A web site advocating women in trade giving questionable advice?

Hello you all,

I'm so sorry I haven't been back to address your replies.  I have been through the 'Green Skills Bootcamp' experience recently, and I had no idea that I would need a recovery period from it. All passed with shiny badges and waiting for my certificate.  Oh, I have sooo much to share about that.

Anyway, to my OP and your comments. Thank you for validating my concerns.  I shared my thoughts with my Dad and received a stern ' leave them alone' type of response.  There are times when that approach contradicts too strongly with our mentality of no less safe. Well, I reckon so.  I have lots on my plate but that one became a must-do.

Yes, the advice offered has been changed.  They had a polite but firm from me, and I stated just four of their wrongnesses  (one of my made up words, but I like it well enough, and it proves I'm  not using chat GPT for you).

I'm happy with that little case history.  Can't change the world but one little thing happened.

On the subject of sexism.  Let me make my position more clear - after 25 years in what I describe as my beloved industry, I am firmly in the camp of keep out of the kitchen if you cannot stand the heat. I am against special treatment for women in the industry and I look out for the enthusiastic newcomer, not their gender or orientation.

Everything that I know about electricity I learned from men. Well, assuming that Google is a Mister. My company is named in tribute to my mentors. I disagree from the bottom of my heart with institutions creating special opportunities for any gender.  I might also add here, that if there were a website giving access to only male electricians - there might be some comment.

See you soon, the heat in my kitchen is calling me....

Zs

Good to hear from you Zs.

If that article has been improved, the original version must have been dreadful. The given that maybe 90% of UK domestic light fitting are wired loop-in, the assumption that there's only L/N/PE to deal with really goes against their opening gambit of saying how simple it is. They might have been better off describing adding a new socket (but of course the rules on spurs, and RCDs make that tricky too) - maybe just replacing an existing socket would be more their line of country. It still mentions US-style "ground".

Or maybe their tactic was to get people to have a go with the intention of getting them into a mess, so they call one of their professionals. You never know. If it was it's likely to back-fire - if their marketing is misleading, can you trust their technical judgement in general? Not a question you want in people's mind when they're about to employ a professional (of any gender).

  - Andy.

Zs said:

A quick answer to where I have been Ross...

Good to see you back!

Can't remember how long ago it was that we last spoke, but I do remember I sent you a photo of a cable spiking gun, as you were wondering what one looked like!

- Ross

The one word answers do feel a bit like shouting, as they are context free and easy to misinterpret, especially if you (I) have enabled email notification so there is no context (prior comment) to the single word response I would see.

There are a few 'awkward' discussions happening where multiple issues are conflated under very common broad phrasings, are being exaggerated by algorithms searching for "engagement" (aka conflicts & arguments), and by certain media / groups. (I'll avoid trying to mention any of the 'political' ones, with `climate change` being possibly one where we can 'stand back' on the technical portions!)

IIRC, its a broad D1/D2/E1/E5 competence / commitment problem that's easy to fall into ;-)

mapj1 said:

Competence is a strange thing.

My conservatory renovations are ongoing. The joiners are excellent; the carpenters are rough as a badger's bottom. Mrs P does not know how bad the carpenters are, but walloping in screws, breaking them, and just leaving them is a sure sign of incompetence.

When they go, I have to follow them and rectify what I can.

I know that they are incompetent because I am competent. Mrs P does not know that they are incompetent, but she is very much a lay-person, so could not be competent.

Mrs P's gardener (who is doubtlessly competent at gardening) summed it up: "What you need is craftsmen, not carpenters."

mapj1 said:

perhaps house care for an aged relative who does not want to be undressed by a member of the opposite sex

I cannot respond to this. Why? !!!

It has indeed been updated and is now quite a bit less wrong -  I wonder if  a query from Zs scared them enough to get a UK sparks to edit it  ;-)

If so, good.

I agree on the absent  duty of care thing - free advice, good or bad, is legally taken very much less seriously  than that which is paid for.

Mike.

Zs said:

Chris, try again! Lovely to see you tried to respond

Here goes!

I find the whole sex/gender thing very puzzling. We now have, "batters" 'cos women cannot be, "batsmen", but that brings to mind fish and chips and Yorkshire puddings. In Britain, women want to be, "actors"; but in France, women insist on feminine nouns for trades which were traditionally all male. So, we have, "électricien" and, "électricienne".

I can see that there would be good grounds for complaint if a customer called up, "Zs electrical" and then sent away Zs because she is female.

At risk of appearing to be political, I think that Dianne Abbott (whose politics I mostly do not share, but whom I greatly admire) missed a point. Just as people of colour are readily identifiable, so are women (and men). So, your Zs electrician can be male or female, black or white. The web-site will reveal neither.

At one time, I had a mother, a wife, a daughter, and two granddaughters. I could hardly be sexist!

Well I got no e-mail, but I have tried a one-word response such as, "sex", "gender", "queer", etc., which get through individually, but I still feel that I was censored.

Andy Millar said:

I think you'd struggle proving that they owed a duty of care to the reader

I entirely agree.

Andy Millar said:

or (rightly or wrongly but sadly often rightly) because they don't want to be condescended to

Just like the women in the local GPs' practice!