My mom and dad were both flight instructors and both said the same. Dad lost his medical but Mom still instructs and flies aerobatics in a 450 Stearman. She’s 68.

But stylewise, the late fifties and pre-’64 sixties (roughly-the death of Monroe, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the death of JFK were the breakpoints) had it over now in a big way. The cars were cooler, the fashions fashioner, general decorum better all over. At least that’s what I hear from everyone who lived then except a few malcontents. And I drive a ’65 Olds as a daily driver, so go figure.

That’s why “Mad Men” is so popular, and why I build stuff with tubes. Anyone who lets out this “it’s all about the music” is full of horse poop and they know it.

Anyway, that apron is probably from the late 60s or early 70s, a completely different world….and besides, _it’s a joke_. Everyone chuckled but they knew anyone who behaved that way for real was a louse.

Almost every piece of commercially built electronics you own was assembled largely or entirely by females. Anyone who has worked in an electronic plant can’t help but notice that all the assembly/rework department is women, almost all the techs used to be men but that is changing somewhat, and almost all the engineers are men but there are more women now.

Oftentimes the women doing test work will be “test operators” as opposed to technicians meaning they came up through the assembly side and do not have a degree or certificate in electronics. By no means always.

There are an awful lot of ways to process this data. I don’t claim top know what is “correct”, but my thoughts are, one, women don’t want to be engineers very much, two, no one in their right mind wants to be a technician, three, no one wants to pay their dues with tech hobbies that take discipline and investment in tools and time very much anymore.

It’s also worth noting that it’s a lot easier to teach women to shoot, ride horses or motorcycles, fly airplanes, or learn Morse code than it is to teach men, and that the Heathkit company used to test its kits by having women with no electronics experience build them. This always had to be modified because the women would simply follow directions and it would work. Men with some electronics knowledge would then find an infinite number of ways to screw them up and rework would be needed to make them hobbyistproof, a much tougher thing. A little knowledge, and, God forbid, a roll of acid core solder in the house meant certain disaster!

But then again, I think the world of 1962 was a better one than the world we have now, generally speaking. Your mileage may vary.