The Eccles School Engagement Committee’s latest “Lunch and Learn” event featured Mark Crowley, Professor of Management, sharing his research about the history of women in the workplace and the intersection of gender and education.

Crowley’s interest in the subject began at an early age when he saw the impact that a union strike in 1984-85 had upon his community in the coal-mining town of Pontypridd, South Wales — particularly in bringing together marginalized and disaffected groups. His grandmothers also told intriguing stories of working during World War II.

Though his subsequent areas of study were centered specifically around women’s positions in 20th century Britain and the influence of war on British society and women’s status, he made clear their applicability to a modern business education.

Crowley highlighted the laws and social norms of the time that contributed to what he pointedly referred to as “the gender demarcation.” The overriding cultural custom then was based on a male breadwinner model that resulted in standardized occupational segregation, as well as unequal pay being codified into law.

After providing myriad examples of what was then-legal discrimination, he did note that the impact and aftermath of both world wars helped to spur some change (even if only temporarily). Notably, male conscription into military service made it inexorable that women would help fill the gaps in the work force. Furthermore, hundreds of thousands of deaths of men in the wars created a gender imbalance that naturally resulted in fewer marriages and thus necessitated women working to support themselves.

After spelling out the various changes in laws and social structure over the ensuing decades, Crowley shifted to discussing how he integrates research about bias, inequality, and discrimination in the workplace into the business history education he provides at the Eccles School.

One particularly compelling example he shared of negative stereotyping indicative of that time period centered on a Volkswagen advertising campaign urging men to buy VWs as family cars owing to the relatively cheap repair bills they could count on after their wives inevitably crashed the vehicles on account of being naturally poor drivers.

“[A question I ask students]: ‘Is gender a social construct?’ … ‘Do we, as a society, define the positions of men and women?’ And if the answer to that is yes, what are the potential pitfalls of that?” Crowley said. “I say to them, ‘How do businesses take advantage of this to be able to make money?’”

Though his specific areas of research touch upon some events dating back more than a century, he noted that the underlying issues behind them remain sadly germane in the present day. Crowley concluded that he wished modern decision-makers were compelled to always run their ideas past historians first, with the idea that they’d come away learning an important truth: “You can’t expect to repeat something disastrous and get a better result.”