Author Description

Faced with a shortage of skilled personnel in certain branches of engineering towards the end of the seventies, the Engineering Industry Training Board (United Kingdom) launched initiatives to recruit 16-year-old girls into technician training and to interest girls following "A" level courses in physics and mathematics in a career of engineering. The Engineering Council, in collaboration with the Equal Opportunities Commission, sponsored 1984 as WISE year (Women into Science and Engineering) legitimizing concern in terms of national economic survival. It was against this background that the Section X Committee of the British Association for the Advancement of Science decided in 1983 that the theme for the Section program in 1985 would be "Women and Science." This volume contains the papers presented in that program, only marginally modified for publication. The first six papers provide evidence of how it is (or has been) with women in science. Recurrent themes are those of social pressures and personal prejudice limiting women's access to science and further constraining the achievement of those who qualify to practice. The remaining five papers take a more theoretical perspective of what is seen as the alienation of most women from science and technology through gender-related constructs of personal identity and of the nature of science. (CW)