Too-big helmets, gloves, safety harnesses and vests are a perennial issue for women at job sites, creating safety concerns and barriers to their work in the industry.

When Brianna Ernst steps onto a job site, she is already an anomaly: She’s a woman in the construction industry, a field dominated by men. But the protective gear she has to wear to work makes her stand out even more.

As a geologist at an engineering firm in the Chicago suburbs, most of her job is spent overseeing soil investigations for big projects, which involves field visits to construction sites, where her company drills anywhere between 50 to 100 feet into the ground to better understand the soil composition.

Currently, Ernst is working on electrical substations, which means she’s required to wear flame-resistant safety gear. Because there are so few women in this line of work, it was hard for her company to find flame-resistant gear that would fit her. Initially they gave her men’s pants and a couple of men’s shirts.

“I have a very small frame,” she said. “I’m wearing small sizes for men, but they’re still huge.”

The result is that the clothes meant to protect her are not doing their job well: Her too-long sleeves could get caught up in machinery, a dangerous worksite hazard. Since she is in a supervisory position, the safety aspect doesn’t bother Ernst as much. But the ill-fitting personal protective equipment (PPE) does impact her confidence in a field where she already has to prove herself more than her peers.

“I’m showing up to this client site in clothes that are too big for me, and it’s kind of embarrassing,” she said. “I look like this little girl who doesn’t belong. I’m not even wearing clothes that fit me.”

Already the construction trades are a tough industry for women and LGBTQ+ people due to persistent issues with sexism and discrimination. Only 4 percent of construction trade workers are women, and those who stay in the field often find the lack of PPE suited to their bodies frustrating — and yet another barrier they have to navigate in order to do their jobs.

Personal protective equipment — from helmets to steel-toed boots, safety harnesses, respirators and vests — has one main purpose: to keep workers safe on job sites. Heavy equipment, exposure to chemicals, working with heavy materials like steel and wood, and certain jobs like welding or electrical work put employees at significant risk of injury.

As of 2022, the construction and extraction fields have the second highest number of workplace deaths in the country at 951 fatalities, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The BLS also reported 21,400 nonfatal injuries due to falls, slips and trips in 2020.

Read the full article about construction protective gear by Jessica Kutz at The 19th.