¶ … Women's Health Could Stand the Strain of Higher Education" by M. Carey Thomas
M. Carey Thomas served as the president of Bryn Mawr College during the formative years of the United States when women were still attempting to secure their equal rights in terms of their political, legal claims as citizens and also their social place as equals. Thomas' essay, in part, details the difficulty of allowing young women to take their places as serious scholars in the fabric of American education, rather than just as dabblers in academic affairs. One of the most striking things about this primary source document is how eloquently it exists as a testimony to the considerable intelligence and acumen endowed in the mind of this determined woman, even in an era where the female intellect was so downgraded.
Thomas' essay demonstrates how limits upon the scope of women's right to higher education was often phrased in terms of protecting women, rather than upon a justification of outright discrimination. The female mind was deemed to have a different capacity to the male mind and thus should be educated differently, in a more delicate and less rigorous fashion. Furthermore, the female body was viewed, in medical terms as a weaker, lesser copy of the male body. Women's health was thought to be so frail that the supposed strain of higher education on their minds would cause the body to weaken and buckle, even if the woman was intelligent enough to absorb the knowledge...
The need to demonstrate that women would not suffer under nervous strain when subjected to academic rigors became one of the obstacles Thomas was confronted with when she was bringing her beloved dream of Bryn Mawr College into a reality.
Thomas was one of the founders of the American Association of University Women. This was founded as an organization dedicated to the support of women whose lives revolved around academia and to the advancement of the cause of American female education in general. It also attempted to increase the scope and nature of female education at its time. One of the things Thomas details in her essay is not simply that women must be educated, but that their education must be taken seriously in the same way that male education was taken seriously. Female education was downgraded, she believed, because when comparing the standards at most female colleges to the academic standards of most male colleges, female educational standards seemed to be lacking. It was incumbent upon women not to simply ask for rights, but to prove themselves worthy on the same competitive mental field as men by raising the standards of education at Bryn Mawr and at women's colleges elsewhere.
Bintel Brief"
This selection is a series of excerpts from a popular column from the turn of the century. It was written with the intent of dispensing advice to Jewish, Eastern European immigrants to help these immigrants cope…
