BAE Systems, Recognition's Power & The Janet Harvey Hall

The global gender disparity when it comes to STEM careers is well established.

In 1970s America, only 8% of women worked in STEM fields, with even fewer participating across the globe. 

There has been positive change, with the number of women in the STEM workforce increasing by 31%- from 9.4 million to 12.3 million- between 2011 and 2021. 

But the gender disparity still remains, particularly in manufacturing when it comes to front-line and senior positions. 

BAE Systems is endeavouring to confront this disparity, through initiatives to increase women’s current and future participation in STEM careers like manufacturing and by honouring their historic importance in shaping the sector.

BAE Systems: Challenging gender disparity

BAE Systems has made bold pledges in its quest to build an inclusive, diverse and equitable workforce.

By 2030, the company wants women to make up at least 50% of its Executive Committee and 30% of its workforce, in addition to increasing the representation of race and ethnicity throughout its workforce and localities.

BAE Systems tackles this issue at three key stages: education, early careers and senior-level roles. 

The company's engineering theatre show visits 400 schools in the UK every year and focuses on inspiring, educating and empowering girls in STEM. 

BAE Systems also seeks to provide critical support to their female employees, especially when making major decisions like taking and returning from maternity leave. 

The company has comprehensive, competitive maternity and shared parental leave policies, which extend to adoption and special leave which covers being a reservist or caring for a family member. 

All women returning to work after having children are given the option to work part-time for the first three months and choose alternative working patterns including remote work and flexible hours. 

In the UK, BAE Systems was a proud founding signatory of the Women In Defence Charter, which strives to increase women’s participation in the defence sector, provides vital support, knowledge and resources and challenges senior leadership on their gender equality commitments.

BAE Systems also helped found The Tech She Can Charter and the Women In Aviation Charter, both of which seek to increase the number of women entering STEM careers.

This work by BAE Systems has led to several positive outcomes. 

The manufacturer was ranked the 2nd engineering employer of choice by female engineering job hunters in the 2023 UK Graduate Careers Survey and has successfully diversified its staff. 

"As we continue on our DEI journey, we remain committed to building a workplace and culture where our differences are a source of strength and our people feel supported to contribute their best work," said Tom Arseneault, president and CEO of BAE Systems.

"I'm proud of the advancements we've made and I am confident in the progress we will make as we drive toward our long-term goals."

BAE Systems is reaching these inclusivity goals by leveraging initiatives that confront the core reasons why fewer women enter STEM fields. The latest research from the Institution of Engineering And Technology (IET) continues to confirm what these reasons are. 

1. Women are not encouraged to think about STEM careers at school (45%) 
2. Women are put off by how male-dominated the industry is (32%) 

We’ve discussed how BAE systems confront this on an educational level, mentoring and providing vital resources to girls to foster greater interest in STEM careers.

We’ve also explored how the company provides space and support to women at all stages of life at the company with its comprehensive maternity leave policies. 

Now it’s time to explore the way BAE systems are confronting the male-dominated reality of the manufacturing industry.

Because, while there is a wealth of encouragement, support and openness to women entering STEM careers, there is a lot of under-discussed hostility too. 

Fuelling this hostility is the belief that women don’t belong in these spaces, especially in the frontline production environment, which is labour-intensive, technically precise and full of potential risk. 

But this belief is rooted in an intentional obfuscation of history.

The ironic truth about many industries where women are privately whispered about ‘not belonging’ is that they were often there in the first place. 

Brewery. Medicine. Technology. As these fields grew in importance and cultural value, women were historically pushed out, with their contributions and importance either demonised or unacknowledged.

BAE Systems understands the importance of acknowledging this history and reframing the story from one about women’s entry into manufacturing to one about their re-entry with higher earning potential. 

Because this is a sector women across the world have always been involved in, playing an important role in how it’s been moulded and shaped. 

The importance of acknowledgement 

Remember what we said about 8% of women working in STEM fields in 1970s America? 

The work these women contributed was systematically devalued, with their technical skill often dismissed and low wages justified with the notion their income was supplemental to their husbands. 

The STEM careers many women dominated back then have since grown in prestige and are the exact fields there’s encouragement for them to re-enter now. 

Computer programming is a prime example.

In the 1940s the emerging field was almost exclusively female and it was associated with fabric weaving and considered culturally unimportant- aka ‘women’s work’.

In the UK, advertising used to sell computers in the 1960s featured conservatively dressed members of the female workforce.

Women’s labour- and the effortless efficiency assumed to come with it- was marketed as a core part of computerisation. 

ENIAC, the first electronic, general-purpose digital computer, was programmed by a team of female programmers - Kay McNulty, Betty Jennings, Betty Snyder, Marlyn Meltzer, Fran Bilas and Ruth Lichterman- in 1945. 

If you’ve seen ‘Hidden Figures’, you’ll also know the story of the “human computers” of NASA in the 1960s, women who served in vital programming roles, helping to make the first US crewed space flights possible.

Then came the technology boom of the late 1970s and 1980s, where the profession was very insidiously professionalised to exclude women. Women could be employed as ‘typists’ or computer operators, but the title of ‘programmer’ was suddenly out of reach. 

Very quickly, their participation was erased and forgotten, creating the masculine stereotype and gender imbalance of computer programming that the industry today works to challenge.

Manufacturing has a similar history, though women’s contributions have been arguably more celebrated.

During the British industrial revolution, many women worked in the textile industries in cotton, flax and silk, or they laboured in pottery and paper manufacturing. 

This labour was far from emancipatory, with poor working conditions, low pay and long hours.

Today, many women in Asia, the Middle East and the Global South perform similar labour, with nearly 60% of garment workers globally being women.

In the 1940's manufacturing would prove transformative for many western women when men went away to fight on the frontlines during World War Two.

The manufacturing jobs that needed filling - as engineers, welders and electricians - hadn’t been open to women before, significantly increasing their earning power. 

For many Western women pre-second-wave feminism, the war effort opened up new forms of financial and bodily autonomy that quickly ended when the war was won. 

When the men returned federal and civilian policies were implemented to push women out of these industries and open their jobs back up to men.

In the post-war resurgence of traditional life and gender norms, with the subsequent baby boom, it would take years for this history to be acknowledged.

BAE Systems has acknowledged this history, by naming its new ship build hall set to transform shipbuilding in Glasgow the Janet Harvey Hall. 

Janet Harvey was one of many British women who took an industrial job during the Second World War, working at the age of eighteen as an electrician in the River Clyde’s shipyards.

In the 1940s’ she played a critical role in the war effort, as one of just a handful of women working as electricians alongside the 100,000-strong male workforce.

Janet died last year, movingly, on Armistice Day at the age of 101. Aged 96 she was awarded an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Engineering from Glasgow Caledonian University, to recognise her exceptional contribution to Glasgow's shipyards during the war.

Now she and by extension, the many women who became welders, engineers, platers and electricians during the war, receive a further acknowledgement from BAE Systems. 

The Janet Harvey Hall is currently under construction in Govan, Glasgow and will serve as a critical part of BAE Systems' shipbuilding facilities in Scotland. 

The facility once finished will be large enough to accommodate the construction of two Type 26 frigates side-by-side. 

The Janet Harvey Hall with consist of 706,294 ft³ of concrete and more than 6,000 tonnes of steel. 

“It’s fitting that a pioneer such as Janet will remain synonymous with our efforts to re-imagine complex shipbuilding on the upper Clyde," says Jen Blee, Business Operations Director of BAE Systems Naval Ships business.

"Today, women like Janet are much more commonplace in our yards than they once were and their numbers and impact continue to grow.

"We owe so much to generations past and will use the wisdom they gave us to create our own legacy for generations to come.”

Once complete, the hall will help enable efficient and safe shipbuilding for decades to come with future work unaffected by adverse weather.

With two 100-tonne cranes and two 20-tonne cranes, the facility is designed to accommodate up to 500 workers per shift.

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