Girls Can Do Anything Gallery of Inspirational Women - Josephine Reynolds – Firefighter
Josephine Reynolds – Firefighter (UK)
First
female British firefighter
Girls Can Do Anything, written by me and illustrated by Ali Pye, is a celebration of all the things girls can do. It attempts to demonstrate to very young children that there is no job or hobby that cannot be enjoyed by those of us who were born in female bodies. One of the verses says:
Girls can be brave like this firefighter here,
Rescuing people when danger is near.
But is it true? I wanted to not only tell children that anything is possible, I wanted to prove it to them, which is why we created a gallery of inspirational women on the back end papers of the book. One of these is Josephine Reynolds, who is a firefighter. In fact, she was Britain’s very first female firefighter, and made history when she joined the service way back in 1982 when she was just seventeen. Since then, many services have worked to recruit more women, but according to the UK Government Fire and Rescue Service Equality and Diversity Strategy 2008-2018, only 3.1% of firefighters in the UK today are female. Still, they ARE out there, so if your child is interested in joining the fire service – or any other rescue service for that matter – they can!
And in remembering to use the non-sexist terms for these brave women and men, we are further demonstrating to our children that these careers are open to everyone, regardless of gender. For a fun list of non-sexist terminology, check out this page.
It’s amazing what you find when you’re researching online.
Girls Can Do Anything is illustrated by Ali Pye and published on 2 August 2018 by Scholastic. Pre-order your copy here.