Female firefighters fight discrimination with lawsuits
Advocates call it the only recourse in a field where women make up just 8 percent of the workforce. In Tampa, the city was ordered to pay $245,000.
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Susanna Schmitt Williams of Chapel Hill, N.C., is the former chief of the Carrboro Fire Department. She said she considered suicide after enduring harassment in her department even after she rose to the top job. [ GERRY BROOME ]
Updated Mar. 14
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. â The highest-ranking female firefighter in Asheville, N.C., says she was repeatedly discriminated against because of her sex and fought to keep her job while battling breast cancer. The first female chief of a municipal fire department in the state says she briefly pondered suicide after years of sexual harassment.