Women's Education at University of Oxford

Women's Education at Oxon

The University of Oxford (informally referred to as Oxford University or simply Oxford) is a collegiate research university located in Oxford, England, United Kingdom. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world, and the second-oldest surviving university in the world, after the University of Bologna. In post-nominals, the University of Oxford is commonly abbreviated as "Oxon.", from the Latin Universitas Oxoniensis. Since 2007, "Oxf" has been used in official university publications, though this "has been criticized by some readers".

The university has a long history. It grew rapidly from 1167 when Henry II banned English students from attending theUniversity of Paris. After disputes between students and Oxford townsfolk in 1209, some academics fled north-east toCambridge, where they established what became the University of Cambridge.

The University passed a Statute in 1875 allowing its delegates to create examinations for women at roughly undergraduate level. The first four women's colleges were established thanks to the activism of the Association for Promoting the Higher Education of Women (AEW). Lady Margaret Hall (1878) was followed by Somerville College in 1879; the first 21 students from Somerville and Lady Margaret Hall attended lectures in rooms above an Oxford baker's shop. The first two colleges for women were followed by St Hugh's(1886), St Hilda's (1893) and St Anne's College (1952). Oxford was long considered a bastion of male privilege, and it was not until 7 October 1920 that women became eligible for admission as full members of the university and were given the right to take degrees. In 1927 the University's dons created a quota that limited the number of female students to a quarter that of men, a ruling which was not abolished until 1957.However, before the 1970s all Oxford colleges were for men or women only, so that the number of women was effectively limited by the capacity of the women's colleges to admit students. It was not until 1959 that the women's colleges were given full collegiate status.

In 1974, Brasenose, Jesus, Wadham, Hertford and St Catherine's became the first previously all-male colleges to admit women.

In 2008, the last single-sex college, St Hilda's, admitted its first men, meaning all colleges are now co-residential. By 1988, 40% of undergraduates at Oxford were female; the ratio is now about 48:52 in men's favour.

The detective novel Gaudy Night by Dorothy Sayers, herself one of the first women to gain an academic degree from Oxford, takes place in a (fictional) women's college at Oxford, and the issue of women's education is central to its plot.

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