Monica Beets Doesn't Have Time For Gender Discrimination On Gold Rush
Tony Beets loves featuring his kids on "Gold Rush," as evidenced by the fact that his sons Kevin and Michael and his daughter Monica work with him on the show. In an interview with Outsider, Beets and his wife Minnie explained that their children have always worked with them in the gold mining business, even before they started appearing on the show. Monica Beets is not the only daughter in the Beets family, but according to one Reality TV website, Tony's other daughter Bianca isn't involved in the gold mining industry.
Monica isn't the only woman on "Gold Rush," as all the teams seem to feature at least one woman. Tony Beets' team also features Monica's best friend, Ruby Mahoney. In an interview with Monsters and Critics, Monica Beets was asked if her father had outdated ideas of what women can do or if he was more progressive than that, and she insisted that Tony was a combination of both. "He doesn't care what your gender is, if you're sitting on a piece of equipment, girls can do it just as well as men can, sometimes even better," she explained "But if it's heavy lifting or shoveling or labor, doesn't matter if you've got five girls, the one guy is going to be taken for that because 'it's not a girl's job'. If something needs to be cleaned, apparently that's what we're good for. He's both. He's old-fashioned, but...I don't know."
But Monica Beets isn't about to let anyone tell her what she can and cannot do as a woman, and, as the daughter of the mine boss, she has to be listened to.
Monica Beets doesn't need anyone doubting her for being a woman
According to Monica Beets, she's often underestimated for being a woman, but as a member of the Beets family, she's simply not standing for it. "They'd look at you and think, 'What do you know, you're just a girl?' But the fact is, I did know a lot. And with Tony Beets to back me up, they knew they had to do as I said!" (via Yahoo). Tony Beets may be why people respect her authority, but it shouldn't be because Monica Beets knows what she's doing behind the wheel of a machine.
According to the aforementioned interview in Monsters and Critics, Monica Beets started working on machines for her father when she was 12, and she wasn't given much of a choice on the subject. "Neither me or my brothers or my sister were. As soon as we were tall enough to reach the pedals, we were on a machine." So it would certainly seem that Monica Beets has the knowledge to back up her confidence. Given that her mother is also a partner in the business, it would seem that women are a key part of the Tony Beets team.