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Originally Posted by Tractionist
Anyway - the topic seems to be about 'gender' ......so:
Check-out that classic photo of the Ladies assembling the legendary Philco 444's down in Greenford! This wasn't wartime - but there isn't a bloke in sight!! To my mind these ladies weren't 'factory workers' .... they were skilled technicians .... applying deft fingers and total concentration to intricate assembly operations involving expensive components.
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Actually, that's not quite the full picture. Wiring up chassis was labour-intensive and could be de-skilled by sub dividing it, so an operative could be trained to say wire up half a dozen components then pass the chassis down the line. Women were employed on the lines because they were cheap labour, and as far as the women were concerned back then, they didn't generally expect to earn as much as men because that was in the era when men were considered to be the 'head of the household' and the 'breadwinner'.
On page 175 of 'Setmakers' there's a picture of a KB factory showing both men and women working alongside each other, and the caption states: 'Untypically for a radio factory of the period, men and women were working on the same task'.
In radio factories in the 30s and beyond, there were whole areas of factories where only men worked - often in white coats rather than overalls. Men were employed almost exclusively on R&D, quality control, supervision and management, in the drawing office, in the machine shop, toolmakers, electroplating, cabinet making, spraying and so on. In an era where health and safety at work was derided, (as it is by some to this day who denigrate it by using terms such as 'elf & safety'), the more hazardous ('macho') jobs such as electroplating and heavy lifting were done by men. BVWS members will know from the splendid DVDs of radio and valve factories and power generation that the division of roles between men and women is very evident.
That's the way it was, and that's how everyone - male and female - expected it to be. It had little to do with the innate ability of men or women's to perform most tasks, as indeed they could and had amply demonstrated it in WW1 munition factories and the like. It had everything to do with the socials norms of the day. It's not for nothing that terms such as 'draughtsman, foreman, storeman, salesman, watchman (or seamstress' etc) exist, even to this day. I had an aunt who worked at Marconi at Writtle in the war years, wiring complex instrument panels for the war effort. Her job tittle was 'wireman' which to her and others, didn't seem in any way odd or inappropriate.
As to women today in engineering (or not), I guess most people will know of Steph McGovern, business correspondent on BBC TV, (who has retained her ''Geordie accent, and why not, but gets hate mail for it, telling her to "get back to her council estate where she belongs"). Not so many may know of her engineering background. In 1998 at the start of her sixth form studies she won an Arkwright Engineering Scholarship for her potential to be a future leader in the engineering industry. From 1998–2000, in the sixth form, she studied Maths, Physics, Design Technology and Business Studies. At the age of 19 she was awarded 'Young Engineer for Britain', after saving Black & Decker £150,000 a year by improving production techniques used for the 'Leaf Hog' product.
But she's a TV presenter as her chosen career - not an engineer.