FDNY celebrates having more than 100 female firefighters in its ranks for first time ever: ‘This is not a man’s job'

When FDNY firefighter Regina Wilson graduated from the Fire Academy in 1999, she was the only woman in a class of 320 graduates and the 12th African-American woman to join the FDNY ever. More than 20 years later, on Sept. 24, 2019, 16 women graduated from the FDNY Fire Academy, marking the first time ever that FDNY has had more than 100 female firefighters in its ranks.

This marks a huge milestone in getting more women in the male-dominated profession — and a moment Wilson thought she’d never get to witness while still on the job.

“This is an amazing moment for me because it is something that I thought I would never be able to see in my career. I thought I would see this day way after I was out of the job,” Wilson tells MAKERS.

The 16 trailblazing women joined their class of 304 FDNY Fire Academy graduates to stand up and proudly do a “count on deck” — a spoken commitment to the fire commissioner and officers that they are dedicated and ready to serve their communities.

“It’s empowering to see and be surrounded by so many females with the same goals as me. I’m really happy that there are so many powerful, strong women on the job,” FDNY probationary firefighter Kristen DeRop, one of the 16 women who graduated Tuesday, told the FDNY.

DeRop is a FDNY legacy whose brother and father both battled fires in New York. “I have always wanted to be a firefighter and I made sure I was prepared for the Academy.”

DeRop and her fellow FDNY Fire Academy graduates had to pass both a physical and fitness test before entering an 18-week classroom and physical fire service training program. In addition to successfully completing the course to learn how to extinguish fires and save lives from the FDNY Fire Academy, these trailblazing women also learned how to combat sexism from mentors like Regina Wilson from United Women Firefighters Association (UFW).

“Growing up, being physical is something [girls] are told to stay away from but we’re just as capable to do these things that men are able to do,” Wilson says. “We have to break down these stereotypical barriers and we need to empower women to do the things they want to do.”

The FDNY and fire departments across the nation have a long history of gender discrimination. Until 1977, women weren’t even allowed to apply to the FDNY due to a widespread belief that firefighting was a “man’s job.” After FDNY revamped its physical tests in the late ‘70s to make it physically impossible for women to pass, MAKER Brenda Berkman had to sue the FDNY to give women a fair chance to even join the department’s ranks.

Since then, Berkman, Wilson and other female firefighters with UFW have been working to slowly chip away at the gender disparity in the FDNY by recruiting women and creating an accessible pipeline into the profession. In addition to providing free fitness programs to prepare women for the rigorous physical requirements to become a firefighter, they’ve also served as mentors to learn how to combat the gender discrimination they may face from the public, their co-workers and even their family members.

“We’ve been mentoring and helping women with their daily struggles and with their significant others who have deterred them from pursuing the job,” Wilson tells MAKERS.

“With these women, it’s like molding clay. We have to help them see their self-worth and the strengths they have. When they see us, they know they can be us. We’re saying, ‘Allow us to show you what you can be.’”

Wilson has also been working to get more people of color in the FDNY as well, and served as the first female president of the Vulcan Society — an organization representing African-American firefighters — from January 2015 to January 2019.

“It takes a long time to change people’s mind that firefighters look like a certain type of people — and we have to train the whole nation to see that,” Wilson explains.

Thanks to the hard work of Wilson and other female firefighters who have paved a way for other women in the male-dominated profession, there are now 107 women battling blazes — and sexism — across New York for the FDNY. They even fought to have gender-neutral language in FDNY manuals to be more inclusive of women.

Wilson says that with the graduating class, women will make up 1 percent of the approximately 11,000 firefighters in the FDNY. But, she still has a way to go to complete her end-of-career goal.

“My goal is before I get out of this job that the FDNY will be 2 percent of women. I will always be a part of women to help them see their worth,” says Wilson. “I will work to show that this is not just a man’s job — it’s a job. If someone has the heart and dedication and want to help people, then this is the job for you.”

Learn more about Regina Wilson’s trailblazing work in the FDNY in her MAKERS Profile below:

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