Education by definition is “the act or process of acquiring general knowledge, and generally of preparing oneself or others intellectually for life.” If you asked this question 100 years ago, you would only have men who would answer. Until very recently, women have largely been excluded from the educational system. It may surprise you to know that women did not begin attending college in equal number to men until as recently as 1980!

For me, education is something that women today should not take for granted because it took a lot of work to attain the right to an education. In the past, some women may have believed that they were not capable of things like participating in politics, having a career or even owning property. The women who were lucky to have received a quality education were more likely to be pioneers in civic activism and make history. By understanding the history of women’s education, we are better able to appreciate how far we have come and the extraordinary women who got us here.