I remember a friend who owned a Fiat commenting a good mechanic for it would need hands the size of lemons with the strength of a Vise-grip.
The service manager a the Pep Boys I buy tires at is a woman. More than once I’ve been there when the phone rang, “Pep Boys, Mesa,” then her jaw tighten a little, “I am the manager.”
I think were I her I’d tend to end many of those calls a moment later with “… and you used to be a customer. Click!”
I think female mechanics can be quite capable and knowledgable.
Stranger
I have no doubt female mechanics are as good as any. I have no personal preference except that of competence. However, in the past some women may have been dissuaded from the role, which traditionally was of more interest to men. When I took auto mechanics in high school, there were no females in that class, nor were there in other technical electives like electronics (although there were other forms of diversity). I hope this has changed. And I hope the ads are inspirational.
I have never seen a woman mechanic. I have seen them in all the other positions at service centers. I’m not sure what to think of it, it seems odd that I haven’t encountered a woman working as a mechanic at this point.
I guess I’ve never seen one when I had occasion to get my car serviced. However, I was friends with one for a short while. I learned a lot about what it’s like to be an auto mechanic. She seemed to enjoy her work and was progressing through several make-specific certifications at the time.
I’ve never seen one outside of a Jaime Hernandez comic.
It was a real relief to me to discover that my mechanic of over two decades has his daughter working full time with him and looking to take over the business when he wants to retire. She got her degree and ASE certification some time ago then took time out to start a family. Kid is of an age to be babysat by willing grannies so she’s working in the shop and I am here for it. She and I don’t necessarily see eye to eye on some subjects but she’s a very capable mechanic and her dad is teaching her well–he’s incredibly good at his job and I was a little worried about having to replace him. Now I won’t have to, yay!
I dunno, haven’t you ever called a business with the intent to speak to the manager regardless of who answered the phone? I have.
I’ll chime in with the never seen a female mechanic crowd. In dealerships especially, I see a lot of women in front facing positions like manager or shop head. Whether they have actually been mechanics first I don’t know, but all of them seem to be well informed and able to answer questions.
I’m also a male who only sees female doctors if possible. All my primary care doctors have been women since I was a teen. If I have to see a specialist for some reason, the first ones I check are the women. Couldn’t tell you why, just something I prefer. Maybe because while I get along well with both women and men, I do not like arrogant assholes and I find males have a lot more of those in the medical profession.
In the 60s I knew an attractive young woman who was a welder. She had originally trained as a silversmith but somehow ended up working for a company that constructed bespoke tanks (not the ones the army use).
It seemed that her small stature and accurate work was an asset when working in confined spaces.
That’s for sure. I don’t think I even would have been allowed into a mechanic’s course in high school.
I think the one possible genuine issue is that the tools are probably sized for male hands; this tends to be so with farming tools. Tools made for smaller hands are often, though not always, junk suitable for light use only. There are ways to deal with that, of course; it just makes the work a little harder.
And that’s also a social issue, as tools are designed for those expected to be doing the work; and, at least with farm tools, becoming less of one, as more decent quality tools (and gloves) that are designed for smaller hands become available.
I have small-ish hands for a man and I’ve never had any difficulty in handling standard automotive tools. The one potential issue is that females tend to have less upper body strength than men but that really just begs for the correct use of tool and technique rather than any inherent limitation, and I suspect that torquing the head off of a ‘frozen’ bolt for a lack of taking the thirty seconds to get some pen oil would skew decidedly toward the male demographic. On the other hand, smaller hands and more delicate fingers makes it easier to get into the tight spaces that automotive engineers often seem to design into their powertrains and handle tiny fasteners.
I don’t think there is any legitimate physiological rationale that a woman could not be just as good of an automotive mechanic as a man with the same training and experience.
Stranger
I live with one. 
She worked at a local gas station before we met but hasn’t been able to do much lately due to health issues. Last major work she did was a shadetree brake job for a friend.
I don’t either. I just said that it might make the work somewhat more difficult. I’ll add that I’ve also heard it as a reason given to discourage women – but it’s not a good reason.
And you’re right that smaller hands are often also an advantage in such work.
The upper body strength issue is as you say a matter of use of tool and technique.
On average women won’t be as strong as men, but I’ve met women who had plenty of hand and arm strength in other fields like professional cooking, construction, carpentry, and masonry that require plenty of upper body and lower body strength and coordination. In those jobs, and just like mechanics, sometimes men need a hand with something stubborn or extra heavy.
I don’t see much appeal to the profession for women or men traditionally though, it seemed to be a fall back or only opportunity for many men. However, there is now demand for formally trained and certified mechanics which should attract more people altogether because of higher pay and better working environments available.
One of my sisters is a former stablehand; she built up a lot of strength from shoveling manure all day.
People of any gender who are in the long-term habit of doing any kind of physical work which requires using strength for a significant part of the day will get a whole lot stronger than most people not doing such work realize is possible.
The men will on average get even stronger than the women; but the women will get a whole lot stronger than most people think of women as being.
A fantasy game to be sure, but I played a female dwarven weaponsmith in a text-MUD. The game took into account the physical actions you performed as you progressed so from incessantly swinging a hammer she had maxed out in strength plus – dwarf. She was far stronger than the brawniest human male.
“Artisan” was another profession available and one peculiarity of the game was, when carving a statue they could carry around a block of wood or stone but when the final tap completed it, it would instantly become the full weight, depending on the block’s original size. I had a call to the town square and an artisan had dropped a custom sculpture there, not where her client wanted it.
There were about four people there including one of the biggest door-openers in the game and even he couldn’t budge it. I said, “Lemme try,” and handed him my apron, all the materials and tools in it counting towards carry-weight. Role-playing was a big part of the game so I went through taking several deep breaths, bending my knees, and wrapping my arms around the sculpture, then picked it up. Glancing at the big guy I said, “Urf!”
“Stop it, you faker.”
“Just trying to make you feel better.”