‘Women in greasy overalls’: the drive to lure girls into engineering, 1971

The rewards could be considerable, including a scarlet Ford Capri, but only a very few technology workers were female

‘Ann James has feathery red hair. Her voice and eyes are dark brown and she drives a scarlet Capri,’ read the Observer’s introduction to British female engineers on 31 January 1971. James was also a lubrication expert with a job ‘crawling round vast pieces of machinery’ – she was photographed examining a sewage plant.

The star of a government film hoping to encourage more girls into engineering, James was a perfect advert for her profession, with ‘my own home, a car and a good salary’. But she was also a rarity: only a tiny fraction of science and technology workers were female. Beyond the popular image of ‘women in greasy overalls with scarf-wrapped heads’, who were these technically minded unicorns? Continue reading...


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