Throughout the history women always had fewer rights and job opportunities than men. The only professions women could obtain until recently were wifehood and motherhood. In the 20th century, however, women in most nations have started the fight for the right to vote and increased their educational and career opportunities. Perhaps most important, they fought for and in many ways accomplished a reevaluation of traditional perception of their role in society.
Tests made in the 1960s showed that the scholastic achievement of girls was higher in the early grades than in high school.1 The explanation to this fact was given that the girls' own expectations declined because both their families and their teachers didn't consider their role other than that in marriage and motherhood. This view has been changing recently. .
By the end of the 19th century, the number of women students had increased greatly. Higher education was expanded, in fact, by the rise of women's colleges and the admission of women to regular colleges and universities. In 1870 an estimated one fifth of resident college and university students were women.2 By 1900 the proportion had increased to more than one third.3 .
Women obtained 19 percent of all undergraduate college degrees around the beginning of the 20th century.4 By 1984 the numbers have sharply increased to 49 percent.5 Women also increased their numbers in graduate study. By the mid-1980s women were earning 49 percent of all master's degrees and about 33 percent of all doctoral degrees.6 In 1985 about 53 percent of all college students were women, more than one quarter of whom were above age 29.7 .
A recent study 8 of the way education contributes to the women's success outlines a number of key institutional trends of colleges: .
• Visionary leadership committed to the education of women .
• Critical mass of women in all constituencies (students, faculty, boards of trustees, etc.