Women Engineers in Britain, 1945-2000

Open Research Online The Open University’s repository of research publications and other research outputs Women engineers in Britain, 1945-2000 Thesis How to cite: Wray, Lesley (2006). Women engineers in Britain, 1945-2000. PhD thesis The Open University. For guidance on citations see FAQs. c 2005 The Author https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ Version: Version of Record Link(s) to article on publisher’s website: http://dx.doi.org/doi:10.21954/ou.ro.0000d3ba Copyright and Moral Rights for the articles on this site are retained by the individual authors and/or other copyright owners. For more information on Open Research Online’s data policy on reuse of materials please consult the policies page. oro.open.ac.uk Mrs Lesley Wray MSc (OU) Women Engineers in Britain, 1945-2000 Thesis submitted for a PhD History Faculty of Arts Submitted on 24/10/2005 ~'I1+0Q, NO fVl5s'il-Io7 t.f.'\-rE of Svi3.t-\IS£ ION 21 s~~te 200'5" D A-{£ ot: PrulA-€..t> 2c f\PQ.\L .lOob PAGINATED BLANK PAGES ARE SCANNED AS FOUND IN ORIGINAL THESIS NO INFORMATION MISSING ABSTRACT Women Engineers in Britain, 1945-2000 This thesis looks at the work of women engineers in the period 1945-2000. Its central focus is the impact gender had on the likelihood of a woman making such a career choice, on the training to become an engineer and on women's lived experiences in the work place. It discusses the impact of the equality legislation and considers the effect that the characterisation of engineering as a male profession had on the numbers of women in engineering and on their treatment. The thesis approaches these subjects through a study of the experiences of a group of women engineers. Their life histories are set against the social and economic changes that occurred over the period. It encompasses both women who were engineers at the beginning of the period and those from later generations. The use of oral history allows a rounded picture of the changing experiences of women engineers, their career expectations and the degree of success that they achieved. The thesis argues that the history of women engineers has been largely ignored. While their experiences have paralleled that of women in other careers, the continued overwhelming dominance of the profession by men has resulted in a number of assumptions regarding discrimination and harassment that remain unproven. It demonstrates that the social stereotyping of engineering discourages many women from considering the career, thus perpetuating both gender inequality and the myth that women are unwelcome in the career. Acknowledgements I wish to thank staff at the following archives for their help: The Institute of Electrical Engineers, The Institute of Civil Engineers, The Institute of Mechanical Engineers, The Institute of Engineering Designers and the Modem Records Centre at the University of Warwick. I would also like to thank the companies who made company archives or other information available to me, particularly GEC at Cheltenham, and Westland Helicopters Ltd. at Yeovil. My thanks also go to the various unions who allowed me access to their archives. I am grateful to all the women engineers who helped me with the oral history and to the other people, men and women, who offered their recollections and opinions, particularly those who offered me access to unpublished material. I am grateful to Professor Marwick for giving me the opportunity to start this thesis and for his guidance in the early stages of my research. I would also like to thank my supervisors, Dr. Claire Langhamer and Dr. Annika Mombauer for their help and guidance, also for their constant encouragement, particularly since an illness extended the time required to complete the thesis. My thanks also go to various friends who have encouraged me to complete this thesis and Particularly to my husband, without whose unfailing support I would never have done so. CONTENTS Introduction Research Aims 1 Periodisation, Approach and Theory 3 Methodology and Sources 4 Structure of Thesis 9 Why so Few Women Choose Engineering 13 Historiography 16 Terms and Definitions 19 Summary 24 Chapter 1 The Double Shift - Women and Work Introduction 25 Early Women Engineers in Britain 26 Women Engineers in Wartime Britain 29 The Return to Peace 36 Women and Work 42 The Effects of Equality Legislation on Working Women 53 Changing Patterns of Women's Work 57 Summary 58 Chapter 2 'Prejudice and Sheer Ignorance' - The Public Image Of Engineering Introduction 61 The Low Status of the Engineer in Britain 63 The Fluctuations of British Industry 68 The Professional Engineering Institutes 75 The Employers and Women Engineers 82 The Public Perception of an Engineer 92 Summary 96 Chapter 3 'The Machinery of Dominance' - The Feminists and Technology Introduction 99 The Construction of Technology as Gendered 100 Feminist Approaches to Technology 106 The Woman Engineer as Different 112 Summary 120 Chapter 4 An Unsuitable Job for a Woman - Becoming an Engineer. Introduction 123 Gender Atypical Career Choice 125 Education and its Effect on Becoming an Engineer 129 Careers Advice for Girls 133 The Women's Engineering Society and WISE 141 Academic Training 147 Practical Training 157 Becoming an Engineer Later in Life 164 Summary 170 Chapter 5 A Good place to be? The Experiences of Women Engineers in Britain Introduction 173 What Does an Engineer Do? 174 Women's Experiences in Post War Britain 177 The Years of Change 185 Experiences Following Equality Legislation 188 Summary 195 Conclusions 197 Glossary of Abbreviations 205 Appendix 1 The Questionnaires 207 Appendix 2 The Interviews 211 Appendix 3 A Brief History of the Company 219 The Company and Women Engineers 222 The Engineering Process 227 Bibliography 231 Introduction Research Aims Engineering attracts very few women and there is no simple explanation for this. This thesis addresses the question of why so few women become engineers by focusing on different areas to those examined in the past. There is currently no history of women engineers in the post-war period and this thesis gives women engineers agency over the way their history is related. While much of the existing work presents women engineers in ways that support particular preconceptions, this history allows the destabilising of public perceptions of engineering and the unsettling of some current theories regarding the treatment and experiences of women engineers. While historians have studied many areas of women's lives, the subject of women in engineering since the Second World War is one that has only recently been examined. As a woman engineer and a member of the Women's Engineering Society (WES), it was with interest that I read the biography of Jane Gardiner, reviewed by the Society in 1993.1 When searching for other books about women engineers I could find a few biographies and some excellent histories about women before and during the Second World War, but nothing that examined the modem period. On discovering a pocket of work among the books written by social scientists, I came to the conclusion that these works were either written to encourage girls into engineering - in which case they blamed society in general for assuming engineering was unsuitable for girls - or that they adopted a radical feminist stance towards technology, denigrating it as militaristic and male dominated. The first type of material was inclined to minimise the problems girls could face in an attempt to encourage them to become engineers. As a woman engineer I have been involved in some of the efforts to encourage girls to consider careers in engineering, but such efforts have generally failed. While the percentage of female university students 1 Jane Gardiner, Memoirs ofa Woman Engineer, Sussex, The Book Guild Ltd, 1990. studying engineering and technology has increased dramatically, from just 0.12 percent in 1965/66 to 14.3 percent in 1997/98, there are far fewer women studying for engineering than other professions? The statistics for Medicine, Dentistry and Health show that the percentage of female graduates has increased from 31 percent in 1965/66 to 49 percent today. Although in the teaching profession, which was dominated by women in 1965/66 with 71 percent of teachers being female, the trend is now reversing with women making up just 53 percent of all teachers in 1999.3 Employers consider that, with the predicted shortfall in engineers, it is vital that young people of both sexes be encouraged to consider whether a career in engineering might be suitable for them, yet the number of women engineers remains consistently low. The feminist literature of the 1980s, on the other hand, seemed problematic by being set against the engineering profession. Writers such as Cynthia Cockburn and Dot Griffiths highlighted the point that technology was portrayed as totally masculine, too involved with the machinery of war, and entirely an instrument of the paternalistic and capitalistic western civilisation.4 While accepting that the early condemnation of the 'maleness' of technology was justified, I disagreed with their conclusions about the treatment of women engineers and believed these to be based on incorrect assumptions. While more recent feminist works have modified this stance, attempts to explain why so few women choose engineering continue to range from blaming the 'macho' image of technology in schools to a belief that women engineers must sacrifice some of their femininity to succeed.5 By chronicling the experiences of women engineers over the post- war period this thesis will highlight the areas where public attitudes regarding engineering 2 Statistics taken from Statbase on www.statistics.gov.ukon 3/1/2001 3 Ibid. 4 Cynthia Cockburn, The Machinery ofDominance, London, Pluto Press, 1985, and Dot Griffiths 'The Exclusion of Women from Technology' in Wendy Faulkner and Erik Arnold (eds) Smothered by Invention, London, Pluto Press, 1985, for example.

Load more