It is well known that demand for labour during the First World War led to women entering the workforce on an unprecedented scale in the UK, particularly in engineering; it is less well known that after the war women were expected to leave these roles for men returning from the front, as legislated in the Restoration of Pre-War Practices Act (1919). For some women this was an unreasonable demand, and they began to organise: in 1919, the Women’s Engineering Society (WES) was founded.
This seminar examines how WES, in its early decades, attempted to normalise women engineers in industry, attempted to degender the profession, with a focus on how it used its magazine The Woman Engineer to establish a professional voice for women engineers, demonstrate women’s capability as workers, and create a community of practice, in the face of widespread hostility from the engineering industry and its unions. Still published today, The Woman Engineer provides a valuable historical record of the evolving role of women in engineering over more than a century.
Unlike other professions, however, engineering has remained largely a male-dominated field, even after barriers to women’s participation were removed in the decades following the Second World War. In examining the early history of WES, this paper will also ask whether the history of campaigning for women in engineering can help us to understand the contemporary challenges for normalising the woman engineer.
