In Britain from the period of 1955 to 1975 social attitudes had changed significantly. The public had a completely different idea of the roles women would play in society by the end of this period. Women started taking up male-dominated jobs such as government officials and police officers. New legislations such as the 1975 Sex Discrimination Act, 1975 Employment Protection Act, 1969 Divorce Reform Act and the 1970 Matrimonial Proceedings and Property Act had been passed in government. Such a large factor had an almost immediate impact on the British society. There are many factors which affected people’s views and traditional opinions. These include education, employment, the British household and feminism movements.
It is clear to me that women were downgraded within society. In the mid-1950s jobs such as ones related to medicine, law and transport were clearly male-dominated to extreme levels; only a minority of jobs were taken up by women (which including hair-dressing and cleaning). A common example of such gender discrimination was the 11 plus exams. An equal number of boys and girls passed these exams to enter grammar schools. However the girls’ limited educational opportunities meant that women were often restricted to lower paid and lower skilled employment sectors. Exams of this were cleaning, textile-related jobs and hairdressing. In the 1960s, approximately 80 per cent of all shop and factory work was done by women. On the other hand, only 5 per cent of the law profession were women. Also there was a clear lack of legislation. For example, women applying for jobs discovered that their employers were almost unenthusiastic about appointing them to job positions. Employers had in mind that women would get married and leave work after having children. Even if women received the same jobs as men, they would still get paid less. Employers also used the excuse of women being unwilling to work if their children were ill. In the 1950s it was clear to me that sex discrimination within the work place was live and the combination of social attitudes and limited education meant that in the 1950s and 1960s their opportunities were immensely restricted. In addition to this there was a lack of government legislation. By the 1960s there were no legislations stating gender discrimination in the work place. Source D, “Sex Discrimination Campaigners”, shows some female campaigners, protesting for an equal pay and a freedom from sex discrimination within the workplace (Appendix 4). I can tell from this that the discrimination of women within the workplace was high meaning that they were in-voluntarily forced down the root of more unskilled jobs. However by the 1970s increasing government legislation gave women more legal rights and protection both within home and in employment. An example of a legislation being passed was the 1970 Equal Pay Act. It set out equal wages for men and women doing the same job from 1975 onwards. This, as a result, reduced sex discrimination hugely. Women were also more likely to continue education past the compulsory school-leaving age. Additionally, it was more socially accepted for women to return to work after having children. Source C, “NUT Website”, clearly shows how the equal pay act had a significant impact on the attitudes in society towards women in the workplace (Appendix 3). I can tell from this that women were treated equally to men meaning that they had freedom to discrimination and an access to the same pay as men. In conclusion, it is obvious to me that many attitudes within society had changed in a way with allowed the majority of women to be treated fairly. However, there were many women who were disproportionately employed in lower-skilled and paid jobs. There were “loop-holes” in the 1970 Equal Pay Act as some jobs which were previously male-dominated stayed that way after 1975. The feature of ‘Employment and Education’ links to my next point, ‘The British Household’. This is because women who did not go to work stayed at home doing ‘traditional roles’.
