Paving the way for female tradies

• Published date: 04 November 2021
• Publication title: Mountain Scene

Ultimately it was a ‘‘genius idea’’ — and the fact she’d come back from a gap year in Chile with no money — that led the Queenstowner to sign up for an electrical apprenticeship, and she’s never looked back.

‘‘I really couldn’t afford to go to university, so I decided that I wanted to do something that would pay the bills, but also upskill me.

‘‘That’s when I discovered that the trades would be a great idea, because you can stay in your hometown, but you can also upskill and then earn your way to, you know, $80,000 a year qualified, which sounded like what most people get when they came out of uni, so I was like, ‘well, I can do this with no debt, that sounds like a genius idea’.’’ Growing up in Otatara, just out of Invercargill, her father owned a bakery, her mother worked at the Griffin’s factory.

‘‘I don’t understand how me and my sister don’t have diabetes at this point because all we did was eat raspberry buns and cookies growing up,’’ Thompson jokes.

But the influence of her father and the strong feminist energy of both her mother and grandmother meant Thompson and her older sister grew up in a world with no limits.

‘‘[My sister] is working quite high up in Tiwai doing amazing girl boss stuff ... she’s actually [dad’s] boss now at Tiwai.

‘‘So when I decided that I wanted to be an electrician, it was never a ‘can I do this?’, it was like, ‘do I want to do this or not?’,’’ Thompson says.

The 24-year-old’s in the final year of her apprenticeship and hopes to be qualified by next year.

But the road hasn’t been an easy one, with Thompson facing hurdles the moment she entered the industry.

‘‘I have countless stories I could tell you of people slapping my ass on site, guys calling me ‘princess’, guys telling me to get down on my knees on the work site and, you know, like insinuate that kind of thing.

‘‘There’s also physical hurdles, like, all tools are designed for...