"50 kg" - Woman Builders in La Paz City, Bolivia

Even though construction work has traditionally been seen as a male occupation, in Bolivia women have found their way into this field and have become more than 21,000 women working in construction, representing 4.5% of Bolivian employees who work in construction.

In the interviews that I conducted during 2017 and 2018 in the city of La Paz with women who work in the construction workforce, the notion of “physical strength” was frequently brought up when they spoke about the demands of their jobs. In the construction workforces in the cities of La Paz and El Alto, it’s a widespread belief that women do not have the same physical strength as men needed for the job. As a result, the contractor receives the same quality of work from women as he or she does from men, but will justify paying women less on this basis.

How do the female construction workers in La Paz and El Alto apply the notion of “physical strength” to their bodies within the world of construction?

“One only needs the will for this type of work. You find strength in places where you never had it. If you were lifting small bricks before, with time you’ll be lifting much bigger bricks. You make yourself strong here and forget about your age. We don’t only need physical strength, but we also have to put up with the discrimination”

(María del Carmen, construction worker, La Paz, Bolivia, 3650 m.s.n.m)