Women’s Group Sets Standards

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31592, 1 February 1968, Page 2

Women’s Group Sets Standards

British manufacturers have had the benefit of the opinions of three million housewives for 17 years. Since 1951, the Women’s Advisory Committee, which represents this number of housewives, can claim to have brought better household goods to the British home.

This committee has cooperated with manufacturers and technical experts in setting standards for consumer goods In many of the British Standards Institution’s technical committees. It has been concered with most household goods from bedding and furniture to Christmas trees, sewing threads and buttons. The British Standards Institution (8.5.1.) is the focal organisation through which industry, Government departments and services, and commercial and private consumers agree on what they want from the goods they buy. Some standards relate to quality, as in the case of furniture; some to cleanliness and hygiene, as with bedding or the contents of stuffed toys; some to size or measurements, as for engineering tools and equipment, as well as the heights of kitchen working surfaces; some to colour, as for paints or dyes; and some to safety, as with electrical household appli-

ances--from irons and toasters to dishwashers and refrigerators. British Standards do not mean that all the goods made to their specifications are alike. They serve as a short name for a long and often complicated trade description, and are something the buyer knows and on which he relies. They are of particular help to a non-technical buyer, such as a housewife. In its sixteenth annual report, the Women’s Advisory Committee lists its activities during the year. These include forwarding consumer comment on goods in the shops, and requests for new British Standards.

What the committee says is listened to more respectfully than remarks from one or two irate housewives letting off steam about the man who has called—or not called —to mend the refrigerator. Personal shopping problems which have been discussed include shoes with|

slippery plastic heels, the possibility of buying reinforced children’s jeans, stronger trouser pockets which will not need mending the first time the garment is cleaned, the safety and stability of cookers, car cribs for babies, and the need for overflows in acrylic sinks—all matters on which British manufacturers value the cent ments of their customers. As “housewives’ representatives,” members of the committee have 'taken part in the deliberations of many of the 8.5.1.’s technical committees concerned wi.h goods which women buy: children's toys, sink waste disposers, spin extractors, electric blankets, carrycot stands, aerosol containers, seat belts for motorears, and many others. For its part, the Women’s Ad-

visory Committee retains close contact with its constituent women’s organisations, bolds conferences for members in many parts of Britain, and publishes a quarterly “Consumer Report”

The committee is also concerned with consumer education in schools, since betterinformed shoppers will mean better goods in the shops of Britain and in the countries to which British products are exported. Many overseas countries are glad to profit from the experiences of the Women’s Advisory Committee in bringing together manufacturers and consumers. Margaret Thompson, the committee’s secretary, has travelled the world and she attended the International Standards Organise-

tlon's meeting in Sweden last February. At the request of the institute of Standards and Industrial Research of Iran, material has been sent to Teheran to help in setting up a women’s advisory committee there. Information has also been sent to Hungary, Israel, Korea, New Zealand and Nigeria, and exchanged with the United States of America and Canada.—British Overseas Press Service.