Meet the new keepers of the gate

Women are breaching another male bastion by becoming security guards and bouncers - and finding a world that benefits from their conciliation skills, reports Niamh Kavanagh

Tara Curley is straight up: candid and intense. Of average height, with shoulder-length blond hair, she's not your archetypal bouncer. But you wouldn't mess with her. Nor, in fact, would you call her a bouncer if you wanted to stay in her good books.

"That's the old perception, that we're all martial arts experts, that every person on the door is an ex-con," she says. Curley (24) prefers to be called a doorperson. It's a softer-sounding phrase, more in keeping with the new era of professionalism into which she is so keen to drag her industry.

Part of this is represented by new phrases such as "conflict diffusion" and "aggression management". Another is represented by her sex. Almost a quarter of the 3,500 members of SIPTU's security branch are now women. The boom brought with it a rise in private security firms; evidence suggests women are bringing conciliatory skills ideally suited to the role.

But it is still largely a macho industry, which means Curley stands out like the neon above a nightclub door. And there is a stigma attached to night work, she says, but she's not bothered by it. She would love to see more women working as bouncers.

"There's female gardaí, females going into the Army, so why shouldn't there be female door security? I think the old Irish sexist ways are moving on a bit."

A bouncer for seven years, Curley is also a security consultant in the business she runs with her father and aunt in her home city of Galway. She travels the country, training security personnel in first aid, health and safety, "manual handling" and customer care.

Customer care? "If you ask any security guard why they do what they do, they'll tell you customer care. We're not there to pose a problem any more; we're just there in the background, keeping an eye on everyone."

She still works the doors from 9 p.m. to 3.30 a.m. at weekends, leaving her three-year-old daughter, Saoirse, with her boyfriend, Seamus, because, she says, she couldn't train a class were she not working in the industry herself.

The hands-on approach keeps her sharp, keeps her streetwise. Curley says it's why she's able to size up someone in a second and why she's confident of her ability to spot a situation before it happens. Seamus is slightly concerned for her safety, but she tries to avoid discussing the details with him.

Curley started working as a bouncer to finance her degree in languages at the University of Limerick. Initially, she worked security at student events before going on to work in the city's nightclubs.

Being the only female on the doors didn't faze her, because she had already worked as a lifeguard in all-male crews and, anyway, she was always tomboyish.

At first, the men were doubtful of her ability. "I'm short, I'm not six foot two, I'm not 18 stone, and I think people were so used to the security guys being the six-foot guys with shaved heads. I think they thought I wasn't going to be one of them."

That notion was quickly dispatched after her first night, she says, grinning sideways. If the male bouncers were abashed, the public, too, were tentative. She didn't usually get any hassle at the door but, when trouble broke out, "then it was: 'You're only a girl. What are you going to do about it?' They'd forget that I'm only a girl who wasn't drunk, who was trained, but after a little while they'd know me and know I won't take any hassle. You earn respect".

That respect comes from a new approach to security, a conciliatory one. The focus is on talking to people, calming them down, diffusing a potential argument. It's an approach that women are particularly adept at, she believes, "because females have the ability to reason, and we tend to talk an awful lot more. We can deal with a situation in a way that maybe, if a male security guard dealt with it, could turn much more aggressive".

She adds: "If you ask someone to leave, they usually will. If someone's too drunk, we often ask them to go for a walk, get a cup of coffee and come back to us. There's no more: 'You're barred, get out.'" The number of fights now is minimal compared with when she started, and it's down to the new approach, which is being pushed by the Security Institute of Ireland.

And she's noticed that women now are as likely as men to provoke or be involved in arguments. "They're on a par. They're becoming more aggressive, which is why it's essential to have female door staff, because they react badly to males." She attributes this aggression to a laddish culture.

Even though she has worked doors on her own, she has never been scared - she trusts her colleagues.

"Everything is teamwork and communication, and if you've got a good team there that you trust, you'd never worry. We watch each other's backs."

She admits to getting "a few knocks and bruises" but says it's part of the territory. "The most insulting thing I ever had was a girl spitting in my face. It was worse then being beaten."

The one incident that shook Curley and the security industry profoundly was the gunning down of her former colleague Brian Fitzgerald in Limerick last year.

"That hit us all very hard. He died for being an excellent security guard; he stopped the drugs coming in."

It hasn't deterred her, though. She will always work on doors, because she enjoys it, most of her friends do it and, anyway, she was never a nine-to-five person. She even works 18-hour days providing security at summer concerts such as Slane and Witnness.

The only thing that might stop her is when her daughter starts clubbing. She wouldn't want to have to face Mammy on the door, she laughs.

HOW IT WAS IN THE BAD OLD DAYS

A former colleague once told Cathy Cowley to go and get a cup of tea instead of doing her duties as a security guard. Cowley, a site manager in Dublin for Group 4 Ireland security, has been in the industry for 17 years. "It's very hard," she says. "It has taken me all this time to become a manager."

Cowley, right, was a contract manager in London for years, where she managed 10 sites, ensuring both guards and clients were happy.

She is one of only 26 women working with more than 400 men at Group 4. "It's always been a male- dominated industry. It's an area that women don't really think about going into." Almost all the building managers Cowley deals with are men. "I've actually found that some of the males respond to me better than other males. If they're dealing with a strong female, they can't always demand what they want."

And women are better negotiators, she says. "We can talk our way out of a situation instead of maybe fighting our way out of it."

Cowley concedes that men tend to be faster and stronger than women but says it hasn't been a significant disadvantage.

According to Cowley, London security firms are "a bit further

along in their handling of women. Ireland is catching up fast,

though".

Christine Houde