Women's Education Rights: America, Britain, and Ireland

The Historical Status of Women in Western Society

Throughout much of Western history, a woman's rights were little recognized. As a creative source of human life, she was confined to the home as a wife and mother. Moreover, she was considered intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually inferior to man, even wicked — as in the case of mythical Pandora, who let loose plagues and misery from a box. This was the early concept of woman in the West as an adjunct to man, although women in the East were not entirely without property rights and individual freedoms. Even so, a woman was subject to man, could not own property, could not remarry, and boys were preferred to girls.

When allowed some rights, however — such as during the Middle Ages — women proved what they could achieve. A woman from an aristocratic family or line, for example, possessed power and prestige comparable to a man of her class. England's Queen Elizabeth in the 16th century, Catherine the Great of Russia in the 18th century, and Queen Victoria in the 19th century each made great strides in the history of women's rights.

But tradition refused to yield quickly. A middle-class Western girl learned only from her mother and was praised for knowing how to cook, clean, and care for children as her best assets. In recent centuries, she began to demonstrate that she has virtually the same capabilities as a man, even as she was still expected to maintain the home because of her biological role as mother.

Historically, a woman's education was secondary and inferior to that of a boy or man. She learned reading and writing at dame schools and was accommodated in master's schools only when boys were at work and there was room. But more and more women desired a formal education by the end of the 19th century. This led to the establishment of colleges for women and the gradual admission of women students to existing institutions. Comparatively, only one-fifth of resident college and university students were women in 1870, but this grew to one-third by 1900. By the start of the 20th century, women acquired 19% of all college degrees. In 1984, this figure rose to 49% at both the undergraduate and graduate levels — 49% at the master's level and 33% at the doctorate level. By 1985, roughly 53% of all college students were women, a quarter of whom were over 29 years old.

Women's Education in America

A woman's occupation traditionally dictated the kind of education she was allowed to pursue. In colonial times, she worked typically as a seamstress or an operator of a boarding house. However, she also entered professions and jobs mostly assumed by men, such as medicine, law, preaching, teaching, writing, and singing. In the early 19th century, she was directed toward factory labor or domestic service and was largely excluded from the professions, except writing and teaching. The attitude toward women entering medical school fluctuated over time. Before the 1800s, there were no medical schools, and virtually anyone could practice medicine; a woman could therefore study to become an obstetrician or gynecologist.

From the 19th century onward, increasing requirements for medical study made it more difficult for young women to pursue medicine, partly because of early marriage and pregnancy. Even though home nursing was considered a woman's domain, hospital practice was dominated by men. The American Medical Association, founded in 1846, refused membership to women practitioners. This problem was addressed by the establishment of medical colleges for women, such as the Female Medical College of Pennsylvania in 1850, so that by the first decade of the 20th century, many women were enrolled in such schools — and the American Medical Association eventually began accepting women members. Women doctors accounted for only 5% of the profession in 1890, rising to 17% by the 1980s.

Her status also improved in the legal field. In 1930, only approximately 2% of all American lawyers and judges were women; by 1989, they comprised 22%. In 1930, there were practically no women engineers, but by 1989 they represented 7.5% of the engineering workforce. The teaching profession, by contrast, remained a field in which women predominated. Statistics showed that there were twice as many women teachers as men in elementary and high schools during the 1980s. However, women held only about one-third of teaching positions at the higher educational levels, and these were mostly in education, social service, home economics, nursing, and library science. Very few women taught physical science, engineering, agriculture, or law.

In the early 20th century, the concept of a "new woman" evolved in the media. This new woman was securing an education, holding a blue- or white-collar job, and living independently in city apartments. Feminism developed and changed the traditional habits and values of the American woman. She was more educated, dated more often, and drove an automobile to occasionally escape parental supervision — but most young women still became and functioned as traditional wives and mothers.

The right to equal education for women was among the resolutions in a list of grievances presented during the first women's rights convention in Seneca Falls, New York, in July 1848. The declaration was patterned after the Declaration of Independence and was authored by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, rooted in the conviction that "all men and women are created equal."

In the 19th century, women across the United States organized to urge several reforms, including the improvement of education for women. At that time, it was considered unacceptable and unusual for women to speak before mixed groups of men and women. Yet the abolitionist sisters Sarah and Angelina Grimké of South Carolina spoke publicly and boldly before such groups against slavery. Male abolitionists such as William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips, and Frederick Douglass openly supported their cause. At the World's Anti-Slavery Convention in London in 1840, women delegates were refused their seats; Garrison gave up his own seat and joined them in the balcony as a spectator in solidarity.

Several significant milestones marked this period of women's struggle. In 1833, Oberlin College was founded as the first university in the United States to accept both women and Black students. In 1848, the Seneca Falls Convention produced its Declaration of Sentiments, considered the single most important document in the American women's rights movement of the 19th century. The Declaration highlighted man's monopoly of profitable employment, his reservation of all paths to wealth and distinction for himself, and his denial to women of a thorough education in fields such as theology, medicine, and law. The Declaration paved the way for women's fight for education, though suffrage was not achieved until 1920.

Abolitionists denounced the parallel drawn between a woman and a slave — both viewed as passive, cooperative, and obedient to a "master." Leaders among the abolitionists included Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucy Stone, Lucretia Mott, Harriet Tubman, and Sojourner Truth. They believed that rights should be equal among whites and Blacks alike. When the Union won the Civil War, they had hoped their efforts would lead to both women's and Black suffrage. Unfortunately, the 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution, adopted in 1868 and 1870 respectively, granted citizenship and the right to vote to Black men, but not to women.

Internal division among abolitionists led to the formation of competing women's organizations in 1869. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, a temperance and anti-slavery advocate, formed the National Woman Suffrage Association in New York; Lucy Stone formed the American Woman Suffrage Association in Boston. They struggled for decades to win the vote. Suffrage was granted gradually in only a few states, while others — particularly the Eastern states — resisted. An amendment providing for women's suffrage repeatedly failed to pass through Congress after first being introduced in 1878.

In 1877, Helen Magill received the first Doctor of Philosophy degree awarded to a woman in the United States. By 1880, 80% of all elementary school teachers were women; by 1910, 39% of all collegiate undergraduates and 20% of all college teachers were women. Suffrage was finally granted in 1920, giving women a stronger voice in society. In 1945, the first woman student was admitted to Harvard Medical School. In 1972, Title IX was passed, helping to end sex discrimination in educational programs receiving federal financial support. By 1980, women made up 51% of college enrollees — equal to men. In 1996, the Supreme Court ordered the Virginia Military Institute to accept both male and female applicants. These are among the countless milestones along the path of the evolution of women's education.

Today, prejudices in the education of women remain. The educated woman still faces certain pressures and social stigma. She is often torn between the ideals of her education and the demands of her role as wife and mother — demonstrating that the fight for fair and equal education is still far from finished.

Studies have shown that women are not only intellectually capable of learning, but also appear to have greater tolerance of pain, longer longevity, and greater resistance to disease. Through modern methods of contraception and legalized abortion, women have been able to gain greater control over family size, and can more comfortably divide their time between home, work, and further education.

The British woman's fight for the right to equal education began in the Old World, England. The lack of appropriate education was the stumbling block to her attaining equality of status with men. She eventually gained the right and privilege of higher education, but before that time she was considered and treated as a lower-class citizen — without the right to vote, without the right to own property, and denied other inalienable rights. Education was the key to change, but the fight for equality was actively spurned by Queen Victoria herself, who declared:

Conclusion

In all three nations, the struggle of women to achieve equal status with men in education has been staggering, and the price paid has been very high. Although notable victories have been achieved and have significantly influenced the course of history and education, progress has remained slow and uneven, as persistent bias toward men continues to obstruct women's efforts toward full equality. The fight, though advanced, is not yet won — and women can only endure and persist in continuing it.