I had the same problem with women in the Air Force in the USAF, in a Civil Engineering Squadron, as the NCOIC of the structural shop.
Ironically, the one female that held her own was one in a CE unit at Keesler AFB. I met her one day outside my office when I heard someone picking up the coke machine and slamming it down because it had kept her money and didn't give her a coke. Her job? Carrying crossties while they were repairing the RR track to the food storage facility. She was a country girl from Kentucky that grew up in a house full of brothers and learned to hold her own. I met her several more times while I was stationed there and each time she was doing the work of a man each time.