Chaparral girls get optimistic message about the work world

Lisa Sciortino

Thursday, Feb. 29, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.

Who says it's a man's world?

Not Debra Love. The Metro detective rose within the ranks of the male-dominated police field and came out on top.

"The stories I could tell you," she says. "The accomplishment it has been is unreal."

Love was among nine professional woman who spilled their success stories recently at the first Young Women's Career Conference at Chaparral High School.

Attended by female members of Chaparral's student body, the conference was designed to expose teens to nontraditional career goals and promote gender equality.

"The purpose was to get females in touch with who they are internally and help them focus on what they want to do," says Chaparral counselor Rosalind Gibson, who orchestrated the event.

Among the professionals were a female firefighter, a scientist, an investment specialist and an educator, who each gave brief descriptions of their careers and personal histories, followed by discussion groups with the students.

"What we tried to do," Gibson says, "was find careers where people broke the molds, so when you reach into Metro and the fire department ... all of those are not traditionally women's careers."

Love's presentation left a big impression on junior Ruby Mora. "She was into her job. It's just exciting. She says a lot more women are getting into it."

Just look at the numbers. According to Love, Metro employs 92 female officers, 10 sergeants, two lieutenants and one captain.

She hoped to send students a message: "It's a career that women are now becoming popular in, where before, it was a male-dominated," she says. "I got a lot of negative feedback at first, but now they're starting to accept females."

Debra Turner, an attorney, explained how she worked through college and law school to achieve her goals. These days, she defends insurance companies in her private practice.

"I wanted to let them know that as women, we have positive role models," she says. "As women, we can do anything we want to do."

Most of her speech, though, "focused on (how) the stereotypical attributes they give to women, like being passive and nurturing and emotional, are not negative" qualities.

In fact, Turner uses them in the courtroom "to disarm the person that I'm speaking with, and once they're disarmed, I'm in a position of having control over that environment whether they know it or not," she says.

Sneaky, but freshman Annie Montano likes it. The conference taught her "to be just as tough as anybody else."

Senior Shequita Lewis isn't worried about her future.

The track runner is sure her rise up the success ladder will be full of hurdles -- but nothing she won't be able to clear.

"You have to have a challenge for everything in life," she says. "You might as well go for it."