HERstory: Bitzy Gomez and the Coalition of Women Truck Drivers
- REAL Women in Trucking
- Mar 20, 2023
- 6 min read
Updated: Mar 8
***This article was originally published and authored by Desiree Wood President of the REAL Women in Trucking organization in January 2014 as part of a series aimed to re-establish an accurate historical timeline of women in trucking, you can read the original post here ***
Though women were encouraged to take up male-dominated jobs during the 1940’s WWII war efforts, after the war, women were expected to get back in the kitchen.
During the late 1960’s and into the 1970’s, the sexual revolution began to heat up equality in the workplace issues.
The Coalition of Women Truck Drivers was a 150-member group that organized to fight hiring discrimination and sexual harassment at trucking companies. Their work paved the way to modern day recruitment campaigns that aim to encourage women to apply for truck driving jobs. At the heart of this movement was founding member Adriesue “Bitzy” Gomez. She was known for her fierce, uncompromising approach to activism. She was tough, outspoken and aggressive.
My journey to find Bitzy began in 2009, but it wasn't until 2013 that I finally located her in a nursing home through her brother. We shared several meaningful conversations before her passing.
She told me that when companies refused to hire women, members would systematically apply every using carbon-copied applications to document patterns of discrimination. These documented trails fueled successful formal complaints that dismantled barriers for the generations of women truckers who followed.
However, the coalition's most pressing challenge—the "Sleeper Test"—remains a systemic failure today. In modern student training fleets, mandatory "team driving" with a stranger continues to facilitate gender-based violence and workplace harassment. Bitzy’s enduring advice for anyone forced into these unsafe conditions was to challenge the status quo directly: “It is unreasonable to require co-habitation as a condition of employment.”
The coalition of women truck drivers began to bring down companies through EEOC discrimination charges one by one and this created hiring mandates. Women have proven to be very safe and conscientious commercial motor vehicle operators. Unfortunately, hiring discrimination, sexual assault and sexual harassment is still very prevalent in the trucking industry. It is especially the highest in the entry level driver training sector.
I personally began trying to track Bitzy down beginning in 2009 when I first learned about her but was unable to reach her until 2013 when I received a letter from her brother that she was still alive and in a nursing home. I was able to speak to her at length on several occasions.
She told me that back then when a company would not hire women as truck drivers, the coalition members worked together to obtain an application for the company, make carbon copies and apply on rotating basis to document a pattern. Then they would then file a formal complaint.
They were successful in many of these cases which was somewhat effective to give women a chance for employment as truck drivers. It also created the EEO requirements that women of trucking today industry may not realize paved the way for them.
The “Sleeper Test” though was the foremost issue the coalition attempted to resolve but as we know, it remains a serious issue in modern day truck driver training.
Sexual assault and sexual harassment often occurs in starter fleets that use new entrants, student truck drivers for team driving operations. This Gender-based violence and harassment is workplace violence.
Bitzy was aware of the "Women in Trucking" (WIT) corporate funded association before she passed away. She was vehemently opposed to how they use the images of women truck drivers to promote themselves when they actually represent corporate interests, not workers, not truck drivers. She expressed to me in no uncertain terms that they did not represent her nor anything she or the coalition stood for. In recent years we have become aware that WIT has hijacked Bitzy's story and created a false narrative. Bitzy was never a secretary and she was never an owner operator. Her persona is loosely based on the woman truck driver character in the series called "Duster" . RWIT and the Daughter of Bitzy Gomez met virtually with the production team of the show when they were developing the character,"Izzy".
Bitzy supported the work of REAL Women in Trucking, she "Knew the Difference" and gave us permission to use her likeness and the name of the coalition.
The Coalition of Women Truck Drivers is also responsible for pushing to get women's restroom facilities at truck stops. They walked picket lines in support of other driver causes. They ceased to exist after deregulation.
According to a friend of Bitzy, Feminist writer Susie Bright, deregulation caused many companies that were the worst offenders to go belly up but that didn’t make predators vanish, they just got jobs at other trucking companies and the toxic culture flourished. When the coalition disbanded it had international membership and several state chapters. Bitzy was featured in TIME magazine and Women's World Magazine, the PDF's to these magazines are available here on our website. I took great pains to acquire copies to make available again so that Bitzy and the work of the coalition will not be erased from history again.
For Bitzy, trucking was her love, it afforded her a lifestyle she couldn’t otherwise have as a single mother. She was once quoted as saying, “A good truck is what a man should be, big and strong, and takes you where you want to go. When a woman can get in a semi truck and drive it, it makes up for all the crap women take in our society."
Her family told me that one of her favorite places to drive was up in Montana and recalled the name of her favorite truck stop up that way. We included her image in our coloring book to commemorate her driving there.
Unfortunately, as an over the road truck driver, finding quality childcare was as difficult then as it is today. One night, Bitzy’s babysitter’s home was raided while she was on the road. Her three daughters were placed into foster care, it took 13 years to get them back. When they were finally returned, they had been abused both emotionally and sexually, there was deep resentment.
The State of California had deemed her job as a truck driver unfit for a woman. According to Bitzy’s Daughter Rita Dolores, it was not until her mother could afford representation from a young lawyer named Gloria Allred that they were able to live with their mother again. The incredible account of dealing with the court system was documented in this old copy of "The Socialist" , an underground newspaper that I was able to obtain during my research.
(You Can Download a PDF by clicking the picture, her story is on page 15, WARNING: This PDF has GRAPHIC CONTENT FROM THE TIME PERIOD)
In her later years, Bitzy became a local truck driver in southern California and was a teamster. She died in April 2015 in Santa Ana, California while attempting to cross a busy street as a pedestrian.
REAL Women in Trucking recognized Bitzy with a posthumous Queen of the Road award in 2017 as she was the inspiration for the creation of this event. Her Daughter Dolores accepted the award in person and remains a great friend to the REAL Women in Trucking organization. The video below is the daughter of Adriesue "Bitzy" Gomez accepting the award. She told me that when she went through her mother's final papers there was a letter that she saved that I had written to her years before and she had kept it. I was deeply touched and I am honored to continue this fight for what she and the coalition were unable to finish. I want to thank our members and supporters for helping us keep this organization going to complete this work.
There have been a lot of sacrifices to keep this important work going. We must continue it for all those who come after us.
I hope you all agree that we owe a debt of gratitude for Bitzy and other women of trucking history who stuck their neck out to improve this industry for all. ~ Desiree Wood
Comments