Mary Sweeney and Bev Buhr are some of the first of the total eight women to graduate from the Madison Fire Recruit Academy in 1980. A new documentary from the City of Madison shares their experiences as they entered a male-dominated environment.
“Everyday you would receive an evaluation. There’d be a list of things that we had done that day. Whether it was repelling down a building, carrying a ladder down, hanging a smoke detector, or whatever you happened to be doing, you would be evaluated on it. I mean it almost just got laughable after awhile cause there were no specific comments about how you did something even though you completed it in your mind but it always said at the end of our paper at the end of the day “lacks upper body strength” said Sweeney and Buhr
The 110-minute documentary is titled In Her Boots.
The film celebrates the Madison Fire Department’s 40th anniversary of the first women graduates from the academy class of 1980. The film is the product of Madison Fire Department spokesperson Cynthia Schuster. She says these are important stories to tell.
“We all get to see it and have a deeper sense of appreciation for where we’ve come from and where we are at today. And then as this story continues in the next 40 years. We have a chance now to make an educated choice about whether we’re going to write a different chapter instead of perhaps repeating history without even realizing that we may have been. This is a historical record. We have something to look back on and learn from. We have an opportunity now to do better and better as we move forward” said Schuster.
According to Schuster, currently thirteen percent of Madison’s Fire Department are women.. Only six commissioned women firefighters are people of color.
Because this underrepresentation continues to be a major problem, Schuster says that she wants the film to be inspirational for other women interested in these career paths.
“So I hope that the film demonstrates for one thing a rich history of women in the fire service in Madison. And I know people are going to watch it and think ‘ah’ Madison fire is the place to be and they’ll know then that when they come to the Madison fire department they’re not going to be the only woman and they’re not going to be the first woman” said Schuster.
Schuster says equity is still catching up in the E-M-S field despite the progressive history within the Madison Fire Department.
“A lot of those challenges and battles that one might have to gear up for, if they were to be the first or the only, doesn’t exist anymore cause we went through that 40 years ago. That’s not to say that all of our challenges are resolved because women are still an underrepresented group in the fire service but in many ways Madison has evolved to become a role model for other fire agencies and EMS services across the nation” said Schuster.
The film will premiere theatrically tomorrow at 5:30pm, at Mitby Theatre on the Madison College’s Truax Campus.
The in-person event will also include a talk from some of the women firefighters of the 1980 academy graduates.
Additionally, the film is available to watch on-demand now from the Madison Fire Department’s YouTube channel, and will be streaming on Roku, Apple TV, Charter Digital 994, and AT&T U-Verse 99 starting tomorrow.
