In Ladies Can’t Climb Ladders, the social historian Jane Robinson — whose previous books include histories of suffragettes and bluestockings — champions British women who were ‘first-footers’ in the elite fields of academia, architecture, the Church, engineering, law and medicine.One and a half million women joined the workforce during the first world war (at half the pay of their male counterparts). After the war, however, they were expected to cede their jobs to returning servicemen and resume the role of ‘angel in the house’. The 1919 Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act allowed women to qualify for professions, but it was limited in scope.
Women were deemed unfit for purpose for many reasons: they were either too plain or too distractingly pretty; skirts precluded climbing ladders; thinking withered the womb. ‘The female intellect breaks down completely’ when confronted with abstract maths, concluded one report. If all else failed, offices simply weren’t equipped with ladies’ lavatories.
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