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)

Students graduated in the academic year 1966/67 also from a correspondence course for engineer-economists (manager-engineers). Their total number was 43, without a single woman. A total of 41 students graduated from the postgraduate correspondence courses of the Faculty of Building Engineering, among them there were 2 women only (4.8%). The same figures for the Faculty of Civil Engineering were 58 and 8 (13.8% women). The interest in specialization in postgraduate courses was not very great at this university (at least in the academic year analysed). The number of total students showed, in the years 1964-1966 a decreasing tendency for all the forms of tuition. This might have contributed to the cessation of the independence of this university. Unfortunately, from the data published no conclusion can be drawn as to how this tendency affected women students.

104 Summing up, it can be concluded that women in Hungary were not allowed to study or practice engineering in Hungary before 1918. In 1918/1919 all universities were opened to women for a few months. This regulation was soon withdrawn. However, the first four women engineers graduated from Budapest Technical University in 1924/25. From 1927 on up to 5% of the students of architecture could be women and from 1936 on this was true for chemical engineering, too. When all the faculties (except theology) of all universities in the country were opened to women, a slow growth of women engineering students began. Women teaching engineering subjects at Budapest Technical University and the Technical University of Building and Transport Engineering were to 50% not engineers by training but scientists. As they taught generations of engineers at the Technical University and the Technical University of Building and Transport Engineering they have become, by now, part of Hungarian engineering tradition. All these activities have been published now as a reflection of the fact that the twentieth century is called "women's century". This might be true if we compare the situation to former epochs. I think, however, that future centuries still might do much for enabling women to even better exert their capabilities and knowledge in trades traditionally considered by our ancestors to be "male professions" as is, among others, engineering. We hope that in the millennium to come a great number of outstanding female engineers will successfully contribute to man-made environment meeting the demands of all of us.