Women in engineering, 1940-1970: Struggle against the American gender syste

The progress of women in engineering between 1940 and 1970 was affected by many social, cultural, and political factors. New opportunities emerged as a result of the manpower shortages during World War II and the technological race between the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics during the Cold War. Yet most women were reluctant to enter the field of engineering because of American cultural attitudes, which dictated that women did not belong in engineering or other "masculine" professions. This attitude was a result of the American gender system, which encompassed the idea that women possessed certain "feminine" qualities that limited them to being useful primarily as wives and mothers or in traditional female occupations. The American gender system kept the number of women engineers to a minimum between 1940 and 1970 despite many new opportunities.