because love is girly, and it’s not her thing. And don’t forget the advice her old captain gave her: Never date firefighters. Cassie can feel her resolve slipping…and it means risking it all—the only job she’s ever loved, and the hero she’s worked like hell to become.

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This was my first read by Katherine Center, and it won’t be my last. This is a standard romance—instant attraction between two people who believe they shouldn’t (or can’t) be together for one reason or another. They both have their complicated back stories. Cassie’s is that her mother left and “something” horrible happened to her on her 16th birthday. We guess early on what the “something” is, and the combination of the two things is what makes her not believe in love. This was a nice change for me because usually it’s the guy who doesn’t date, doesn’t get involved, doesn’t fall in love, etc. Add to that the animosity Cassie gets in her new job, and you have all the makings of a great story.

Cassie reminded me of the character Herrera from the Station 19 television series—a woman in a male-dominated field who has to work twice as hard to prove herself. But this book is less about that and more about forgiveness and how it can help us heal. We have to see Cassie’s toughness in order to get to the end, but it’s just the vehicle that gets us to forgiveness—forgiveness of ourselves as well as others.

All in all, this was a quick, fun read and definitely worth picking up.

***SPOILERS*** SPOILERS***SPOILERS***

The thing that knocked it down to 4 stars for me was that when we get to the end and Cassie will admit she’s in love, she’s portrayed as soft and a little weepy, and I don’t think that was necessary. Just because she’s found a way to balance loving and being a firefighter doesn’t mean she has to go soft.

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