Education gains acceptance

Press, 1 September 1986, Page 9

Education gains acceptance

Society's increasing acceptance of a woman’s right to education is one of the most noticeable changes in women’s education in the last 10 years, says the world president of the International Federation of University Women, Dr Helen Dunsmore. “When I first started lecturing in chemistry at the University of Glasgow in 1959, 1 was greeted by cat-calls and whistling from the male students,” said Dr Dunsmore. “Now women lecturers in science are accepted as quite normal,” said Dr Dunsmore, who, undeterred by the earlier jeering, is still lecturing. Scottish-born Dr Dunsmore is in Christchurch for the federation’s twenty-second conference, which began at the University of Canterbury last Wednesday. It is the first time since New Zealand joined in 1922 that the triennial conference has been held in Christchurch.

t Dr Dunsmore said that

when she started lecturing in Glasgow, women science lecturers were uncommon. Theoretically women in higher education had been accepted as a part of life in Scotland for more than 50 years, but many did not take advantage of the opportunities to study because of social pressure. Dr Dunsmore’s mother was an exception, she graduated in physics. After World War II women were encouraged to take up careers and this had also swelled the workforce, said Dr Dunsmore.

In the last 30 years more women had started to study in a wide variety of fields. As a consequence women were moving away from jobs traditionally seen as “suitable for women.” More and more women were now also re-entering the workforce and picking up the threads of a career they had given up to have a family.

Dr Dunsmore sees this as a positive trend for

women and society in general. “I think it is good for women to go back to work for their own image. If the child respects its mother as a professional person as well as the supplier of food then he or she will have a better attitude towards women in general.”

If this trend was to be encouraged, opportunities

for refresher courses and in some cases, retraining, needed to be provided, as well as suitable childcare facilities, said Dr Dunsmore.

Society had to learn how to cope with the increased competition for jobs, particularly competition from women for jobs traditionally held by men. The importance of parttime jobs should not be overlooked, as more and more leisure time became available to people through technological advances.

Opportunities should exist for both men and women to take up parttime work, or to take maternity leave so they could spend equal amounts of time with their children. At the same time it was important that women who chose to raise a family rather than stay at work should be made to feel as though they are making an important contribution to the well-being of their country, said Dr Dunsmore.