Toronto company opens space for women in construction: ‘I want to see more women’ | The Canadian News

At a Toronto condo under construction near Richmond Street and Spadina Avenue, Natasha Ferguson can be found hard at work, covered in dust, her focus, on sanding.

You are not afraid of getting your hands or hair dirty. It’s like a metaphor, he says, for what he’s had to go through to show that he has every right to be in a male-dominated industry.

“I was looking for a job and they weren’t hiring me,” Ferguson told Global News one afternoon. “It was more than me being a woman, they just didn’t think I could really get the job done and also, you know, a woman leading a group of men on site.”

So instead of trying to break down doors, Ferguson opened his own, launching Ethelfox Construction Group, a construction company with the aim of breaking down barriers and gender prejudices for women who want to work in the sector.

“I want to see more women in the trades,” Ferguson said. “When I started trying to recruit and find women, it was extremely difficult … a lot of women think they can’t do this and that’s why I’m showing them that they can.”

The company specializes in custom interior and exterior home renovations, including drywall, tile and flooring installation, light woodwork, kitchen and bathroom remodeling, and cabinet painting and repainting.

Ferguson also started his own non-profit organization called A women’s job, offering support and training for women in the industry through self-esteem programs.

“We need more female plumbers, we need more female electricians, we need women who can do drywall and tile and all these different trades,” Ferguson said. “I think through these programs, only jobs will be created, education will be created in the industry and what can really be done in this industry.”

Ferguson’s construction team is made up of 70% women who saw and believed they could do it too, like 25-year-old Otisha Joseph.

“Having [Natasha] by your side and motivating you and pushing you to do different things, as if I had never seen myself on a roof, ”said Joseph, incredulous. “But now I’m up there and I’m walking and it’s amazing.”

Ferguson said that, even armed with decision-making power, she still has to counter an industry culture that is misogynistic and discriminatory.

“I went to my own workplaces,” Ferguson said, “and I’ll get there and the guy will say, ‘oh, is your boss coming’ and I’ll say ‘oh no, no, I am the boss’.”

Ferguson also recounts cases in which she was passed over to managerial positions, due to an aversion “to the idea of ​​a black woman taking care of the elderly, [white] boys in a [construction] site.”

Yet he says his late mother, Ethel, and her youngest daughter, Fox, the company’s namesakes, are the driving force behind his plans to change the industry.

“My mother was an entrepreneur,” Ferguson said. “She came to this country when she was 21 and faced racial discrimination her entire life, so in a way, this is for her too.

“My two daughters … it is important for me to let them understand … they can do whatever they want, be it construction, lawyer, plumber or whatever. That is why I am doing this. “