Women and the Scottish Clerks' Association: from contempt to collegiality

Abstract

First paragraph: This paper will trace the evolution of the attitudes expressed by the Scottish Clerks' Association (SCA) towards women in clerical work in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. For women trying to establish careers in office work it was necessary to be accepted as colleagues by men in organisations like the SCA. But, as Sylvia Walby noted, explanations of the increasing presence of women in clerical work in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century have emphasised the role of employers as the main actors in the feminisation of clerical work, while the resistance (or acceptance) by male clerks has been given less attention. The evolution of the SCA's attitudes illustrates such resistance and then the growth of a kind of acceptance of women clerks in the early twentieth century; but this acceptance was within the context of male clerks' attempts to restructure their occupational group in order to preserve the better jobs for themselves.