In my experience and research, women are often not made to feel welcome in the repair trades. Despite women making up the majority of my reupholstery class, my teacher was adamant that we couldn’t be professional upholsterers. I laughed out loud the time he called us all over to see another student’s completed project. She was the most experienced in our cohort. In front of everyone he praised her beautiful work, and then said, now you can run a shop and hire a man to do the upholstery. Ha! What? She laughed it off but the comment cast doubt in my mind. Hand-tying springs on couches was a massive undertaking,…