Twisted Storytellers: The Boiler Room
Vanessa Boyd tells the story of how a boiler room operator had to “rescue herself.”
“Hi, my name is Vanessa Boyd. And I’m a Boiler Room Girl.”
Vanessa spent years working as the only female in isolated boiler rooms – underground, in the middle of fields, in sub-basements.
“Everyday that I walked into the boiler room, I was threatened with bodily harm, abuse, rape and sexual harassment,” she says. “So if you were going to be a boiler room girl, you had to be tough.”
Vanessa tells the story of how she played a critical role in fighting for women’s rights in Detroit Public Schools.
In the episode, she mentions a particularly dark incident in which she was threatened by a male coworker. Here’s the Detroit Free Press article from 1993.
Vanessa Boyd is an artist, author and engineer. Her book on poetry is called ‘The Poet in Me.”
New episodes of Twisted Storytellers are available every other Wednesday.
Twisted Storytellers is a production of WDET Detroit 101.9 FM
Twisted Storytellers is produced by WDET 101.9 FM and sponsored by the Henry Ford Health Systems.
