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Access to clean and affordable energy services and technologies is a global concern as stated in global conventions and goals. Different energy needs and interests are identified between men and women. In the search for a just energy transition, the question emerges how to design an energy policy that reflects and needs of energy users. This paper aims to create insights based on a comparative gender analysis of household energy technology uptake in France and the Netherlands in the 1950s and 1960s when the households took up new electrical appliances in their homes. The analysis of this period in France and in the Netherlands shows that women were chosen as the target group in order to make the households’ uptake of new technologies and uses successful. Lessons can be learnt from the history of electrification of households’ demand in the Netherlands and France that put women at the centre of energy technology adoption in households, given that the uptake of the new technologies and behaviour change required by the current energy transition targets households as homogenous entities.