Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, May 5, 1993 TAG: 9305050014
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Ed Shamy
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Do three chin-ups?
Do 10 push-ups?
Do 25 sit-ups?
Walk a 20-foot balance beam while carrying a hose?
Wear an air tank on your back, hold a hose and run up four flights of stairs without stopping to grab a stair rail?
Grab a hose nozzle at a third-story window and pull the entire length of hose up to you from the ground?
Can you do it quickly? More quickly than 245 or so other people?
Assuming you can, and assuming you can then pass a written test - scoring higher than 245 others - and assuming your driving and criminal records are clean, your work history is good and even your credit checks out, you may have what it takes to be a Roanoke firefighter.
Assuming that there were a Roanoke firefighter's job available, which there very infrequently is.
Assuming that you're assuming that you can be a firefighter in spite of these odds, I'll have to assume that you're male.
There are no women firefighters in Roanoke's 245-member Fire Department.
Barring divine intervention, there are not likely to be any women firefighters soon.
It rankles Mayor David Bowers, and he has chided the Fire Department to get its engine in gear and remedy the gender gap.
But on Friday, a few minutes after sunrise outside William Fleming High School, a first batch of applicants will begin the physical agility tests listed at the beginning of this column.
All day long - 250 strong if everybody shows up - these tests will go on, every one measured with a stopwatch.
The Fire Department goes through these motions once a year, reshuffling the deck of applicants. When there is an opening, the top six-ranked applicants get a shot at the job.
Rarely is there a woman among those six.
Men and women are ranked on the same list, competing head to head in a test that comes down largely to sheer strength.
"We're just hoping that some of our females do well," said James Beatty, an administrator of the city's personnel management office.
To offset natural differences between men and women, the city's Police Department screens applicants differently, holding women to different standards than men.
Once in the Police Academy, though, male and female recruits are held to the same physical standards of strength and speed.
It seems to have worked. There are women cops in Roanoke.
Firefighting, arguably, relies more often on brute strength than does policing.
The sensibility of equal-rights rules duly respected, some jobs have to rely on raw strength.
If a woman does well on Friday, performs the physical tests, then does well on the rest of the Fire Department's screening process, give her some red suspenders and make room for her down at the station.
If she doesn't, how important is it to us to have a woman firefighter?
by CNB