Bethany Mayer didn’t want to go back to work after learning that a fellow ironworker insinuated that women like her didn’t belong there.

Jordyn Bieker, an apprentice sheet metal worker in Denver, said she felt uncomfortable that her foreman asked her pointed questions about being gay.

Yunmy Carroll, a veteran steamfitter, said a worker at a training session declared that women in construction are “whores.”

The three women shared their stories over Zoom during a Lean In Circle for Tradeswomen, one of 76 launched nationwide and in Canada this year by the North America’s Building Trades Unions and Lean In, the women’s advocacy group started by Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg.

About 700 tradeswomen are participating the program, designed to help them navigate persistent bias and harassment on construction sites, from unwanted sexual advances to being assigned lesser duties like traffic control or fire watch.

It’s a culture that industry leaders are fighting to change in the hopes of recruiting more women into a sector with an aging workforce that faces chronic labor shortages.

As spending on infrastructure rises, construction firms will need to hire at least 430,000 new skilled laborers in 2021, according to an analysis of federal data by the Associated Builders and Contractors.

Right now, only 4% of construction laborers in the U.S. are women, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

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