Women in the civil service in the UK

Ø 1) Agree or disagree with the statements:

a) Civil service is not a woman’s career.

b) Men dislike working with women in the upper echelons of government.

c) Women become self-confident working in men’s society.

 

Ø 2) Read the text and point out the sentences corresponding to its title.

Jaqueline Hope-Wallace, who recently turned 100, built a successful career in the civil service at a time when women were a rarity in its upper echelons. She recalls the highlights of forty years in Whitehall.

“I was born in 1909, and went to the local school in Wimbledon Common. My father was in the civil service in the Charity Commission. So when I came down from Oxford with a degree in history in 1931, I wasn’t keen on the civil service; it seemed boring. But of course in the early ’30s things were very low. I had friends with very good degrees from Oxford who couldn’t get jobs. One girl who got a first at my college was selling hats at “Harrods” for a year or two before she could get a proper job. So my father said I had better go into the civil service, and I did. I was there for 40 years.

I joined the Ministry of Labour, and they sent me out into the provinces. I had to stay in B&Bs in county towns for nearly two years, then I managed to get back to London. Soon after that they set up the National Assistance Board, and I got in there right at the beginning. There was high unemployment at that time, and the unemployed and pensioners received a non-means-tested unemployment benefit. The Board had offices all over the country, and gave benefits to people for whom the basic benefits weren’t sufficient. The ’30s was a very bad period; we all felt certain that there was going to be a war.

When the war came the Board got lots of extra jobs. For a short time I was evacuated up to Lancashire while London was being bombed, but it was awful being exiled up there and I got back to London as quickly as I could. I lived in Wimbledon, so I had to get up to London every morning - and that was sometimes difficult, London being in such a state of chaos, but one got used to it.

After the war, everybody was hopeful that everything was going to be wonderful and different - but it wasn’t, of course. I got a fellowship to America for six months, where I examined how they dealt with the unemployed and old people, then I stayed at the Board until 1965. I became an Under-Secretary, and looked after the policy side of things. In ’65 I moved to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government to deal with countryside matters - and very soon after that, the Board was folded up.

The newspapers wrote that I was the first woman to reach the rank of Under-Secretary - but I don’t think it’s true. When I became an Under-Secretary there were a couple of women who were already Permanent Secretaries, and when I moved to the Ministry, the Permanent Secretary was Dame Evelyn Sharp. It upsets me when they write that.

I retired in 1969, though I stayed on various boards: I was on the board of the Corby Development Corporation until 1980. Corby had been a village and it absorbed the people from the North. Like many of these places, the people who lived there originally didn’t like being a new town - but we managed these problems.

Life has changed immensely over the years, especially for women. When I used to go to civil service meetings with other departments, I always found myself the only woman at the table. It didn’t bother me at all, though. I quite liked it: being the only woman gave one a little bit of self-esteem.

 

Ø 3) Correct the given outline of the text:

Jaqueline Hope-Wallace celebrated her 100^th birthday because she was active mentally all her life long. Although she passed her school exams brilliantly, and graduated from Oxford with a degree in public administration, she couldn’t find a decent job for two years. She had to sell hats at “Harrods” before she joined the Ministry of Labour thanks to her father’s efforts. She made a successful career and was very happy to contribute to the improvement of people’s lives in rural settlements. Her international experience made her an Under-Secretary of State. She stayed in the Civil Service for thirty years being the only woman within various departments which was her secret pride.