Bet this raised a few eyebrows back in t'day... "A Second World War video advising men on the problems of hiring female factory workers reveals the sexist attitude faced by women entering the workforce. The recently-unearthed film, which was produced by the US Office of Education in 1944, refers to women as 'crazy' and 'sensitive' and reminds men that women need to be explained rules in extra detail in order to understand. In one scene the factory foreman admits he is 'scared' of his female employees. In another he is warned against picking a favourite due to women's naturally jealous nature. '[Women's] jealousy can cause you no end of trouble - avoid spending any more time with one than with another,' he is told. The 10-minute film, titled Supervising Women Workers, reveals the patronising way in which women were treated when they entered the industrial workforce during the war. " WWII film teaches bosses how to handle 'sensitive' women | Daily Mail Online
The maker of the film may have heard of Agnes McLean , a formidable Glasgow women who led a week long strike at Rolls Royce in 1943. She was protesting about the inequality of pay rates for men and women workers. She won, and my mother met the workforce leaving on her first day at the site so she had an unexpected holiday!
Was Agnes McLean later a councillor in Strathclyde Region in the '80s? I remember an old STV series called Scotland's War at the time which interviewed a well-known female councillor from Glasgow who had been involved in a wartime strike, although for some reason I seem to remember her working at Bishopton munitions factory.
She was at Rolls Royce until she retired but is likely to have been involved in other disputes being an active union official. She was a long term councillor until the year she died in 1994.
