No man's domain: women test themselves on the chainsaw

Forest work is men's business.

But is that still true?

The Bavarian Farmers' Association has long been offering chainsaw courses for women.

A visit to Uffing to see eight women who make the forest more feminine.

Uffing

- after exactly 70 minutes the chainsaw coughs for the first time.

She doesn't need medicine, she doesn't have corona either.

It's a good sign.

Soon she runs, roars and cuts.

In the 70 minutes before that, the eight women, who are now gathering around a spruce, have already laughed into a camera operated by Bayerischer Rundfunk (BR), they have discovered a niche in the market - namely clothing for women woodcutters.

You gave a tree talk and heard about the dreaded old hands, who of course are men, not hares.

And men have no business in this place today.

The only man who is allowed to be there is Johannes Unland.

He learns the chainsaws to cough and the women to cut trees.

Unland of course also gives courses for men, he runs his sawing school from Murnau, just not on this day.

The Bavarian Farmers' Association offered saw training for women, in this case for beginners.

150 euros per woman.

The eight places were taken so quickly that the organizers are planning two more courses for 2021.

The forest becomes female.

You can hold onto that.

“What men do with muscles, women do with technology.

Johannes Unland

Men are not born with a monopoly on chainsaws.

Somebody has to tell them that, because some people actually still think that way.

“It's often a male domain,” says Unland.

"Women are not really let out." How funny.

Here is a comparison.

A proper chainsaw from Stihl weighs around six kilos.

Combat weight of the current Siemens top vacuum cleaner VSQ5X1230 Extreme Silence Power: less extreme 5.8 kilograms.

And the women should also lift it to the second floor.

As you can see, no chainsaw will fail due to the weight of the chainsaw.

“What men do with muscles, women do with technology,” says Unland.

The man must know.

He offered enough mixed courses, mostly advanced ones, and he regularly watched the women overtake the men on the second or third day.

You want to understand the principle.

"Maybe that's the more sensible approach," says Unland.

Silke Hartmann heads the Murnau-Nord area with the areas Uffing, Seehausen and Spatzenhausen.

She studied forest science two decades ago.

As one of eight women among 120 men.

That's not a particularly good rate, not even seven percent.

But the situation has improved.

At the Office for Food and Agriculture and Forests in Weilheim, to which she reports, there are now “a relatively large number of women”, which promotes “very good togetherness”.

Until the 1970s, the law banned women from their jobs.

This must be imagined.

That is why the 45-year-old from Welzheim (Baden-Württemberg) calls the BBV's initiative “an affair of the heart”.

Even when she was young, she made her first chainsaw cough, later working with forest workers for six months during her studies.

It was "a lot of fun".

Women's course for a good reason

This is how it is for most of the people who attend this introductory course.

Even if their motivation is very different at first.

Some want to be self-employed, cut their own firewood, others help their dad, and one also want to support friends in the Black Forest with their forest work.

At the beginning, “I was so nervous,” said one participant.

When the women try on the protective helmet, the crowd escapes: “Is that awesome.” This looseness does not exist among men.

The organizers are sure of that.

“The woman herself is not that self-confident.” That is why the farmers' association created the course.

In groups of men, Unland experienced how some people asked quite ungodly: “Wos wui de do?” His Bavarian is not pure.

Everyone laughs anyway, or precisely because a “priss” imitates the men he scolds old hands and who prevent the revolution in the forest.

Okay, maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration.

But Unland also makes it very clear that he thinks these people's views are “complete nonsense”.

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Tips from the instructor: Johannes Unland from the Murnau sawing school with Silvia Rothmann.

© Mayr

How do men and women differ?

It starts with basic things like the drop notch, which determines the direction in which the tree will fall.

"Men do it: jerk and back and forth," jokes Unland, even if the representation is of course a little exaggerated.

Women act with brains, if necessary ask more often before the horizontal sole cut.

"Nobody asks that - he'd rather try 20 times."

Silvia Rothmann from Uffing is the first to use the saw.

It runs fine.

The machine screeches, the chips whirl around, but then it wants to know whether you are “really sawing yourself” with this cut.

Yes, it is said.

“It's the tree in between,” replies Unland, and everyone laughs.

It will soon start raining.

Really big drops that dance on the helmets and collect in the pants.

You don't stop.

At the end there are eight trees on the forest floor.

And the chainsaw is silent.