SWE Scrapbook: Would the Men Take Over?

By Troy Eller English

scrapbook Wollmershauser — University of Iowa Section chairman Barbara Wollmershauser informed Carolyn Phillips, then-vice president, in an April 29, 1974, letter that the university would not formally recognize their section until it accepted men as members. Wollmershauser became president of the Society in FY1984.

First approved in 1951, the original bylaws of the Society of Women Engineers limited membership to women. This became a problem by the 1970s, when a growing number of universities began to question whether they could legally permit SWE student sections to prohibit men from joining. Additionally, many members found the limitation contrary to the spirit of the Equal Rights Amendment.

SWE convened a committee in the spring of 1975 to make a recommendation to the Council of Section Representatives, predecessor to today’s Senate, on whether men should be allowed to join. The seven-person committee unanimously agreed that men should be allowed to join SWE, but the question of whether they should be allowed to vote and run for elected positions was more complicated.

scrapbook Morris — In a June 2, 1975, letter, Dorothy Morris explained that the majority of the long-range planning committee did not support men as members in SWE, telling President Carolyn Phillips that, “a male president of SWE could never have the same impact on students, parents, teachers, counselors, and industry as a female president has.”

Evelyn Murray-Lenthall, a member of the Boston Section and future FY1983 SWE president, argued against. In an April 11 letter to Naomi McAfee, committee chair and immediate past president, Murray-Lenthall explained that SWE offered women members a rare chance to hone their leadership skills. “It is an area where frequently women are not able to gain the expertise [in male-dominated fields and organizations]. Therefore, it seems to be poor judgment to allow men to serve as Officers, either in Sections […] or Nationally.”

Baltimore-Washington Section member Linda Decker agreed with the majority. In an April 15, 1975, letter to McAfee, she wrote: “Had I been excluded from an organization, I would accept no less than full membership privileges, and consequently would wish to offer no less.”

scrapbook CSR Notes — Past-president Lydia Pickup prepared questions for the 1975 Council of Section Representatives meeting, as well as a motion to table the discussion of men as members until it became a legal necessity or until the Society faced pressure from universities. Pickup withdrew her motion after learning both conditions had already been met.

Helen Grenga, Atlanta Section member and future FY1982 SWE president, began on the fence. In her April 16 missive to McAfee, she wrote, “I have given a lot of thought to this subject and in the past year have changed my mind several times. Additional arguments could quite possibly change my mind again.” Ultimately, she decided that full membership with full privileges would encourage men to become better advocates for SWE, positing that, “‘second-class’ members will make ‘second-class’ contributions.” To protect SWE’s purpose and character, though, Grenga recommended that at least 50% of a section’s membership be comprised of women engineers or engineering students.

scrapbook Bylaws Amendment — SWE bylaws amendment 11, passed by the Council of Section Representatives on June 26, 1976, replaced “woman” with “person” in the Society’s membership requirements.

The Council of Section Representatives debated the subject at length at its meeting on June 28, 1975. “Some of our older members, our senior members, just had this vision that the men would take over,” Carolyn Phillips, SWE’s president at the time, recalled during a June 5, 2003, SWE oral history interview. “And that, you know, if we allowed men into membership, they’d run for office, and the next thing you know, we’d have a male president and they’d be running the show.”

SWE’s bylaws were formally amended by the council a year later, on June 26, 1976, replacing “woman” with “person” in the Society’s membership requirements. By September, eight men joined the Society as student members, and an additional six had applied for professional membership. However, the men did not take over the Society as some had feared.

Watch the Archives Come to Life!

You can watch SWE Archivist Troy Eller English, a dynamic and enthusiastic speaker, present photos, artifacts, and inside information on SWE’s history of allowing men to become members on the SWE YouTube channel.

Author

Troy Eller English

Troy Eller English (she/her) is the Society of Women Engineers archivist at the Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University in Detroit. She has written about the history of SWE and women in engineering for SWE Magazine since 2008 and contributes to Diverse: a SWE Podcast.

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