She doesn't sound like a ‘lady’. But of course the description is used by those mis-users of the English language, which until modern ignorance took hold, described a female with good manners, refined and a cut above your average woman or female. ‘Lady tradie’ might sound good, but this is no lady - in the proper meaning of the word. She is a female, a woman or, in the vernacular, just some old sheila, notorious enough to be noticed by certain people with not much to think about, or not much to think with.

Construction isn't a lady-like activity, anymore than it's a gentlemanly one. But good luck to the females in their cut off shorts who want to work with sweaty young blokes with natural instincts. There are oodles of opportunities to pick up extra dosh via sex discrimination and real or imagined touchy/feely activities.

The author herself is playing around with the language too. Lollipop Ladies have always been those looking out for children at school crossings, not some heads-down-over-mobile phones traffic controllers, on $126K plus. Councils and government highway gangs used to do the same job at no extra cost.

But as always, good on Bettina Arndt, who should be regarded as a heroine by the young blokes she tries to help more than they try to help themselves, the pussy-whipped young fools

Thanks for the heads up Bettina.

Just one thing I had a quiet chuckle about. You write, "It's the female office workers and women in management who are really on the move – growing from 15% in 2023-4, to 50–55% in recent years."

I recall about 20 years ago, the femoloons were all chipper about how robots were replacing men in the trades industries. Now it's their turn. Office workers and women in management are the prime target for AI applications. That 50-55% are going to find they're corporate redundant very soon. What goes around, comes around. Reap what you sow. Ha-ha-ha. Suck it up sisters!