Abstract

The paper aims to retrace the history of the Associazione italiana donne ingegneri e architetti (Aidia). Founded in Turin in 1957 thanks to the idea of a small group of «pioneers» and young graduates, Aidia’s mission was to support women in their professional careers, promote their work in the field of technology, and build a network of ties with other women’s professional associations in Italy and abroad. Aidia’s mission, organisation and structure, felt the repercussions of the process of women’s inclusion in the field of engineering and architecture. The feminization process here has been very slow and even today the achievement of «normality» in working conditions in these professions appears complicated. By analysing individual and collective biographies, events in the history of the Association provide an excellent vantage point from which to understand the cultural and institutional factors conditioning the employment and success of women in engineering and architecture