Why are women not hired as subway drivers? Why women are not allowed to drive trains Why women cannot work as machinists.

A great story about how good it is to not give up on the way to your dream. And that the "official ban" on a number of professions for women is in fact not quite a ban, including (and first of all) legally. Perhaps this information will be useful to someone!

Electric locomotive of desire

For the first time in Russia, a girl Yulia Yurova from the Moscow region became an assistant to the driver on the railway

Since Soviet times, the profession of an electric train driver was considered not a woman's business: the fair sex could wash trains, treat their bearings with oil and check the condition of the wheels, but the way to drive these vehicles was ordered for them. However, recently the first girl appeared in the Moscow region - 25-year-old Yulia Yurova from Korolev - who, despite all the bureaucratic obstacles, still managed to become an assistant to the driver and gain access to the coveted "steering wheel" of the electric train. The details of her amazing story were found out by the correspondent of "MK".

photo: Gennady Cherkasov

Thorny path on the rails

Until the 8th grade, the life of Yulia Yurova was no different from other schoolgirls: she was fond of humanitarian subjects and was thinking about a career as a journalist. Once, setting off from Korolev to Moscow, the girl got into a conversation with the driver of a commuter train. However, when Julia asked the railroad worker where to go to study in order to become a "helmsman", he recommended that she leave these thoughts.

They say the forbidden fruit is sweet. This is how Yulia caught fire with the idea of connecting her life with the railways. Surprisingly, her mother, Lilia Adolfovna, did not contradict her daughter. After graduating from the 11th grade in 2005, the girl entered the first year of the railway college №52. In the selection committee, the fairer sex was not too happy: they were immediately informed that, of course, she could get a diploma as an assistant driver and even have an internship on real electric trains, but her “composition” would not move further than that - women were forbidden to be employed as train drivers. However, the management of the college tried to console Yulia: “Our diploma will give you two professions at once - an assistant driver and a locksmith: you can always work on the second one”.

The prospect of becoming a locksmith, frankly speaking, did not make Yulia very happy, but she still began to study at the railway college, despite the vague future. In the spring of 2008, the girl practiced for a whole month as an assistant driver at the Moscow-2 depot, but after completing the practice, the management of the institution invited her to do any job, except for managing trains. Then Yulia tried to get a job in another depot - "Pererva", the head of which, Alexander Koryagin, reacted with understanding to her desire to go to work in her specialty after graduation. It was thanks to the good attitude and the petition of the depot management, Yulia Yurova, that the lucky ticket literally fell out: the then head of the Moscow railway, Vladimir Starostenko, personally gave her permission to work as an assistant driver.

- The first weeks were difficult, - says Yulia, - I worked in a men's team and felt how incredulously all the drivers and their assistants were looking at me. There were also everyday difficulties - the men had to free up the locker room for me, and they really did not know how to treat me - condescendingly, as a girl who would work for a week and leave, or as a colleague who could be relied on. My job was to track the readings of the instruments on the train, control the boarding and disembarkation of passengers and help the driver - for example, if he forgot to perform an operation, I had to tell him about this error immediately. When our train was at the depot, we, together with the driver, walked around it, checked whether everything was in order with him. From the Kursk railway station they went to Serpukhov, Chekhov, Podolsk, Shcherbinka, Golitsyno and other cities. In the same place, at the Pererva depot, I met my common-law husband, the machinist Alexei, with whom we are still together. So I worked for two years.

Then the girl had to change her job - now she drew train departure schedules without any chance of returning "at the helm." But when the company, engaged in passenger transportation between the largest metropolitan stations and airports, announced a recruitment at the beginning of summer, Yulia Yurova, without hesitation, sent her resume. It was considered for a long time - about two months - but in August the girl was called back and invited for an interview. She passed successfully not only him, but also two strict commissions, one of which checked her physical, and the other - her psychological state. As a result, on August 22, Yulia became an assistant driver on a train running between Belorussky railway station and Sheremetyevo airport.

Why are there no women in Russia - truck drivers or electric train drivers? The point is not that women do not want to go to study in these professions, but that in Russia there is a government decree that explicitly prohibits hiring women in more than 400 professions. Vedomosti chose the most curious of them.

Women in Russia are not prohibited from fishing, restrictions apply only to coastal fishing "on hand-drawn seine nets, ice fishing on seine nets, fixed nets and ventilators."

2. Electric train driver

Women are prohibited from working not only as drivers of electric trains, steam locomotives, diesel locomotives, diesel trains, but also as their assistants.

3. Bus driver

Women are prohibited from working as bus drivers for more than 14 seats. The restriction does not apply to urban and suburban transport.

There cannot be women boatswains, sailors, skippers and skipper assistants in Russia.

5. Porter of baggage and carry-on baggage at the airport

If you see that a woman is moving your luggage or hand luggage at the airport, know that this is a violation of Russian laws.

Women are not allowed to work on tractors, trucks, snowmobiles, bulldozers.

Stump grubber and forest feller are not female professions.

Restrictions for women apply to operations with cattle and pigs.

There are many women among the employees of the metro: they are on duty in the booths at the escalator, they sell tokens, wash floors at stations, but they cannot become highly paid machinists. The Village asked the press secretary of the St. Petersburg metro and the girl who tried to get the right to work as a machinist about the reasons for this discrimination.

Julia Shavel

press secretary of the St. Petersburg metro

There is a decree of the government of the Russian Federation of February 25, 2000 No. 162 “On the approval of the list of heavy work and work with harmful or hazardous working conditions, in the implementation of which the use of women’s labor is prohibited”. Number 374 in this decree is “electric train driver and his assistant”. That is, the rule was not written by the metro: it was adopted at the federal level.

The only female crew of drivers in the Leningrad metro was formed in 1955. There were four drivers. One of those women, Natalya Donskaya, is alive. According to her stories, it was a very difficult job.

Work as a machinist, in addition to enormous physical activity, also implies psychological. Let's take a modern rolling stock: in a critical situation, the decision must be made by the driver. There are difficult cases: a person fell under the train - the driver informs the dispatcher and then he himself, in an emergency, begins to pull the person out from under the train. It is difficult to imagine that a woman - both physically and psychologically - could do such a job. Another point: a long stay underground negatively affects the physical condition of a woman, in particular her reproductive function.

For this job and not every man will be hired: the main requirement is
good health

Personally, the ruling seems fair to me. Every day I see how difficult the work of the drivers is. Yes, there are strong women who operate cranes at construction sites and work at the wheel of a taxi. Yes, trains for departure are not prepared by drivers, but by locksmiths and other service personnel. But abnormal situations in the subway are some of the most difficult in the world. And the drivers are responsible for all people - passengers - that is behind them: these are six to eight cars.

Not every man will be hired for this job: the main requirement here is good health. Unfortunately, today's youth has many problems. So if a healthy 50-year-old man comes to us, we will take him. In the metro, there is a large turnover among drivers: it happens that men who have worked for 20 years have health problems - then they are transferred to another job, for example, a locksmith.

In recent years, none of the women, except for Anna Klevets from St. Petersburg, have applied to us for employment as a machinist. There are other vacancies for women in the metro.

Anna Klevets

It was the end of 2008, then I was studying at the Faculty of Law. I needed additional income. I could not get a job in my specialty, since work experience was required everywhere. And in the subway there was just a constant announcement that they needed male driver assistants. Having legal knowledge, I understood that this is a discriminatory requirement, since, according to the Constitution, men and women have equal rights in the field of choosing a profession. I decided to contact the Metropolitan, and there they refused to hire me: they verbally explained that they only hire men.

I decided to go to court because I understood that women are discriminated against on the basis of gender. As a result, she went through all the courts of the first, second instance - she reached the Supreme. I had two parallel cases: the first - on the refusal of employment, I went through the district court of St. Petersburg and reached the Supreme Court. Second, I appealed against the clause of the government decree, according to which women are prohibited from working as an electric train driver. She immediately applied to the Supreme Court with this statement. Then there was an appeal to the Constitutional Court, to the European Court of Human Rights. The last appeal was to the UN Committee on the Protection of Women from Discrimination. So far there is no answer from them. All other authorities refused me and supported the government decree. The European Court of Human Rights declared my complaint inadmissible - they wrote that there were no violations of the Convention on the Protection of Human Rights.

There is many harmful
professions, in which
women work

In the case of Resolution 162, the logic of the government is as follows: it is a concern for the reproductive health of women. Those harmful factors that are in the metro can affect the health of a woman as a future mother. The factors are vibration, noise, poor lighting and others.

There are many harmful professions in which women work. For example, painters who do not receive as high a salary as electric train drivers, but at the same time work in hazardous conditions. There is an opportunity to receive more, and this is a choice that a woman should have. If she herself decides that she does not want to work with such harmful factors, she will not go into this profession. There are women who have already given birth, women who do not plan to become mothers - they should get the right to be a machinist and receive a decent salary.

Illustration: Nastya Yarovaya

While Europe is moving towards universal unification and, instead of the usual appeals of Mr and Ms, introduces asexual Mx, our country continues to defend the inequality of people of different genders. At least in the professional field.

For example, in our country, just like in some Saudi Arabia, the fairer sex is prohibited from working in 456 specialties, although there have been no such restrictions for a long time neither in the United States, nor in the European Union, nor in other developed countries.
A similar practice is used in Belarus, only there the list is a little shorter, and consists of more than 200 professions. However, the most common ones like a firefighter, a carpenter and an employee of a distillery are included in it.
It is also forbidden to involve Belarusian women in work at a height of more than 1.3 meters (that is, for example, to pick apples and pears). Interestingly, does your own summer cottage also count?
Most of the controversy is caused not so much by professions with harmful and dangerous working conditions or those associated with lifting extreme weights - modern ladies are not eager to work as riggers or mercury dispensers - as those that are considered conditionally harmful now, although a few years ago they were gladly attracted to them. the fairer sex.
Subway driver
It is believed that women cannot work as typists because of the excessive stress on their health. Flashes of bright light, alternating with the darkness of the tunnel, quickly spoil vision, and the need to keep the situation under complete control for several hours is a nerve.
Now this profession, according to Russian law, is included in the list of hard work and work with harmful or hazardous working conditions, but the way was not always closed for women in the metro. After the war, entire women's brigades of typists and their assistants were formed in Moscow, because men were sorely lacking. By the way, this problem may arise again soon. The machinists must have excellent health, and modern young people cannot boast of it.
While the subway is pushing the age bar for candidates to train drivers, it is possible that gender inequality in this profession will have to be removed. The same restriction as in the subway applies to drivers of high-speed trains on the railway. So far, they can only be men, but a couple of months ago, Russian Railways has already promised to reconsider this decision.
Truck driver
Why this profession is considered unfeminine in Russia is not completely clear. In other countries, women make up a small but significant percentage of the total number of truck drivers. In the United States, for example, five percent of large cars are driven by women, in Canada the figure is 3.5 percent, and even in conservative Europe 1 percent of heavy trucks are in the hands of women.
The same applies to the prohibition on the operation of buses with 14 or more passenger seats. Is the Gazelle on the shoulder for the ladies, but some Toyota for 15-16 seats - no? Moreover, there are already a lot of women among trolleybus drivers, for example, and this work is no easier than long-distance transport.
Fireman
Although there are no official restrictions on this position in most countries, unlike in Russia, women in the fire department are still very rare. In the United States, for example, they account for only 0.6 percent of the total number of firefighters. And in Sweden, even a special survey was conducted several years ago, and it turned out that male firefighters would not want ladies to come to their profession, because they consider their team a brotherhood, which gives them the opportunity to act in extreme situations correctly, to understand each other with at a glance.
Nevertheless, there are still women in the Swedish fire brigades, though a little over a hundred throughout the country. Perhaps the only exception to the rule is Australia, where women volunteers are actively recruiting to put out forest fires.
Leatherworker
While a man disappears on a hunt, women sew clothes from skins, right? Such a picture can now only be seen in history textbooks. In Russia, women are prohibited from sorting large leather raw materials, cutting leather and even cleaning leather products.
True, there is an explanation here, and it is very reasonable: such raw materials usually weigh quite a lot, and after the leather has been chemically treated and cut out, no one forbids women to sew handbags and shoes.
Unfortunately, such restrictions affect the legalization of folk crafts, since in many ethnic groups it is women who traditionally engage in leather dressing and even skinning, which is also prohibited for women by the Labor Code.
Serving bulls and driving tractors
It would seem, where, if not in agriculture, are women really in demand? However, it is here that perhaps the most gender restrictions. For example, ladies are strictly forbidden to work with bulls-producers, stallions-producers and boars, although in many households and small farms they are engaged in this work unofficially.
The logic of the legislators is clear: such a profession is fraught with injury and requires a lot of physical strength to restrain and calm the angry animal, if necessary.
And if everything is clear with dangerous animals, then there is no clear answer to the question why women should not work as tractor drivers or machinists. Elderly representatives of these professions, who worked quietly in Soviet times, are especially surprised at this prohibition. Recall at least a participant in the Stakhanov movement, Praskovya Angelina, or the famous tractor driver Olga Kovaleva.
In fact, a woman in Russia can drive agricultural machinery, but only on condition that her safety is ensured to the maximum. Modern combines, equipped with the latest technology, fall under this definition.
In a number of regions, even schoolgirls are taught to operate such machines, so that, having barely reached the age of 18, they can immediately enter the field. However, farms that can afford new (and rather expensive) equipment are still vanishingly few.
It is noteworthy that there are more and more women who want to get behind the wheel of agricultural machinery in recent years, so it is quite possible that this profession will soon be deleted from the list forever.

Editorial staff The village continues, with the help of experts, to answer the strangest questions about life that are asked by townspeople.

YULIA CHAVEL

press secretary of the St. Petersburg metro

"For this job and not every man will be hired: the main requirement isgood health!"

In recent years, none of the women, except for Anna Klevets from St. Petersburg, have applied to us for employment as a machinist. There are other vacancies for women in the metro.

ANNA KLEVETS

"There is many harmful professions, in whichwomen work. "