Published Resources Details

Thesis

Author
Alvarez, Amaya Jane
Title
Writing about Women in the History of Science: a Study of Women at the CSIR 1930-1950
Description of Work
Minerva-Access, Digitised Collections
Type of Work
MA thesis
Imprint
University of Melbourne, Melbourne, 1993, vi, 96 leaves, bound ; 31 cm pp
Url
https://minerva-access.unimelb.edu.au/items/76988996-82dc-569a-bc97-e4f20bddd219
Format
pdf
Abstract

This thesis is both an historiographical discussion of the position of women in the history of science, and an exercise in the writing of the history of women in Australian science. It considers some broad questions about writing the history of science in an Australian context such as: What limitations might there be in the kinds of accounts which celebrate the national growth of science in Australia? Are any groups excluded from these accounts? If so why? What construction of the scientist and of the institution of science dominate such histories? Parallel to these questions the thesis is also concerned with historiographical questions about contemporary feminist approaches to the writing of the history of science, and what contradictions and challenges lie in these accounts, and how these differences can be explained. The study explores which approach appears the most helpful in elucidating the reasons why women are absent both from the history and apparently the institution of science in Australia. Through an examination of women workers at the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), during the 1930s and 40s, prior to the Council's transformation to an organisation (CSIRO), the thesis highlights the contradictions in the way women were perceived by the Council, the ways in which their working lives were negotiated and compromised due to their gender, and the ways the women adapted to these limitations. As a full examination of every aspect of the working lives of women at the CSIR would be too large a project, the work concentrates on two points of conflict which help to reveal the various issues faced by women working at the Council, and, more significantly, help to broaden the way in which the women themselves are perceived by the historian. The two sites of conflict around which the discussion in this thesis is based are the marriage bar, which was in force under the Public Service Act from 1922 to 1966, and its impact on the careers of women scientists at the CSIR, and the application for equal pay by women employed in the professional and the assistant classifications at the CSIR during the Second World War which was presided over by the Women's Employment Board (WEB). Both these conflicts, one long-term, the other influenced by the specific conditions of the war, highlight not only how women workers at the CSIR were treated but also the fact that the women were not a homogenous group. The marriage bar certainly affected the lives of all women workers at the Council, but this account will concentrate on the impact it had on the working lives of the women in professional classifications. The WEB case on the other hand reveals that to concentrate only on those women is to ignore an important aspect of the debate about the role and participation of women in science. The WEB case highlights the concerns of that part of the CSIR workforce which is not only ignored in 'great men accounts of the history of science, but also in some feminist histories as well. By looking at the broad spectrum of women working at the Council, this study hopes to challenge some of the ways in which the history of science of organisations such as the CSIR have been written and to add to feminist historical discourse about science and women working in science.

Source
Carey 2003

Corporate Bodies

People

See also

Related Archival resources

References

  • Personal History File: Miss Fuller, 1929 - 1938, CSA Series 3 File PH/FUL/1; Council for Scientific and Industrial Research; CSIRO Archives, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation. Details

Related Published resources

isRelated

EOAS ID: bib/ASBS01613.htm

Except where otherwise noted, content on this site is
Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
What do we mean by this?

Published by Swinburne University of Technology.
This Edition: 2025 May (Gwangal moronn - Gariwerd calendar - Autumn: late March to end of May - season of honey bees)
Reference: http://www.bom.gov.au/iwk/calendars/gariwerd.shtml#gwangal-moronn
For earlier editions see the Internet Archive at: https://web.archive.org/web/*/www.eoas.info

The Encyclopedia of Australian Science and Innovation uses the Online Heritage Resource Manager (OHRM), a relational data curation and web publication system developed by the eScholarship Research Centre and its predecessors at the University of Melbourne 1999-2020. The OHRM has been maintained by Gavan McCarthy since 2020.

Cite this page: https://www.eoas.info/bib/ASBS01613.htm

"... the rengitj, as a visible mark or imprint on the land, is characterised as a place of origin, the repository of all names, as well as a kind of mapped visual expression of the connection between people and places which is to be carried out in the temporal sequence of the journey." Fanca Tamisari (1998) 'Body, Vision and Movement: In the footprints of the ancestors'. Oceania 68(4) p260