THE STORIES

1950-2015
From the Beginning:
A Continuing Commitment to Equality
and Inclusiveness
BACKGROUND PHOTO: In 1977, SWE President Arminta Harness was invited to be
a delegate-at-large at the National Women’s Conference. She voted on resolutions of
importance to women engineers, including the Equal Rights Amendment.
So as these things went along, it became a
tug-of-war among those people who said, ‘Gee,
let’s go full out for equal rights and the whole thing,
pass the ERA,’ and for those who were saying,
‘Well, gee, what’s going to happen if we allow this
change—and it’s a major change—when all of this
influx of men come in, what’s going to happen to
the organization?’ And that would have been a valid
concern, except that there wasn’t this huge influx
of men who really wanted to come in [when
SWE’s bylaws were amended in 1976 to admit
male members]…
Also within SWE there was a feeling that if you really
went out and pushed for ‘equality,’ you
were going to be thought of as this bra-burning,
hatchet-bearing militant who was fighting—
was killing the image of SWE as being rational
professional women who were really looking for
change in a reasonable way. So you had all these
factions that were fighting against each other.
I was keynote speaker at the banquet [during the
1978 national convention in Atlanta]. I actually went
into that convention with two speeches for that
banquet. One was the one I gave, and one was a
light, fun type thing that would just celebrate the
activities of the week. And when I got there I had
no idea which one I was going to give. And I still,
up until Friday evening, had not made up my mind
which one I was going to give…
Well, my main theme of the speech was—actually,
I think I retraced the history of women in the
workforce…For every dollar a man made, a woman
made 59 cents. And looking at that, my reaction
was that if we kept going at that rate, eventually
we would be paying people to allow us to work…
And I talked about the things that we needed to do,
emphasized what some of those were, and then
ended up with the fact that we were...educated
people, the ones who had really made it, but we
were unwilling to support our sisters who hadn’t…
Well, about half the group stood up and cheered
and about half sat at the table. So anyway, it was
an interesting evening.”
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SWE’S DIVERSITY PRINCIPLES
SWE’s diversity principles
acknowledge and respect the value
of a diverse community,
and commit to:
• Developing women in
engineering across
socioeconomic strata and
occupational focus.
• Encouraging the interest and
active participation of women
and girls of underrepresented
ethnic groups, including
African-Americans, Asian-
Americans, Hispanics, Pacific
Islanders and Native Americans.
• Providing support to women,
which acknowledges and
respects differences in family
status, sexual orientation, age
and physical abilities.
ABOVE: SWE sent a letter to state governors in
1977 explaining that SWE’s Council of Section
Representatives voted to boycott states that had
not ratified the Equal Rights Amendment. While
some members approved of the boycott, others
believed SWE would have greater influence on the
status of women by making professional women
even more visible in those states.
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Visit SWE.ORG/WEBUILTTHIS to get a closer look at the images.
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