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In 1985 when women were formally permitted to become firefighters in the NSW Fire Brigades (NSWFB, today Fire and Rescue NSW), they faced a lot of pushback in an organisation that had been male dominated since their formation in 1884. Although there are many aspects of this to be discussed at length about the challenges women have faced in the organisation and all the barriers they have broken, today we are looking at one aspect: why were women firefighters given a handbag as