Sienna Mallon is sick of hearing women wanting special treatment on a mine site. (Source: Instagram)
More women are entering the well-paid industry of mining than ever before. But despite the hard work and grit it takes to get there, some are still dismissed as a "diversity hire".
Sienna Mallon moved to regional Queensland from Victoria for the job two years ago after leaving her role in the agricultural resource industry. The 27-year-old's hard work was recognised and she made an impressive career jump to site manager, but she told Yahoo Finance the question still lingers: 'How did she get here?'
"Now we've got quotas to bring women into the industry, there's this perception that all women are not competent," Mallon said.
"The only plausible explanation in their eyes is that I'm a girl and that I got it because they just wanted to put it a girl in."
This has caused Mallon, who is a vocal advocate for more women entering the industry, to experience imposter syndrome. She said it’s frustrating to be perceived as landing her role simply as an HR box-ticking exercise.
Do you work in the mines and have a story? Email stew.perrie@yahooinc.com
"You're so convinced that everyone hates you because that's what you hear and don't even know if you can back yourself,” she said.
The reality for her male co-workers is leagues apart.
"Women are perceived as incompetent until we prove that we are competent, whereas men are seen as competent until they prove that they are not competent," she told Yahoo Finance.
Number of women working full-time in the mines is on the rise
The latest data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics found there were 45,000 women in the industry in 2022, compared to 8,700 in 2002, and now make up a little more than 20 per cent of the full-time workforce.
Many women have realised the money they could make, sometimes with little formal training, and some roles aren’t right at the coalface. You can make upwards of $90,000 a year in the utilities sector like being a fly-in fly-out (FIFO) cleaner, which is far above the average wage for that role.
But if you get the right tickets (courses required for certain areas of mining) or have trade qualifications (like being an electrician or mechanic), you can make at least $110,000.
There are loads of FIFO jobs that don't require working in the mines. (Source: TikTok)
SEEK reported the average mining salary was between $125,000 to $145,000 a year.
Mallon acknowledged part of these women getting the chance was due to gender quotas.
However, she argued this was not a justification for the assumption on their skill level.
"There is a real struggle for young women... they might get a foot in the door because there are gender quotas,” she said.
“But the quota is there to give them a chance to get looked at, to force managers to stop unconscious bias and force them to have a look.”
Change sometimes needs to be ‘forced’
The 27-year-old said there's no beating around the bush: working in the mining industry is a tough gig.
While it depends on the role, you're usually working in very hot conditions, for long hours, in a male-dominated landscape.
There’s also a dark underbelly that’s hard to ignore.
A spotlight was put on the industry after a confronting report was handed down in 2022 following an inquiry into the sexual harassment against women in the fly-in fly-out mining industry.
Years after a crackdown on the “abhorrent” behaviour, women are still opening up about the unacceptable behaviour on site.
A more recent report found the mining industry "appears to have made progress in weeding out explicit and over forms of sexual harassment", however "covert forms" like sexism and misogyny "remain high".
“More than a third of women are regularly experiencing gender-based, hostile and undermining comments about their abilities, such as comments that women are not suited for mining,” Professor Sharon Parker from Curtain University said.
“These forms of harassment are also more common for women when they are in the minority; that is working alongside all men or mostly men.”
Mallon said having more women on-the-ground was vital to changing the culture.
“It doesn't need to be 50-50, it just needs to be more than what we've got,” she said.
"I think that we need to force something in order to achieve something organic in the future.”
Tired of hearing about 'special treatment'
The site manager said women were not looking for “special treatment”, noting male-dominated industries like trades or mining should be seen as an amazing opportunity to achieve financial freedom once thought impossible.
"I've always heard women say they want to be treated equally, but I've never heard them say I want more than what is equal,” she said.
Mallon said it’s time to lay blame where it belongs, at the foot of managers overseeing these operations.
"Stop blaming women for women coming into this industry and start blaming poor management,” she said.
Sienna Mallon said there can be a toxic underbelly on mine sites and both men and women have to play a part in fixing it. (Source: Instagram)
The site manager praised the work of mining companies for recruiting women across different roles.
She singled out BHP for its strategy in trying to balance the gender scale.
As of June this year, 37.1 per cent of BHP's workforce were women and the company set a goal to achieve complete gender parity by 2025.
"They've got some sites with 46 per cent female representation, and I think their aggression has been quick," the 27-year-old told Yahoo Finance.
The site manager said other companies have been taking a "softer approach of just trying to recruit good women".
