Seven top books about women doing dirty jobs

Kelly Ramsey was born in Frankfort, Kentucky. She studied poetry writing at the University of Virginia and earned an MFA in fiction from the University of Pittsburgh. She co-founded The Lighthouse Works, an artists’ residency program on Fishers Island, New York, and later moved to Northern California, where she worked for the U.S. Forest Service as a trail maintenance worker, wilderness ranger, and wildland firefighter on a hotshot crew. Her writing has appeared in the Washington Post, Sierra, Electric Literature, Catapult, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the anthology Letter to a Stranger. She loves creeks, lakes, coffee, the ocean, punishing hikes, diner breakfasts, getting too much sun, and plants—even if their care remains a mystery. She lives in Redding, California, with her partner, their daughter, and their dog, a lab mix who won’t swim named Rookie.

Ramsey's new book is Wildfire Days: A Woman, a Hotshot Crew, and the Burning American West.

At Electric lit she tagged seven books

about ladies who work hard in mysterious, misunderstood industries. They suffer and struggle and can’t find anywhere to pee. Sometimes they’re victimized. And yet, in each of these stories, the women grow stronger than they ever imagined. Their books are about finding strength, resilience, joy, belonging, and so much more in the grittiest, most “masculine” workplaces.

One title on the list:

Shoot Like a Girl: One Woman’s Dramatic Fight in Afghanistan and on the Home Front by Mary Jennings Hegar

“Many don’t think that there are women serving in combat roles. Others think that the women who do serve in combat shrink in fear when the bullets fly. I know differently, and I wanted you to know, too.” Hegar could be writing a manifesto on behalf of all the women on this list. Her memoir tracks heroism on two fronts: first, as an Air Force pilot who, despite sustaining an injury during a medevac mission, saves the lives of her patients and crew; second, as an activist in the battle to end a policy that excluded women from ground combat. I love all the little moments I can identify with, like when Hegar wonders how she’ll pee while flying a helicopter, noting that the men around her can pee in a bottle anytime. But more than that, I love that she puts a name to the invisibility of women in male-dominated fields and the rampant underestimation of their strengths.

Read about another book on Ramsey's list.

Shoot Like a Girl is on People magazine's Memorial Day reading list.

--Marshal Zeringue