Engineering a Female Network: The Society of Women Engineers and Its Community Challenge to Gendered Professional Limits, 1950–90

Amidst the reinscribed traditional male-female ideals of post-WWII American society, engineering remained among the most visibly gender-divided areas of study, work, and professional life. In 1951, women comprised just 0.38% of undergraduate engineering enrollment. A 1955 column by Eric Walker, Penn State’s Dean of Engineering, reflected a common assumption among educators and employers: “Women are NOT For Engineering”. 

To be taken seriously, marginalized postwar women banded together. In 1952, female engineers in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Washington incorporated as the Society of Women Engineers. This new professional, educational service organization strove “to foster a favorable attitude in industry toward women engineers, and contribute to their professional advancement.”

To fulfill that mission, mentors devoted enormous attention to nurturing individual young women interested in engineering, knowing from personal experience that “being one of a small group following a path that appears to violate society’s norms is lonely.” Beyond offering scholarships and guidance for college women, leaders reached out to encourage elementary-school girls. SWE published books starring female engineers (prefiguring modern outreach education).

To promote deeper gender changes in engineering, SWE sought publicity to prove women’s professional worth.  To counter perceptions of female engineers as manlike oddities, SWE members cultivated positive feminine images, emphasizing marriage and children.

Although the conservatism of engineering made some in SWE wary of organized feminism, the group’s spirit reflected commitment to women's rights. SWE’s support network played a crucial role in transforming the nature of American engineering, through productive social interaction and professional communication. SWE became institutionalized in colleges nationwide as a community support network, continuing to challenge biases linking technical expertise to men and helping women claim approximately 20% representation in engineering by the 1990s.