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The Student Years: Eighteen to Thirty-Two

Mary Ann Mason and Eve Mason Ekman

in Mothers on the Fast Track: How a New Generation Can Balance Family and Careers

Choosing to enter a high-status male-dominated profession requires years of additional training, financial sacrifice, and hard work. This chapter argues that although some ambitious young ... More

Choosing to enter a high-status male-dominated profession requires years of additional training, financial sacrifice, and hard work. This chapter argues that although some ambitious young women—especially those in sciences—may encounter discrimination and an uncompromising, female- and family-unfriendly environment, women are entering graduate programs in record numbers with the confidence that they will be successful in their careers. Guidance from a mentor is a key determinant of women's success during the formative student years, when women are faced for the first time with critical career and family choices. While graduate school is a time to refine academic and professional skills, it is also a time when many women consider marriage and family. Young women today believe they should have years to focus on their own development and careers without the hindrance of family obligations.Less

Women and Universities

R. D. Anderson

in European Universities from the Enlightenment to 1914

The admission of women to universities stretched over several decades. The process was determined by factors which included religion and the organization of girls' secondary education. The countries ... More

The admission of women to universities stretched over several decades. The process was determined by factors which included religion and the organization of girls' secondary education. The countries which admitted women early — notably France, Belgium, and Switzerland — attracted women students from other countries, and in the early years the main demand was for medical education. The influx of Russian women students to Switzerland, driven partly by political persecution, was especially notable. Germany was the last major country to open its universities, but by 1914 the presence of women was everywhere accepted, though as a minority with a limited range of career possibilities.Less

Beyond the Glass Ceiling: Forty to Sixty-Five and Beyond

Mary Ann Mason and Eve Mason Ekman

in Mothers on the Fast Track: How a New Generation Can Balance Family and Careers

This chapter notes that even persistent, successful women will fall short of reaching the very top leadership positions in their field, and most will not be paid equitably. In all of these ... More

This chapter notes that even persistent, successful women will fall short of reaching the very top leadership positions in their field, and most will not be paid equitably. In all of these professions, there is a well-documented disparity between the pay that senior men and senior women receive. Wall Street Journal coined the term “glass ceiling” to describe the apparent barriers that prevent women from reaching the top of the corporate hierarchy. The elusive top leadership positions are sometimes referred to as the “second glass ceiling,” acknowledging that while many women have achieved powerful positions which were originally beyond their grasp—professor, partner, editor—many more have failed to rise to the pinnacle leadership positions. Women can expect equal treatment with men as students but not equal representation in the faculty or in other top leadership roles.Less

Russia

R. D. Anderson

in European Universities from the Enlightenment to 1914

The story of universities in Russia is inseparable from politics, as they had a fraught relationship with the state and generated the dissident intelligentsia. Western-style universities were founded ... More

The story of universities in Russia is inseparable from politics, as they had a fraught relationship with the state and generated the dissident intelligentsia. Western-style universities were founded only in 1803, on the German model, but had rooted themselves in Russian society by the 1860s, when they benefited from the relaxation of intellectual control under Alexander II. In the 1880s reaction returned, and was countered by the growth of populism and socialism among students, often turning to violence. Russification and stringent quotas on Jewish students were negative features of the Tsarist system. The 1905 revolution produced a brief flowering of freedom, but was again followed by repression which choked off evolution towards a common European pattern. On the other hand, the scientific achievements of Russian universities were considerable, and although women were not admitted to the universities themselves, the percentage attending female higher education institutions was remarkably high.Less

Becoming a medical student

Laura Kelly

in Irish Women in Medicine, c. 1880s-1920s: Origins, Education and Careers

This chapter examines the women who decided to matriculate in medicine at Irish institutions in the period 1885–1922. It reveals that women medical students tended to come from well-to-do backgrounds ... More

This chapter examines the women who decided to matriculate in medicine at Irish institutions in the period 1885–1922. It reveals that women medical students tended to come from well-to-do backgrounds and tended to attend the university closest to them, for financial reasons, although their choice of university also hinged on their religious beliefs and on which universities were open to women at the time. The reasons why women (and men) decided to take up medicine in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries are also discussed, and the chapter suggests that women students took up medicine as a result of personal experience, a sense of vocation and encouragement from their secondary schools.Less

‘This Feminine Invasion of Medicine’: Women in Irish Medical Schools, c.1880–1945

Laura Kelly

in Irish Medical Education and Student Culture, c.1850-1950

This chapter examines the experiences of women who studied at Irish medical schools and hospitals from the 1880s to 1940s. Previous research has suggested that the first generation of female medical ... More

This chapter examines the experiences of women who studied at Irish medical schools and hospitals from the 1880s to 1940s. Previous research has suggested that the first generation of female medical students at Irish institutions had largely positive educational experiences and were treated in a paternalistic and supportive manner by their professors and fellow students, in contrast with their counterparts in Britain. However, in spite of this, it is clear that Victorian arguments against women studying medicine prevailed. In the student press, female medical students were presented as the ‘other’ and characterised as studious, bookish, cold, defeminised or alternately as obsessed or unconcerned with their appearances. It is clear, that although women and men were largely educated together for all subjects, with the exception of anatomy dissections, that women occupied a separate social sphere from the male students. Drawing on student magazines, Irish doctors’ memoirs, newspapers and the minute books of medical student societies, this chapter evaluates attitudes to women studying medicine and the educational and extra-curricular experiences of these women and how they fitted in within a very masculine sphere. In addition, this chapter will also explore women’s day-to-day student lives and the challenges they faced in pursuit of their education.Less

§ American Girls and French Jeunes Filles: Negotiating National Identities in Interwar France

in Internationalism, National Identities, and Study Abroad: France and the United States, 1890-1970

Women comprised the vast majority of undergraduates in the United States who went to study in France in the 1920s and 1930s. This chapter examines the unique experience of American women students who ... More

Women comprised the vast majority of undergraduates in the United States who went to study in France in the 1920s and 1930s. This chapter examines the unique experience of American women students who had to deal with gendered national stereotypes from both sides of the Atlantic during their junior year in France. Two of these stereotypes—the French jeune fille (the submissive, chaste, sheltered daughter of the respectable bourgeoisie) and the American girl (excessively independent, outspoken, and even sexually promiscuous)—shaped the experiences of American women students in France between the wars. By negotiating these stereotypes, American women students were able to reassess American and French cultures in very distinct ways, and, in addition, constructed original, individual feminine identities that reflected this new understanding, along with newly acquired confidence and self-reliance from studying and living in France. Women's participation in study abroad between the wars played a key role in its resumption after 1945.Less

“A Plea for the Oppressed”: Educational Strivings, Pre-1865

Stephanie Y. Evans

in Black Women in the Ivory Tower, 1850–1954: An Intellectual History

Before the dawning of the Civil War, over 250 institutions offered college-level education however only a select few catered to black or women students. The most notable of them were Oberlin, ... More

Before the dawning of the Civil War, over 250 institutions offered college-level education however only a select few catered to black or women students. The most notable of them were Oberlin, Antioch, Wilberforce, Hillsdale, Cheyney, Lincoln, and Berea. This chapter discusses and explores the antebellum period and highlights the social conditions which the women faced in their quest for educational attainment. Before 1865, women, particularly black women, were subject to violent reprisals, racism, and discriminatory school policies. For instance, in 1833, mob violence destroyed the Prudence Crandall's school for black girls in Connecticut. In addition to racism and the increasing tightening access to intellectual development, the pervasive system of slavery also imposed a great challenge on the efforts of black women for intellectual democracy and access. While some women were successful in attaining education, they were indoctrinated into a specific knowledge and were often subjects of character assassination that degraded and stereotyped black women.Less

Resistance Is Futile! You Will Be Assimilated: Gender and the Making of Scientists

Banu Subramaniam (ed.)

in Ghost Stories for Darwin: The Science of Variation and the Politics of Diversity

This chapter examines how the links between a scientific identity and a masculine one have come to shape the culture of science, and considers an alternate vision where “woman” and “science” are not ... More

This chapter examines how the links between a scientific identity and a masculine one have come to shape the culture of science, and considers an alternate vision where “woman” and “science” are not rendered as incompatible identities. It recounts a National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded project to open conversations between faculty and students in the sciences about the culture of science and the mentoring of women graduate students. As a central concern of the research was to attend to the power inequities between faculty and students, the project was designed to create a dialogue between faculty and students through facilitators without them knowing each other's identity. The student and faculty groups met independently and heard about the responses through the work of two facilitators without meeting each other. Therefore, the identity of participants in any group remained anonymous to the other groups.Less

From Housewife to Historian

Donna Sinclair

in Reshaping Women's History: Voices of Nontraditional Women Historians

This chapter focuses on the personal, social, and historical contexts that shaped Donna Sinclair’s career as a feminist historian. The story of Sinclair’s trek to the 2013 Prelinger Award took root ... More

This chapter focuses on the personal, social, and historical contexts that shaped Donna Sinclair’s career as a feminist historian. The story of Sinclair’s trek to the 2013 Prelinger Award took root in a divorce that left the former army wife alone with three small children. Returning to school reshaped her identity, provided purpose, and led to her life’s work as an oral and public historian, educator, and social justice advocate. In this essay, Sinclair engages in the self-scrutiny that oral historians so often ask of their narrators. As recommended by Antonia Castaňeda, she digs into “the silences, gaps, and interstitial spaces” of experience to examine her journey to the Prelinger and beyond.Less