Less than 10% of truck drivers are women.

The open road has long been seen as a man's world. But that is changing.

In 2012, Jess Graham left an abusive relationship and enrolled in CDL training within days. Weeks later, she was licensed and on the road with her ten-year-old daughter, living together in the cab of a truck.

For Jess, trucking was not just a job. It was a path to stability, speed, and self-determination. Every mile out there is different from your last mile. That's a new opportunity.

In 2019, she bought her own truck, a 1995 Freightliner known as the Black Widow. Ownership shifted the journey from survival to entrepreneurship.

This episode explores trucking as an economic ladder, a lifestyle, and a test of endurance. It asks what it profits us when women claim space in industries that keep the economy moving.

Because sometimes the road is not just about freight. It is about freedom.

What happens when women enter one of the most dangerous, male-dominated professions... and change it from the inside?

In this episode of What Does It Profit, Dr. Dawn Carpenter goes from D.C. firehouses to wildfire lines to meet the women fighting fire with fire. At Camp Spark in Washington, D.C., Lieutenant Roshawnda Drake is building a pipeline for the next generation of women firefighters. Out West, Lou Bean, Heidi Leib, and Ashley Nalley are reshaping wildfire response and prescribed burning, often in systems never designed with them in mind.

Together, they show how women are reshaping the fire service and why a more inclusive culture can save lives.

Women have always worked. But when women entered the U.S. labor force in large numbers during the 1970s, equal pay did not follow.

In this episode of What Does It Profit?, Dr. Dawn Carpenter explores the history of women's labor rights—from the rise of the Nine to Five movement to the equal pay fight led by Lilly Ledbetter. Through organizing, unions, and the law, women challenged workplaces that relied on their labor while undervaluing their work.

Featuring labor historian Lane Windham and the cultural legacy behind 9 to 5, this episode examines why wage gaps persist, why voice still matters, and what economic justice requires when essential work goes unpaid—or underpaid.

Because the laws exist. The gaps remain.
And when women do essential work without equal pay, the question endures: What does it profit?