Technikatörténeti szemle 23. (1997-98)

TANULMÁNYOK - Vámos Éva Katalin: Women’s Opportunities of Studying and Practising Engineering in Hungary from 1895 to 1968 (On the example of Budapest Technical University and its women students)

Hungarian Women's movement as a promoter of women's university studies Among the promoters of restrictions and concessions related to women's university studies, beside the cultural administration and leaders and professors of university, we can find also the different organisations of the Hungarian Women's movement. In 1924 the Hungarian Association of University Women was founded as a Division of the International Federation of University Women. Their periodical "The Hungarian Women's Review" launched in 1934 had also an English introduction, which refers to the vital importance of the foreign examples to the Hungarian development of women's university studies: "We are aware of the fact that news from university women of other countries are of utmost interest as we on our part always welcome similar papers kindly sent by sister organisations. May this review be a link in the building up of real understanding."

6 Beside this organisation the Feminist Association and the Federation of Women's Associations in Hungary intervened, by petitions and polemical essays, in the interest of women's university studies. Two of their famous petitions from 1923 and 1938, respectively, treat about the same topics using the same system of reasoning. This proves how difficult it was to achieve some progress in this field. In 1940 the Federation of Women's Associations in Hungary filed a petition asking for the possibility that women should become ordinary and extraordinary university professors. The petition was shelved in Spring 1942.

7 Attempts at opening engineering studies to women in Hungary before World War II Directly before World War I, and also during the war, women's situation within the Hungarian society (as in every country participating in the war) had changed. The 20th anniversary of the 1895 Resolution presented a good opportunity for reconsidering the problem of women's university studies. The Minister of Religious Affairs and Public Education of the time, count Albert Apponyi came to the conclusion that "By today our everyday life and, in the first place, the experience of the great war, have silenced many objections." In 1917 the Council of Ministers started preparing the second Royal Resolution related to women's studies. This would have created an opportunity to women for pursuing studies even of law and engineering. The document was sent to Vienna at a time when the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy was on its way to dissolution. Thus, no answer has ever arrived.

8,9 Consequently, women were allowed but after World War I to pursue studies of engineering and this also only temporarily. The first female students of engineering gained admission to Budapest Technical University in 1918,