Susan Eisenberg began her electrical apprenticeship in 1978, the year President Jimmy Carter set goals and timetables for the hiring of women on federally assisted construction projects and for the inclusion of women in apprenticeship programs. Eisenberg expected not only a challenging job and the camaraderie of a labor union but also the chance to be part of a historic transformation, social and economic, that would make the construction trades accessible to women.

That transformation did not happen. In this book, Eisenberg gracefully weaves the voices of thirty women who pioneered as carpenters, electricians, ironworkers, painters, and plumbers to examine why their numbers remained small. Speaking as if to a friend, women from across the country recall their decisions to enter the trades, their first days on the job, and their strategies to gain training and acceptance.

They assess, with thought, passion, and twenty years' perspective, the affirmative action efforts. Eisenberg ends with a discussion of the level of change required to uproot gender barriers where they are deeply embedded in the organization and culture of the workplace.