["This conversation is professional, [...] I am a painter!": resistence at a construction site]

to be familiar with the work relationships between females and their male colleagues at a construction site in the municipality of Santa Maria, RS.

Exploratory research, qualitative approach with a female worker of a construction site in August 2012. Oral history as a device for data production. Analysis of French tradition speech as an analytical device.

Work relationship with stances of resistance, with major fights against power of male order, pointing to shifts and continuities in the test for new gender behaviors.

The conquest of spaces in paid work is not enough to achieve balance in gender relations; public policies on gender sensitizing contribute to changes in the cultural field by understanding that equal rights and opportunities between men and women are a basic condition for achieving justice, citizenship and development.