History of Women’s Education

Women’s education has varied greatly in different civilizations. A brief survey of the historical information available reveals that in many cases not much is known about how women were educated. This is, in part, because the very question of how women were educated is a bit of a new one. Scholars are expanding research through different avenues to understand how women were taught.

While in rare cases girls received a similar or identical education to boys, in most historical examples, girls were educated with a different curriculum or given no formal education at all. Where boys and girls received similar education, this was often relegated to the early years, and older children and young adults received segregated education.

Much of the literature focuses on how women were excluded from educational opportunities in recent centuries. A broader historical survey reminds us that most people were excluded from attaining a formal education in much of the world until modern times. At various times and places upwards of 40 percent of the population was enslaved or held in human bondage, as in parts of ancient Greece.

Notably in Greece and Rome, some slaves entered involuntary bondage with advanced education and were used as tutors for the children of the household. However, many slaves throughout history have been part of forms of servitude in which they were forced to labor in agriculture and construction with little to no opportunity for literacy and education. In other cultures, such as in the British Isles, it would seem serfdom was not considered a formal system of slavery, but the share-cropping existence of large portions of the population meant that formal education was unattainable for the masses.

It is only in the relatively unprecedented prosperity of modern times that literacy and formal education is accessible to much of the population in the industrialized world and continuing to expand throughout the globe.

Currently in the United States, more women attain higher education than men, and women can attend virtually any academic program, even though many were once reserved only for men. How did we get from a world of limited educational opportunities for women (and most people) to a time of remarkable educational opportunity and what do other cultures tell us about how women were educated?

A survey of women’s education in major civilizations

Egypt

The historical record tells us that women were not always denied higher education. Ancient Egypt, for example, had a goddess Seshat who was the patron of reading, writing, arithmetic and architecture. She was known as the “Mistress of the House of Books” because she was said to be in charge of the library of the gods and was invoked as the goddess of libraries on earth. Such a distinguished role for a goddess indicates that literacy was not forbidden for women of certain social class.

Indeed, there is further evidence for literate and well-educated women in ancient Egypt. Historians record Egyptian Merit-Ptah as the first female physician known by name. Merit-Ptah, who lived around 2700 B.C., was not only a doctor but the chief physician of the royal court. She was also not an isolated example, and historians believe there was a medical school run by a woman, whose name is not recorded, as early as 3000 B.C.

India

India has documented instances of women authors and women traveling to attain education dating back to 600 B.C., and the ashramas of ancient India were open to girls and young women as well as boys. Indian literature is also replete with examples of women writers. According to Indian scholars more than 20 women were recorded as authors of the Rig Vedic hymns. Gargi Vachaknavi, who lived around 700 B.C., was a well known and widely respected female philosopher in India. Gargi famously debated the male philosopher Yajnavalkya, which is recorded in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad. Although Gargi’s questions perplexed Yajnavalkya, he dismissed any further questioning because she was a woman. Today, whether deserved or not, Gargi is hailed as a kind of feminist icon.

China

Education in China is believed to date back as far as 1500 B.C. The most noted influence on pan-Chinese education was Confucianism. While education was reserved for the upper classes, over time a public education system brought basic education to larger portions of the population.

In parts of ancient China, girls were treated similarly to boys until around age 7. After that time, the focus became on the domestic sphere and girls were segregated from boys. Primary texts from the Zhou Dynasty and Han Dynasty show that the focus of education for women in ancient China was preparation for marriage and social graces, perhaps not unlike finishing schools that became popular in Europe in the 1800s.

Greece

While ancient Greece boasted seats of learning and world-famous philosophical education, several famous philosophers had notoriously derogatory things to say about women. The icons of Western Civilization, Plato and Aristotle, were less than impressed with what they perceived to be the intellectual capacities of women.

In The Republic, Book V, Plato writes that Socrates proclaims men and women have the same roles and pursuits in the service of the State, “but in all of them woman is inferior to man.” Aristotle in the Politics declared “as regards the sexes, the male is by nature superior and the female inferior, the male ruler and the female subject.” For such statements, Aristotle has in recent years been dismissed as a “dangerous chauvinist.” Despite clear parallels between Plato and Aristotle’s views, Plato has been claimed as a rare exception to the relentless misogyny of the last few thousand years. However, it’s clear Greece had highly segregated roles for men and women, a view which was at least partially endorsed by Plato, and that there are several examples in world history of women who attended prestigious levels of education and achievement.

Even in ancient Greece, women found ways to attain advanced education. The story of Agnodice in the 300s B.C. is that she desired to become a doctor in her native Athens but was legally forbidden from practicing medicine as a woman. In order to attain medical training, she traveled to Egypt, where women, like Merit Ptah mentioned above, received training and practiced as medical doctors. According to the story, Agnodice returned to Greece disguised as a man to practice medicine. She was tried for her supposed crime of practicing medicine as a woman but was released when her patients who were women interrupted the trial and demanded her release.

More famously, Sappho is regarded as one of the world’s greatest poets. Born around 615 B.C., she was part of an aristocratic family on the island of Lesbos where it seems she lived for most of her life. It is believed that she married and had a daughter and that she was the head of a school for young women. Although only sparse details are known about Sappho’s life, she is remembered as one of the greatest lyric poets of all time. Fragments of her poetry were found in archaeological digs, but only one of her poems survived in tact. According to scholars, Sappho’s work is known primarily through its quotation in other authors’ works over the centuries, indicating a level of esteem and prestige for her craft and accomplishment as a poet.

Rome

Although formal education in the Roman Republic and Empire was reserved for boys from wealthy, patrician families, there is evidence that many people in lower classes were literate. While boys attended schools and were taught with a system of corporal punishment, girls in aristocratic families were often only educated at home. There was a heavy emphasis among upper classes on the importance of education for the formation of men. However, as in ancient China, education for girls tended to focus on virtues associated with the home and the role of wife and mother.

In ancient Rome, girls were eligible for marriage at the age of 12. At the time of marriage, girls were expected to put aside childish things and focus on the task of running a household. This meant that there was not much time for childhood and education. Even so, many Roman families ensured that girls learned basic reading and writing, and some even employed tutors to teach girls Greek and advanced grammar. It is believed that sometimes the motivation for this learning was to make the girl a better companion and more entertaining to a future husband.

Despite the relatively limited educational prospects for Roman girls, there are examples of educated women who achieved feats of learning. For example, it is known that Nero’s mother, Agrippina the Younger, wrote a memoir, although the actual text has been lost. One of the most famous women of demonstrated learning and intellectual prowess was Hortensia, the daughter of Roman statesman Quintus Hortensius, infamous rival of Cicero. Hortensia was renowned for her skill as a speechmaker and in 42 B.C. she spoke in the Roman forum against a proposed tax.

Roman women played an important role in their husbands’ political careers, but this was mostly confined to conveying the man as a virtuous, family-oriented citizen with little emphasis on the women’s personal learning and accomplishment.

Christendom

With the rise of Christianity throughout Europe in the late-first and early-second millennia, a system of education arose that forms the basis of education in much of the world today: the university. In the late 7^th and early 8^th century, Charlemagne decreed that every cathedral and monastery establish a school to ensure a system of formal education throughout the empire. This system of universities was focused on the training of men to be Catholic priests, so some historians claim girls and women were “ignored.”

However, there are numerous examples of highly educated women throughout the Middle Ages and into modern times in predominantly Christian cultures. Many of these educated women were nuns who were part of religious institutions, including St. Hildegard of Bingen (1100s) and St. Catherine of Siena (1300s). These women, and many others, gained access to higher leaning, which at the time was taught through the trivium and quadrivium. Hildegard is still renowned for her work as a composer, doctor, spiritual writer, and theologian. Catherine is regarded as a Doctor of the Church for her mystical writings and extensive letters to the papacy and other towering political figures of her age.

Besides nuns, women who were part of the royalty sometimes attained the highest levels of education in Medieval Europe. Catherine of Aragon (1400s), for example, was prepared for her future role as queen with extensive education, including advanced reading in philosophy and theology. Queen Elizabeth I (who died in 1603) is regarded as the most highly educated queen even to the present day. Her formation including Latin starting at age five, and she is noted for her translations of Italian texts. While there was an emphasis in European Christian education on men who were intended to be priests, many nuns and female members of the highest classes of European had access to higher learning throughout the Middle Ages.

Education for women in modern times

Despite several recorded examples of women attaining esteemed positions of learning in ancient societies in the Middle East, today the Cradle of Civilization has some of the lowest female literacy rates in the world. Gradually, in recent decades higher education has become increasingly accessible to women.

China provides education to girls and boys, but prevailing social perceptions about the inferiority of girls means that of the children “left-behind” in rural parts of the country while their parents seek work in cities and towns, girls are much less likely to receive formal education than boys. Similarly, in India, the government guarantees educational opportunities for girls, but girls often do not attend school due to family and cultural practices.

In contrast, in Europe and the United States, women now comprise the majority of students pursuing higher education. Although this clear and increasing majority is an indication of a historical trajectory of increasingly including women in institutions of higher learning, the cultural narrative still tends to emphasize areas women do not yet equal or surpass their male counterparts in educational and professional accomplishment.

The history of education has moved to an increasingly egalitarian program of providing literacy, cultural formation, and career training. While many cultures excluded women from institutions of higher learning, the narrative is not always black-and-white. In many cultures, women found ways to attain advanced learning and were respected for their learning and contributions to the sciences and arts.