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News From Nowhere Radical & Community Bookshop

not-for-profit - a workers'co-op - committed to social justice | 96 Bold Street, Liverpool L1 4HY - 0151 708 7270

Bluestockings: The Remarkable Story of the First Women to Fight for an Education

by Jane Robinson - £9.99  Penguin Books Ltd (2010)
paperback    ISBN 13: 9780141029719 | ISBN 10: 0141029714

In 1869, when five women enrolled at university for the first time in British history, the average female brain was thought to be 150 grams lighter than a man's. Doctors warned that if women studied too hard their wombs would wither and die. When the Cambridge Senate held a vote on whether women students should be allowed official membership of the university, there was a full-scale riot.
 
Despite the prejudice and the terrible sacrifices they faced, women from all backgrounds persevered and paved the way for the generations who have followed them since. By the 1920s, being an 'undergraduette' was considered quite the fashionable thing; by the 1930s, women were emerging from universities as anything from aviation engineers to professional academics.
 
Using the words of the women themselves, Bluestockings tells their inspiring story - a story of defiance and determination, of colourful eccentricity and at times heartbreaking loneliness, as well as of passionate friendships, midnight cocoa-parties and glorious self-discovery.

(Price & availability last checked: October 2018)

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In booklists: Women's History - 20th Century, Women in Education, Women's History - Pre-20th Century,
In categories: History & Biography, Education,

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