Women in higher education: Exploring historically and in the present, the links between educational achievement, feminism and struggles for workplace equality

Lawrence W.

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Women in higher education: Exploring historically and in the present, the links between educational achievement, feminism and struggles for workplace equality

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Abstract

The continued discrimination against women in higher education, and in the career path after graduation, is the topic of this essay. It is based upon a review of literature covering the subject of women's acceptance into higher education programs, the kinds of programs they excel in, and the paradox that exists between high levels of enrollment but the lower levels of 1) women working in academic jobs in universities; 2) exclusion of women from male-oriented fields, such as engineering and computer science. (Jacobs, 1996; Stromquist, 1993; Fox, 2001) This paper will contextualize contemporary issues through an examination of the history of women's entry into universities, beginning in the l9th century. It will also examine underlying assumptions of what subject areas are more suitable for women to pursue, and the challenges of pursuing higher education for black women in the U.S., in contrast to the experience of white women's university attendance and success rates. Thus, the paper will examine the problem with an implicit critique of a universal conception of the female subject as "white" in discussions of access to higher education

Introduction
The comments of Browning: Part of an entire intellectual system
The categories of career path leading to male disapproval
Parts of the world with patriarchal cultures
The Victorian idea of the fragile woman
Maternal feminisms opposition to pseudo-science
Bette Friedan: The rise of a suburban middle class idealism
Crowley's view that Women's Studies creates a problem for the foundational coherence of the academy
Conclusion
References

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[...] On the other hand, as Jacobs argues, the exposure of women (and possibly some men) to feminist studies and attendance in general in higher education institutions, prepare women for greater support of feminism as well as increase in expectations upon graduation. (Jacobs: 176) Not only gender inequality has to be studied, but also the institutional processes that perpetuate the inequalities need to be addressed. (Jacobs: 178) Linking and exploring gender inequality in education, such as issues of degree of female faculty, the type of teaching and learning, and the varied experiences of women in different communities and nations, with regard to their access to higher education and how this links to jobs, as Jacobs notes, needs to be further investigated. [...]

[...] Women need to be continuing their pressure upon various institutions in the struggle for continued change and expansion of presence into more spheres, with greater parity, until equality is hopefully eventually reached. As Fox contends, with regard to women's careers in the sciences today, ‘Clearly, women in science are a highly selective and qualified group, with ability and educational attainments as high (or higher) than their male counterparts. The solutions for women's advancement are not a matter of correcting personal deficits. [...]

[...] (Coker, 2003) Thus exploring the experience of women in academia in North America needs to focus not only in generalizations about women's experiences, but become more specific in addressing the experience and outcome of higher education on diverse populations of women entering academic study. One question that could be asked is how does self- esteem and internalized doubt impact non-white women university students, using Woolf's analytical framework on impediments to academic success. At the same time a problem in need of avoiding is the process of essentializing that can be the outcome of any study of ‘women' as a group, no matter which group one is discussing. [...]

[...] In particular, there was a fear that women's studying would damage their reproductive organs (Stankiewicz: 51). First wave, maternal feminism opposed such pseudo-science. Ideologically, highly educated early feminists spoke of women's natural nurturing capabilities and ethical, moral superiority; women could improve society by being able to participate in it more fully by attending university and entering into career paths. (Stankiewicz: 51) Feminism at the time agitated for the right for women to vote, for equality in education and professional careers, but also believed that women's primary fulfillment would come through marriage and family. [...]

[...] (Jacobs, 1996) While this is not the case, generally in North America or Western Europe, even within the industrial societies of the West, there are discrepancies between which women can follow their dreams and ambitions, and the large numbers of poor white, immigrant women, and women from visible minority groups, who do not have access to higher education for a whole wealth of reasons, from lack of monetary means to cultural conscriptions against equality in education for women in their communities. [...]

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