what the Wahine Toa firefighters teach us about women in male-dominated industries

Firefighting remains one of the most male-dominated professions in the world. In Aotearoa New Zealand, women make up just 6% of firefighters. Globally, the situation is similar, with women accounting for fewer than 10% of the firefighting workforce worldwide. These figures place firefighting among the most unequal frontline professions in terms of gender representation.

For many women, this will feel familiar because the numbers reflect a wider pattern of gender inequality in the workplace. Across industries, women are still underrepresented in roles associated with physical strength, authority, leadership, and decision-making. These gaps are rarely about capability. More often, they are the result of long-standing systems that were never designed with women in mind.

Rather than waiting for the statistics to slowly change, 13 wahine toa, strong women, decided to take action. The result was the Wahine Toa Firefighters Calendar, New Zealand’s first calendar led by women firefighters. The project sold out within 26 hours, raised more than $100,000 for breast cancer research, and quickly gained international attention. A short teaser for the @nzwomensfirefightercalendar reached nearly 17 million views, amplifying conversations around women in frontline roles and representation in male-dominated industries.

Yet the significance of the calendar goes far beyond its reach or fundraising success. At its core, the Wahine Toa Firefighters Calendar challenges deeply embedded ideas about who belongs in physically demanding professions. For decades, women firefighters across the UK, Australia, and North America faced exclusion based on physical standards built around male bodies, or assumptions that women would weaken team performance. Many were denied opportunities before being given a fair chance to demonstrate their ability.

These experiences mirror those of women in many sectors, including technology, engineering, construction, and leadership roles. Being underestimated. Having to work harder to prove competence. Being assessed against benchmarks that were never neutral to begin with.

Some women challenged these barriers legally. Others stayed, endured, and slowly forced institutions to confront their own bias. Progress has been gradual and uneven, and the cost to women has often been personal.

The Wahine Toa calendar carries this ongoing struggle forward in a new way. Rather than focusing on justification, it centres confidence, creativity, and visibility. It allows women firefighters to define strength on their own terms, without apology.

Captured by Flora Films, the imagery reframes strength as skill, experience, self-belief, and presence. It moves away from narrow definitions of physical power and towards a broader understanding of what it means to perform, lead, and belong in frontline environments.

For women working in tech, digital, design, and other creative industries, the campaign reflects a familiar desire to be seen fully as professionals. It demonstrates the impact of women-led campaigns that combine creative storytelling with cultural insight to challenge systemic barriers.

The Wahine Toa Firefighters Calendar is that when women control the narrative, they can reshape how entire industries view strength, leadership, and capability.

It speaks to women everywhere who have questioned whether they belong in spaces that were not built for them. And it offers a reminder that change often begins with visibility.