I had a fantastic tour of Heysham 2 nuclear power station yesterday. The tour guides were excellent and open minded on the whole issue of energy. This was a welcome surprise given the past 2 visits I had to Hinkely C and Sizewell B, where the cult-ture there was different.
As we stood in the viewing gallery above the control room, I was happy to a large proportion of female engineers looking after the reactor. I was thinking 'what if women are better at these roles than men and we've just started to realise it?
Later outside a woman was talking about how there should be more women in there. I said "yes, maybe we would find that women are actually better at the job than men and would that not be a great thing, if we were to open it up to women more somehow?"
The response was silence. So I said it again genuinely thinking they had not heard and how great it would be to get better quality staff running the reactors, given it would be a very dangerous business for the whole country if being managed in poorer hands?
But no. I got a furious look from the woman.
Was her goal to get women into these jobs notwithstanding the dangers associated when not taking enough care? Was she thinking that safety is not the issue here - and getting women special privileges over men is what matters.
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