Unfeminine women and angry men: the Irish Post Office in 1902–1918

Abstract

ABSTRACT The Post Office was the United Kingdom’s single largest employer and possessed the majority of female workers in the Civil Service before the First World War. This article concentrates on the self-perception and trade union activities of the Irish women who became permanent postal staff by successfully qualifying in the public examination. It first examines the meaning of educational standard to these women by exploring the decline of open competition from 1902. In this process, it demonstrates their professional commitment and pride which was consolidated and amplified after the breakout of the First World War – attitudes sometimes denounced as inconsistent with feminine propriety. These “unfeminine women” constantly fought against discriminatory social norms amid the attacks from “angry men” and survived in the public sphere even after the war.