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Car Repair is Women’s Work

Guest Blogger

By Ann Farmer, republished with permission from On The Issues magazine.

Car mechanic and mother Audra Fordin dons her work gloves to do a grease job on an automobile in her shop in Queens, New York. She’s so comfortable under the hood that she’s embarked on a mission to teach other women the basics of auto repair in monthly classes called, “What Women Auto-Know,” donating proceeds to help fix the cars of women in need.

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7 thoughts on Car Repair is Women’s Work

  1. I wonder if a sentence beginning “Car mechanic and father” has ever been written. Not a criticism of you, Lauren, but it’s just an interesting observation that women often have their maternal roles mentioned in other contexts while men do not.

    I tried to do a google search to see the number of differing results, but was stymied by articles like “man kills doctor and mother” which is a different sort of topic.

  2. Dr. C, absolutely. It’s the result of a culture where the assumed person is male. Men are generally assumed to have lots of different aspects to themselves, so that “mechanic” or “doctor” doesn’t particularly foreclose other identities. But our culture seems to carry the assumption that for a woman, any one identity (particularly maternal or sexual) forecloses others, so that if a woman is both a [job] and a [parent], it must be specifically stated.

  3. Conversely, I think it is somewhat the result of a cultural assumption that a man can’t/shouldn’t, be just a father, but women should. Calls back to traditional gender roles that the father works while the mother stays at home with the kids. So it’s an exception when a woman works and mothers both, and thus merits mentioning, but utterly unremarkable when a man does. Verbal patterns like this are quite a bit more enduring than the decade we associate with the ideas that spawned them.

  4. I would love to take a class like that. It bothers me that I know so little about cars and that it makes me heavily reliant on other people (and mostly men) to understand what’s going on.

  5. Oh this is totally awesome. This is a hugely male dominated feild, as well as a subjuct being reserved for mainly males in everyday life. I tried to learn as much as possible from the men in my family about cars and how to fix them, and in turn I have actaully saved myself a lot of money in being able to do my own repairs. When I do need to take my car to a mechanic, I have a much better understanding of what may be wrong and I am able to explain to the mechanic more precisley what is going wrong, saving myself time and money.

    On a down note though, it is very common for me to get a bad attitude from male mechanics (have yet to run into a female) telling me I am wrong and/or giving me a whole run-around as to what else may be wrong with my car. I’ve had experiences where a mechanic will try to take advantage of my gender as being stupid in the area and rip me off.

    I think everyone, male and female, should know the basics about their cars because it benefits greatly in the long run. It just seems more common in my experience that women are more likely to be taken advantage of when it comes to car repairs.

  6. I’m sorry you all have been so long waiting on a transcript.

    Title: Equality Under the Hood
    Title card, on a black background fading to grey at the bottom, with, in white writing, ‘Car Repair is Women’s Work’ on the one line and ‘by Ann Farmer’ on the next.

    Fade in to a shot of a pale woman with light hair past her shoulders, wearing a blue shirt, tending to the wheel of a car.

    VO: My name is Audra Fordin.

    Cut to outside shot of Audra. ‘I specialise in foreign and domestic autorepair. I grew up in the automotive industry. My great-grandfather, my grandfather and my father are all automechanics and we’ve been serving the community-‘ Continued as VO as there is a shot of Audra walking between two cars, still outside, towards camera: ‘-in Flushing, Queens, New York, for eighty years.’

    Back to the to-camera shot. ‘My interest started as a little girl who wanted to spend time with her dad.’

    Cut to shot of Audra and her dad in the office, arms around each other and smiling. ‘This is my dad.’

    Back to to-camera shot. ‘The guys used to think it was cute to teach this little girl-‘ Cut to shot of Audra working under the hood of a car, walking away to fetch something she needs from a drawer: ‘-how to work on cars. And when you’re small, you’re a sponge, and I absorbed it. So the other kids were at home, playing with their Barbie dolls-‘ she walks back to the car, smiling ‘- and I was playing with a lug [?] wrench.’

    Back to to-camera shot. ‘It is still a male-dominated field. Why? I don’t know. I do it, so-‘ She has been pointing at her self with both hands, and now gestures out to us ‘- I can actually tell you it’s not that hard.’ Back to the first shot of her tending to a wheel. ‘Yes, there is physical labour, yes, if you have to take off a wheel, you have to take off a wheel!’

    Back to to-camera shot. ‘New people are a little taken ‘back.’ Cut to shot of Audra standing outside a silver car, her hand on the top of the open door, as she converses with the driver, in VO: ‘They want to question me, they want to talk to a mechanic.’ She nods at the driver. ‘And I say, “well sure, how can I help you?”‘ She gestures at the driver and moves back, taking off her gloves, so that the driver can step out. ‘And they say, “well no, I’m looking for a mechanic.” And I’m right here, and I’m ready, so what’s going on, what do you need?’ She steps into the vacated driver’s seat, starts the car and closes the door. ‘It’s something that women should be involved in.’

    Cut to a to-camera shot that is a little further away. ‘It’s just about doing what you like. And for me, it’s a passion, and I truly love what I do.’ She stops gesturing, nods and smiles hugely. Fade to black, and the video’s over.

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