ABSTRACT
The exclusion of women from education has long been identified as a barrier to women's employment in skilled occupations. In the Swedish dairy industry, the position of dairymaid was so well established that the state created vocational programs for women before it created similar programs for men, and until the late 1930s it offered more educational opportunities to women than to men. Yet over time educational policies contributed to women's marginalization by instructing women and men separately and offering a more extensive and scientifically based education only to men. Most dairymaids were trained at small, rural dairy schools, while dairymen were prepared for careers in supervisory and managerial positions. Analyzing debates among educators, agricultural societies, and employers about dairymaids' access to knowledge, the chapter shows that gender segregation reinforced the assumption that men deserved a superior status and were more capable than women of working in an industry involving science and technology. In spite of the fact that many dairymen never attended advanced programs, all dairymen benefitted from the superior status and expertise that were attributed to men. When a sweeping, egalitarian reform opened all vocational programs to women and men alike, the policy inadvertently accelerated the masculinization of the occupation.
