Sheilas and the Beeb: How the BBC provided liberating pathways for ABC women in the early years of television

Abstract

This article discusses the important role the BBC played in advancing the careers of ABC women in the post-war era. Adopting an integrated, transnational approach, it revisualises the British broadcasting empire from a dominion perspective, a gendered perspective. This research follows ABC television producers as they undertook transformative, transnational excursions and recognises the necessary mobility, flexibility and ingenuity women activated in order to succeed. It identifies how they exploited the imbalanced dominion dynamic and strategically used their BBC experiences to counteract the compromising gender constraints of their local production environments.