ABSTRACT
Paradoxically, surveyors’ emphasis on ‘reality’ and ‘the practical demands of the market’, reduced the likelihood of them translating their biased gender views into spatial policy, which would be seen as ‘interfering’. Although women are now admitted to surveying, in general their role is still ancillary rather than central, as ‘helpmeets’, although they contribute a great deal to maintaining the surveying subculture. On entry to the world of professional practice, subsequent progress within it, ‘closure’ on the basis of ‘class’ and being ‘the right type’ plays a central part, in addition to gender, in deciding who eventually ends up where. Whilst ‘background’ can sometimes explain why some women succeed and others fail, ‘class’ is everything as one must be totally acceptable and ‘tactful’. Human beings are amazingly complicated, whilst ‘types’ are of value, to say that a person is always going to be treated in a particular way, in a particular situation, because of their class and gender is an oversimplification.
