I started work in 1965. I realise that is something like the dark ages then compared to todays society. I will admit I joined a research laboratory which in the nature of things wasn’t the most diverse of organisations. Neverteless the hierarchy was absolute. All of the scientific staff were men while almost all the technical assistants were women. There was also an additional element of difference in that all the technical assistants were local people and mainly young women yet to start a family. In contrast the scientific staff were mostly from different places around the country with several from overseas.. In addition the scientific staff were more varied in age and background but typically youngish married men with families.
In the course of my 15 years working in the same laboratory the mix did start to alter somewhat. A few of the scientific staff were women by the later 70’s while a few of the technical assistants were men. These men were, like the girls, recruited locally and usually post A level. I realise I need to explain my use of laboratory. My employer was Unilever Research Laboratory , Port Sunlight ( URLPS ). This was a massive organisation ( one of the largest non government research laboratories in the country) of some thousand people of which about 250 were scientific staff, roughly the same number technical assistants and the remainder support staff of all sorts. Within this there were many individual laboratories often with a dozen or so people working on various tasks. The main task was development of soap and detergents but there was also other work supporting company interests in various areas such as plywood. During my stay I worked in several different laboratories within the whole area.
The laboratory ( speaking of the whole organisation ) was subdivided into three product areas, personal washing ( soaps ), fabric washing ( laundry products ) and hard surface cleaning ( dishwashing, floor and kitchen cleaning ). In addition there were groups concerned with analysis and surface chemical research. I worked firstly as an information scientist for a couple of years them moved to hard surface cleaning for a further 12 years. When I became a little more senior I had a technical assistant working for me. Initially these were students in their holidays, then full time people, firstly young ladies and then a young man, Mike.
I don’t recall any overt sexism. Male technical assistants were treated equally with female. Both had the opportunity for day release for further study. However many females had to give up when they became pregnant. There was no particular policy to take back women after a career break. As far as I recall this was treated with a shrug as “that’s the way it is “; I don’t recall any returning although female parental leave was just being introduced. I remember vividly when my first child was born phoning HR to ask if male parental leave was available. I was greeted with a chuckle and told “no but it will come”. And it has
I had recruited Mike mainly because his brother had been a big success but this turned into a very happy decision as Mike was excellent. While I was by no means an excellent scientist myself I was having a particularly productive time with lots of ideas many of which were relatively successful. Mike was a huge help showing great initiative and never just “awaiting instructions”. I had hit on the notion that I wasn’t very good at “selling” my ideas as I lacked the “gift of the gab”. Rather I determined to develop prototypes which I could demonstrate with the demonstration selling the idea without any verbal persuasion..
I’ve said that Mike’s brother , Gilbert had been a big success. Gilbert was one of the first men recruited as a technical assistant. He had bags of self confidence and a rather wicked sense of humour. In keeping with the Merseyside humour this was rather bitter and often used at someone else’s expense. I was a victim once. I didn’t dress very well and Gilbert remarked one day that I was “man from Oxfam”. This was at the time of the “man from… “ ads and it was funny and I couldn’t take offence.
Just along the corridor a girl joined who was very skinny. As Gilbert said “ she’s so thin she wears padded tights”. We never did discover her name but she was thereafter known as padded tights girl.
Morale was quite high and often social occasions would consist of most in any particular lab going out together as a group. It might be thought that the combination of male and female together would be combustible . While there was some flirting I can say I was never aware of any serious hanky-panky. The girls were typically either newly weds or with serious local boyfriends while the males were very career orientated. I think most of the scientists were very aware they could easily be put in a very awkward situation with career damage on the horizon..
One reason most of the scientists were quite young was the company had an unofficial policy of “get on or get out”. The first tier of management was the objective of the ambitious while transfers into the other parts of the company was the route for many. Unilever is a massive business so opportunities were many. After 15 years I was in danger of becoming what our senior manager referred to as his “old lags”. I moved to Unichema, a Unilever chemicals company in nearby Bromborough. This was disaster because shortly after the company closed. This worked out well for me in the long run but at the cost of short term trauma. One result was I spent a year working on Teeside only returning to my family at weekends.
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