Great Britain’s Culture 1950s – 1990s
Aderin-Pocock’s culture is very significant to who she is. She was born in England in 1968 to two Nigerian parents. However, they divorced when she was still quite young, but Aderin-Pocock stayed with her father. Aderin-Pocock’s cultural identity could have played a role in her upbringing. According to the article, Historical background and impact of Women’s involvement in formal education in Nigeria, in Nigerian culture, females have a large lack of education compared to males, and there are pressures on many of them to marry early (Jacob & George, 2014). There is no evidence that this mindset was used by Aderin-Pocock’s father, but it gives some context to her family’s culture.
Furthermore, according to the Historic UK’s article, The 1950’s Housewife, it wasn’t that long ago in the UK that women were seen primarily as housewives, primarily in the 1950’s. Back then, after women got married they hardly ever held a job outside the home. It was considered their job to raise the children and conduct housekeeping. Furthermore, because of these norms, hardly any women went to college. Consequently, many young ladies received instruction in home economics in school, in order to prepare them for their future role (Castelow, n.d.).
A report by the British Social Attitudes on Gender Roles, back in the 1980’s shows some great insight to UK gender roles while Aderin-Pocock was growing up that can help give some cultural context. The report said that 49% of the population viewed the women’s job as being a homemaker (take care of children, housework, etc,), and the man’s job was to earn a living for the family. Another statistic shows that even in 1989 (when Aderin-Pocock was in college), 64% of the population expected the mother to stay at home when she had a child. It took until the 1990’s for the United Kingdom to start policies for parental leave or childcare provision. A few years after that, in 1997, there was a surge of support for mothers to be encouraged to work (Park, et. al., 2013).
It is encouraging that the data reports a steady incline in the number of female full-time workers in Great Britain. In 1684, males worked around 13,500 hours, while women only worked around 5,500 hours. However, in 2012 males worked around the same number of hours, but women’s working hours surged to nearly 8,000. Even though there is still a large gap, around the time of Aderin-Pocock’s schooling and career, women made huge steps (Park et. al., 2013).
Another large part of Aderin-Pocock’s culture was due to her African descent. Even though she was born in the UK, during the 60’s there was still much segregation and discrimination. According to Civil Rights in the UK, It was much the same as in the United States, just at a smaller scale. For example, in 1963 (just five years before Aderin-Pocock was born) a young black protester stood up for equality on a bus, much like that of Rosa Parks. Even though the UK had their own civil rights movement, up through the 1960’s many places still discriminated. Prime Minister Harold Wilson worked to end racial discrimination by making it a legal offence (Crystal, 2015). Looking at the cultural context of discrimination at the time Aderin-Pocock was growing is a useful tool to understand the culture she grew up in.
Technology Used by Women
During Aderin-Pocock’s childhood and young-adulthood, the technology used was fairly much the same for men and women, and were used as advancement by all. According to Technology Timeline, during the time Aderin-Pocock was growing up, there were great technological advances that people could use in their everyday life. In 1971, the pocket calculator, email, and the floppy disk were all invented. Furthermore, because more women were entering the professional workforce they utilized these tools more and more. Then, in 1973, the first personal computers were introduced. This was another technology that was not restricted to certain genders (Dates & Events, 2015). Lastly, in 1990 the World Wide Web was created, which not only was available to women, but also helped with research and other technological advances (Woodford, 2008).
In England, specifically, women were making vast strides. According to the Timeline of the women’s liberation movement, a large part of the culture that Maggie Aderin-Pocock grew up in was that of changing times for women, especially in the U.K! In 1968 (the year she was born), the women workers in the Dagenham Ford Factory went on strike! They argued that they deserved equal pay with the male workers. The factory justified this pay discrepancy by saying that the women were ‘unskilled’, but they fought that as well. Then, a little later on, women in the U.K. were still making strides. In 1979 Margaret Thatcher became the first women Prime Minister. Then, in 1987, Diane Abbott became the first black women to be elected to the house of commons (British Library, n.d.). These women who stood up for themselves, and each other, and fought for equality, helped pave the way for Maggie Aderin-Pocock to become a famous and highly effective space scientist.
