It is a known fact that in a quite recent past, women had limited access to education, and that even that education rarely gave them the opportunity to find independent employment. Until as recent as 100 years ago, most women around the world didn’t have access to the same type of education as men. Society was formed in such a way that women education was meant to teach them how to be a good woman and subsequently wife and mother.
Thus, women education, besides teaching subjects like basic history, arithmetic, drawing, music, literature and others, was focusing on teaching women good manners and how to behave properly in society. That was because the woman was almost always expected to become a wife and a mother, which meant staying at home and taking care of the house and the children and husband. Slowly but surely things started progressing, and women from the aristocracy started wanting more for themselves. Women grew more confident in their own skills and intelligence and began wondering whether they could do the same jobs that men could.
With all their disbelief, men were eventually convinced that women education could be taken a step further, and after many sacrifices and many women who were rejected, some of them started gaining admission into universities. Up until then, women would be denied entrance in the University because they weren’t considered apt enough, and society didn’t see any reason for them to want to have a profession. It was unthinkable for a woman to wish to be independent and unmarried. Thus, in order to get the education they knew they deserved, women sometimes had to work and study twice as hard and try to become even better than the men around them.
And if that wasn’t enough, most of their fellow colleagues in the universities didn’t see a point for women education either, so they looked with scorn and disdain upon those who dared show their intelligence. In all honesty, this rejection stemmed from a fear from the unknown, from this new role that women dared take for themselves. However, from those daring pioneers on, there was no stopping women from achieving what they wanted.
More and more women around the world started having these ambitions, and today the world still sees an increase in the number of women who attend higher education every year. Unfortunately, certain societies around the world still view women education with suspicion, or give it very little importance. Fundamentalist societies like these are forced by the world to agree that women have the same rights to education as men, but few of them allow their women to go to university because they still expect them to become just wives and mothers. Poverty is of course another factor deciding who gets education and who doesn’t, but it is safe to say there is no going back, and that today women are just as strong and valued as men.
