Higher Education

Looking Forward, Looking Back

Ann Wendle, Pietro A. Sasso and Joseph L. DeVitis

• Publisher: Myers Education Press
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781975502980
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Multicultural Education

Since the founding of the nation, higher education has helped female faculty and students assert themselves in establishing equality between men and women across the country (Morris, 1984). During the nineteenth century, women had limited access to many sectors of American society because of their inferior status to men. Such differences were visible in both political and academic arenas. This discrimination reflected general societal norms of the time, relegating women to the roles of mothers and homemakers. Women and Gender in Higher Education provides a comprehensive review of the varying concepts that address the development of women in higher education, including how women understand the world around them—making meaning for themselves and their environment—and acknowledging the intersectionality of their identity. It also breaks new ground in the conversation about the roles of women and gender in higher education.

Perfect for courses such as: Theoretical Frameworks of Discrimination | Marginality in Relation to Gender | History of Women and Gender | Concepts of Gendered Behavior | Colonial Model v. Contemporary Discrimination | Absence of Identity in Privilege Model | Power and Privilege Model Redefined | Foundational Framework for Oppression Theory

CHAPTER ONE

History of Higher Education

THE SOCIAL AND educational history of women and gender reveals challenges that are exclusive to women and are traceable throughout history. To understand the context of women in higher education, we must begin with examining what rights women had to pursue higher education, place those rights in the context of women’s identity, and ask what social or political expectations presented challenges to women’s access to post-secondary education. Women were traditionally expected to uphold social expectations, including the expectations that they were to maintain the management of households, nurture children, attend to their husbands, and master domestic chores. Education has historically symbolized opportunities, offering the hope for equality and upward mobility. In the earliest models of higher education, from the 1600s through the late 1960s, men and women were assigned different classifications. Men had access to exclusive career paths. For example, they were often able to handle money, buy property, vote, and attend college; they were also expected to support their household with outside income. In contrast, women were limited to roles pertaining to domestic oversight, expectations of rearing children, managing household chores, and attending to the etiquette of the household (Hutchinson & Schechterman, 1987). They were often not allowed to pursue literacy or education, regardless of potential or ability. The duality of the history of higher education often focuses on the accomplishments of men and women and needs to be included in the record (Horowitz, 1995).

Before higher education institutions opened for women in equitable measure in the late 1960s, women were forced to rely on their fathers, brothers, and husbands to sustain them financially. Education was the perceivable key women needed to gain career opportunities outside the home. This notion was supported by the examples that young men demonstrated by their success after leaving home. Once higher education opened up to women in America, it varied in access, depending on their identity and gave allowance for some to take entry exams and sometimes pursue a major of study; they were trained in the areas of nursing, teaching, and home economics. Higher education was solidly established as a foundation that mirrored social constructs in the United States and it began with the purpose of educating young men from prominent families. Men selected to attend institutions of higher education in the early stages of higher education were the sons of families who had secured wealth or were recognized as gentry (Thelin, 2019). Young men attending colleges initially pursued law, medicine, teaching, and seminary, with hopes of becoming the next generation to have financial prosperity in their lineage. Outside of the legal and medical practices, their focus was often learning in disciplines such as religion and philosophy in order to pursue a career in either the church or as an educator on a college campus. These opportunities were most often afforded to those who were hand selected by the college, due to the influence of their parents or a clergy member who recognized promise in young men deemed worthy of the status of higher education (Hutchinson & Schechterman, 1987).

The first institutions, known as the colonial colleges, were established on the East Coast from Harvard University in Massachusetts down to The College of William & Mary in Virginia. These two institutions are representative of the beginning of higher education in the United States. Educational institutions were established and exclusively designed for educating men from elite families, leaving women with limited or no options in higher education until the women’s suffrage movement began in the mid-19^th century, as women began petitioning for property rights, voting rights, and educational rights. The colonial colleges did not admit women during the 19^th century. Institutions such as Harvard University and the College of William & Mary held standards of educating the “sons of the arriving mercantile elite” (Walsh, 2012, para. 7) for nearly 300 years after their doors of education opened (“100 Years of Women”, n.d.). Though women had requested admission and lecture attendance during the women’s suffrage movement, higher education institutions did not bend until after World War I. In an essay written in 2004, Drew Faust, Dean of Harvard University at Radcliff, indicated that women were not excluded from the of the opening of the institution. She stated that, “Women who swept the halls, cleaned the rooms, even women who offered the College support through donations and legacies” (p. 3) demonstrated that “Harvard has never been a womanless place” (p. 3), while at the same time she noted that the institution has a womanless history (Faust, 2004). Colonial colleges have a varied history that denotes the presence of women in higher education. Although women were given access, being indoctrinated within higher education meant women were expected to abide by already-established social norms. Yale University admitted its first female students in 1869 but did not graduate a woman in the medical field until 1916 (Yale University, n.d. para. 9). Princeton did not admit women for scholarly studies until the end of the civil rights movement in 1969 (Co-Education: History of women at Princeton University, 2020).

In 1848, the first women’s rights convention was held in Seneca Fall, NY. This convention is considered to be the beginning of the women’s suffrage movement. The ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, which granted women the right to vote, is credited as being the result of the group of women who gathered in Seneca Falls, NY (Lange, 2015); the Nineteenth Amendment began the process through which women could move into civil engagement, take advantage of opportunities to be educated outside the home, and participate in the governance of the United States (Our Documents, n.d. para. 1). Alongside the suffrage movement, women also began to push for opportunities to study in higher education. Though women began to ask for higher education in the middle of the 19^th century, there were no widespread opportunities for them on college campuses until the end of the civil rights movement in the 1960s (Columbia University, n.d. para. 1).

The few women who were permitted to study were disallowed from studying outside of feminized programs and vocational training (Thelin, 2019). Women who were able to pursue education and careers were expected to remain single and childless, with prompt removal if they married or had children. Through the 1900s, women were denied access to education and careers outside of their domestic roles. One example is Columbia University, where they “allowed for the education of women, yet treated them as separate cohorts with unique ‘feminine curriculums’ that focused on preparing them for domestic duties” (Columbia College, n.d., para. 1).

Initiatives like these began the managing of women in higher education (Horowitz, 1995). Another practice that perpetuated discrimination against women seeking higher education was one that allowed persistent women to take entrance exams, traditionally given by the college president. Women who passed entrance exams were frequently not allowed to enroll in courses of study or, if allowed to enroll, were not permitted to graduate with a degree. This practice gave the appearance of granting women access to higher education without giving them the actual benefits of a degree. This practice conferred status to some women, as it recognized them as “scholarly” or “intellectually eligible” for higher education, while it also sabotaged women through holding out false hopes and symbolic gestures of inclusion (Thelin, 2019), which studies show continues through the 21^st century.

The disparity between men’s and women’s education was reflected in the societal expectation that women should stay out of politics and the classroom, and should relegate their civic duties to garden clubs and church organizations. Women were able to accomplish recognition in the home by focusing on domestic chores and raising children. The status of women was less than equal inside and outside the home as the emerging feminist movement of the time period pushed for women’s suffrage and encouraged women to recognize that they could participate in and even determine the deciding factors that controlled their everyday lives. This movement evolved as the 20^th century launched (Hutchinson & Schechterman, 1987) and became known as the women’s suffrage movement (Kelly, 1993).

Women’s suffrage has been recognized as a twofold movement and crusade. The first course of action for women’s suffrage occurred roughly between 1840 and 1920. During this first wave, women petitioned government offices for civic opportunity and participation, including the right to vote. The second wave, considered a result of this first wave, is recognized as the women’s liberation movement and lasted through the end of the civil rights movement and into the 1970s. In this second wave, women were petitioning for equal pay and reproductive rights. The voice that women began to establish during the suffrage movement of the 1800s developed expectations for civil, financial, and personal equity through the 20^th century (Nidiffer, 2010). Though education was moving towards equality for women, colleges and universities continued to encourage and place women into “feminine curriculums that focused on preparing them for domestic duties” (Columbia College, n.d., para. 1). Many colleges and universities did not adapt to the coed institutional model until well in to the 1980s, approximately 100 years after women began to ask for equity in education.

During this time period of containing women in feminine courses of study, negative stereotypes evolved for educated women. After gaining access to male-occupied higher education institutions, then experiencing college admission without being able to enroll in courses of study or to allowed to earn a degree, women finally were offered what were considered by the dominant narrative to be separate but equal education opportunities. Women’s colleges were established in the late 1800s and opened a new venue of inequity for a large majority of women stepping into higher education. This era of women gaining access to higher education also established the concept that women attended college to become more marketable for marriage or to find a better husband. Fraternities and sororities developed programs that encouraged students to find their future spouse on campus, as sorority women became college sweethearts for designated fraternities. Higher education institutions designed for women were often referred to with anecdotal references like the “academic kitchen” and given titles like “finishing schools” and “women’s academies.” These names minimized the value of women attending college (Horowitz, 1995).

Women’s colleges were established, and single-gendered education was supported until coed studies emerged between the suffrage and civil rights time periods. Higher education institutions for women with names such as literary institutes, were given more weight in the expectation of formal education for women than the other colleges named along the lines of social etiquette, where students were referred to as young ladies versus educated women. The stigma of women in higher education was seen as a threat to the positional power of men. This threat was demonstrated with references to women being a distraction to men and preventing them from being able to concentrate on their studies; it was also seen in social concepts about women and in popular culture depictions of women as caricatures (Thelin, 2019). Institutions that enrolled women outside of the feminine norms of selected studies were labeled with derogatory terms. One example is Johns Hopkins University being referred to as Jane Hopkins for enrolling women. Beyond enduring the continued lack of access to higher education, women were also typecast into educational roles that were seen as insignificant in society. Furthermore, based on recommendations provided by their advisors, women were filtered into feminine majors or majors with names similar to their male-pursued counterparts, but with different curricular content. For example, a woman who studied business would be immersed into a course of study that trained them to be secretaries. Men who studied business would participate in a course of study that would groom them for business leadership positions.

During the civil rights movement, colleges and universities were disposed to altering expectations of men and women in higher education. This emerged from the earlier women’s suffrage movement that carried through to women’s efforts into the 1920s and a second wave that continued through the 1970s. Women continued to endure inequities in opportunity and access to higher education until new action or greater demands evolved. They began self-advocating on campuses across the nation. As women’s enrollment in academia grew, female students sought advising and mentorship for assistance in course and career choices. They needed guidance on what their roles were on campus and desired to be afforded services that were appropriate for women (Kelly, 1993). Higher education continued to mirror societal norms and women were seeking ways to gain more equity in their educational access and experience, like the first women who asked for access to higher education in the 1800s (Hutchinson & Schechterman, 1987).

A conservative narrative continued to regulate the lives of women until female stakeholders emerged on college campuses and began to organize and alter the landscape of women in higher education (Sipe, Johnson, & Fisher, 2009). Converse to women stepping up and asking for more access in higher education, men who held administrative and positional power maneuvered tactics to dissuade the inevitable increase in women on college campuses and control what they chose to study (Ropers-Huilman, 1998). Female faculty began to serve as the bridge to scholarship for women embarking on their journey in higher education (Hart, 2008). Women held fewer positions than men in roles of administrative power and authority on campuses and they were even less present in academy leadership and the student body (Kelly, 1993). Those who were able to attain positions in higher education endured opposition and antagonism as they sought to create more space for female students, faculty, and staff on college campuses in the United States (Clarenbach & Niles, 1993).

As this wave of women’s movements crossed the nation, it grew into an unprecedented phenomenon (Kleszynski, May, & Alderman, 1994). Those who chose to advocate for and assist upcoming junior female faculty and students had a great impact on the perception of women in higher education. This was reflected in how they viewed themselves and how others viewed them in the higher education environment. Women’s expectations of themselves and their access to higher education changed as they began to seek out majors that were not traditionally feminine, pursue leadership roles in the student body, and work with faculty on campus in an effort to gain control over their education (National Advisory Council on Women’s Educational Programming, 1998). Women in leadership roles in higher education during the civil rights movement offered new avenues of encouragement and support as role models and activists, giving new visibility to women’s inequity (Calkins, 1993; Hutchinson & Schechterman, 1987). Some women found themselves juxtaposed between tradition and equity in their roles as faculty and spouse. Their faculty status was not viewed as equivalent to that of their male counterparts who were married, or to their husbands who were working at the same institutions. Due to the perception that married women did not need to be employed, it was popular belief that their husbands were supporting them financially (Martin, 1975).

Conclusion

The history of women in higher education reveals unequal experiences between men and women who wish to pursue education outside the home. The historical context reflects the attitudes, values, and beliefs of social norms that relegated women to the homestead, while men pursued education and careers outside of the home in exchange for payment. Women requesting and entering higher education was the result of women recognizing that they, too, would like to leave the home for self-sufficiency and new gender definitions. These recognitions and demands began in a time per...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Foreword
• Preface
• Part I: Women in Higher Education
• Part II: Lived Experiences of Women Past and Present
• Part III: Theoretical Approaches
• Key Terms
• About the Author
• Index