Yes, I was a good student but had to buy a home at an early age. So then I combined my woodworking interest with home upgrading and got into carpentry. I got into the union, but just as the Carter recession was pushing our state way over the cliff. So it was really a struggle and I went through several years mostly unemployed, barely able to make the bills. Then...I started saving really fast. Just enough to get scammed by a mortgage broker in the early 90's. So basically a total of 20 years went to waste. And the work was always fraught with all sorts of frustrations.

Yes, women would get those easy jobs. In this case they would have them hold a marker as a guy sighted lines for building layout. Then for example to get women to go in via Women in Trades they take them to a power mitre saw and say "Yes you can do finish carpentry!" But women don't even try to hang 80lb office doors , like I do by myself. Then to put the hardware on, you have to drill through metal over your head with a lot of strength. And you have to get everything accurate or it will come loose or not work right. Or you may have a very expensive section of a store fixture that was custom made clear across the country, and one miscalculation or slip up and you've wasted a thousand dollar item and set that part of the job back while they get a replacement fabricated. Women are afraid to tackle those kinds of things----unless they have very close supervision. So they really are just permanent apprentices.

This is all just a politically correct farce, and done to appease the "minority social justice" police. We also had blacks, and usually they had to be given the more basic jobs that they could figure out. In Seattle they would often give them weatherproofing jobs, instead of the actual construction work. They would get that wrong, too. It's all just a big farce and the Carpenters union boss was known as a dirtbag tax evader and organizer of illegal aliens. A worse deal than the Teamsters in the 1960's.