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)

one hand, in the interest of women, who form the majority of the population so that their sense of inferiority, which breeds dissatisfaction, be no more maintained and, on the other, in the interest of common welfare, which might claim to the utilisation of every talent and creative force." The minister stressed that this law "grants equal rights for women regarding admittance to universities and colleges and is, thereby, destined to make up for the deficiencies of the Hungarian 'Corpus luris', which are, at the time of today's democratic transformation, particularly dissonant."

28 Owing to the decrees and regulations outlined above, it was as late as in the 1950s, that the first female mechanic engineer graduated from Budapest Technical University. Born in Budapest in 1930, Judit Asbót-Thorma started her studies in 1951. First she studied the law, then switched to mechanical engineering, to obtain her degree as engineer in 1956. Her first job was with the Company for Research Equipment Manufacture of the Hungarian Academy of Science (1956-1958), where she was engaged in designing machinery. Between 1968 and 1975 she was dealing with technical development at the Research Institute of the Tobacco Industry, then she was put in charge of the development of wrapping/packaging as chief engineer of the Company forthe Refrigeration Industry. Atthe top of her career (1975-1990) she was director of the Budapest Factory of the above Company. Today she is retired and devotes her activities to the Hungarian Women's Federation she is President of.

29 Dr. Zsuzsa Szentgyörgyi, born in Budapest in 1935, ranges among the first electric engineers graduated from Budapest Technical University.

30 As deputy Head of Division to the Ministry of Industry she was dealing for many years with the development policy of industrial research and, on a theorietical as well as a practical level, with the relationship of technical research and society. She was co-president of the Scientific Society for Measurement and Automation, and her manyfold activities were recognized, besides many distinctions from scientific and technical societies, by the Prize awarded by the Federation of Technical and Scientific Societies MTESZ. She has been practising scientific journalism as editor of Magyar Tudomány (Hungarian Science) till today. For this activity of hers she was awarded a prize for journalists by the Hungarian Academy of Science. Outlines of general and university history of Hungary 1947-1968 On the political stage the Communist Party got ahead in 1947, partly owing to corrupt electoral practices. In agreement with socialist planned economy, which preached the primariness of industrial development, the expansion of