Letter to the editor: High heels & mine sites

In her column “Voting for a woman president” (March 5, TribLIVE), Lori Falce relates standing next to a woman wearing high heels in the dirt at a strip mine. The woman was bemoaning the fact that she needed to get home to make pies, and the men on the site were “yukking it up” by themselves, thereby delaying the departure.

Falce apparently extols the virtues of the woman who could multi-task: standing around and thinking of pies. I knew a lot of women geologists in the U.S. Forest Service. They never would have worn high heels to a mine site. They would have put on their boots, jeans and hard hat and either waded right in to the conversation or started it. We would call it networking and getting to know the people we were working with to get the job done. Not one would have complained about pie making.

You do not get respect by standing around in high heels on a mine site and moping. Certainly not from me.

David Fredley

West Deer

The writer is retired from the U.S. Forest Service.