A Genealogy of the Woman Student: From
Robbins to the Present Day
Robbins Report 50 Years On: Feminist Responses
University of Sussex
2 December 2013
Professor Carole Leathwood
Institute for Policy Studies in Education (IPSE)
London Metropolitan University
The woman student - then and now
1963
2013
• 31 universities
• In 1962-3, women were
25% of students in British
universities
• Just 10% at Cambridge, 15%
at Oxford
• 129 HEFCE funded
• In 2012-13, women were
55.2% of accepted
applicants
• In 2011-12, women were
46.8% at Cambridge and
50.5% at Oxford
• In 2013, women constituted
72% of English A level
entrants, compared to 21%
of physics entrants
• In 1960-61, 66% of women
with 2 A level passes took
arts only and 26% took
science only.
Genealogy
• A ‘history of the present’
• Focus on specific localised events in context
• Emphasises discontinuities, interruptions,
recurrences rather than continuous linear
development or progress
• Concerned with ‘subjugated knowledges’
‘subjugated knowledges [...] were concerned with a
historical knowledge of struggles’
‘Let us use the term genealogy to the union of
erudite knowledges and local memories which allows
us to establish a historical knowledge of the struggles
and to make use of this knowledge tactically today’
(Foucault 1976 in Gordon 1980, p. 83)
‘The feminist project of recovering women’s
presence in history seems to be in line with the
genealogical interest in peripheral histories and
subjugated knowledges’
(Tamboukou 2003, p. 35)
The Robbins Committee Report 1963
Aims of HE
• ‘instruction in skills suitable to play a part in the general
division of labour’
• ‘what is taught should be taught in such a way as to promote
the general powers of the mind. The aim should be to
produce not mere specialists but rather cultivated men and
women’
• ‘The advancement of learning […[ the search for truth [...] the
advancement of knowledge’
• ‘the transmission of a common culture and common
standards of citizenship’
Women in the Robbins Report
• Separate heading ‘Women in higher education’
• Untapped talent – including amongst women
• Changes in professional requirements for the
occupations ‘open to girls’ may mean in future they
need to do HE courses.
• New curricula developments in HE, eg language
courses, ‘may prove particularly attractive to girls’
• The importance of updating or refresher courses for
married women – along with ‘adequate financial
arrangements’
Married women
‘..a new career pattern has emerged: a short period of work before
marriage, and a second period of work starting perhaps fifteen years
later, and continuing for twenty years or more ... The prospect of
early marriage leads girls capable of work in the professions to leave
school before they have entered the sixth form and, even after sixth
form studies, too many girls go straight into employment instead of
into higher education. When their family responsibilities have
lessened many of them will desire opportunities for higher education.
And many if not most married women who have already enjoyed
higher education will need refresher courses before they can return
effectively to professional employment. This will be particularly true
for doctors, for teachers and for social workers, but there will also be
a need in other fields such as commerce and languages. There is here
a considerable reserve of unused ability, which must be mobilised if
the critical shortages in many professions are to be met.’
(Robbins 1963, p. 167)
Academic staff in Robbins
‘ ‘The young scientist needs time to press ahead with his
research when his imagination is at its liveliest; his
colleague in the arts may be better occupied in wide
reading than in research on particular problems and he
may well need more time free from teaching when his
crop is ready for harvesting in middle life.’
(ibid. p 184)
‘The fact that the colleges own many houses in the near
neighbourhood makes it possible for a non-resident tutor
to dine in college and be available outside ‘office hours’
without feeling he is neglecting his wife and family, and
he can entertain his students without imposing undue
burdens on his wife.’
(ibid. p 193)
The decade of the degree
The sixties in Britain were the decade of the degree;
at the end of it there were twice as many students as
at the beginning. In the last ten years, whether in
industry, in administration or even in the city and the
army, the BA or MA has become the password to
promotion, and a main instrument of social change the most important rung in the ladder of selfimprovement.
(Sampson 1971, p. 155)
The woman student at the time of Robbins
• Women as reproductive heterosexual bodies:
– Women defined by marriage and ‘the early
marriage problem’ (Dyhouse 2006)
– Women as (hetero)sexualised
‘The ‘early marriage problem’
‘Marriage for women today is a hazard, as far as
university education is concerned ... almost in the
category of war service'
(Ollerenshaw 1961, cited by Dyhouse 2006)
‘It's much better to be married than to want to be
and stay single until after you have got a degree ...
That waiting is a tremendous strain. Why wait when
you are 22 and you know that so many other girls of
your age are married?’
(Bourne 1963)
‘.. extraordinarily well. Marriage seems to settle
them. It's the love-life when they are single that is so
devastating'.
‘ I think it helped her. Otherwise she would have
been wondering whether there was a young man
coming along. And to have a home can be a very
cheerful thing when you're harassed by work'.
(ibid.)
Women’s dangerous sexuality
'Not only did the Oxford regime induce
hypocrisy and fear, it was also
manifestly unfair. The penalties we
faced in the women's colleges were
much more severe than those
governing male sexuality...’
(Rowbotham 2000, cited by Dyhouse 2006)
‘Undergrad morals’?
‘I wanted to be a popular person around the school I got used to blue jokes, I wasn't exactly displeased
after a while when people made personal remarks
about my figure. This seemed to make me universally
considered fair game. I was constantly bombarded
with invitations to go to bed.’
(The Beaver 1964)
The University of Sussex
‘Sussex soon enjoyed special publicity as a kind of
glamorous Brighton finishing school full of pretty girls
and avant-garde intellectuals’
(Sampson 1971, p. 165)
‘Sussex University has proved so attractive to women
that there has to be discriminatory selection in the
arts subjects to prevent the student population from
becoming predominantly female. In consequence,
the academic ability of women students at Sussex is
said to be on average above that of men.’
(Ollerenshaw 1967, p. 67)
Women students: sexualised desirable bodies...
Now
‘Frilly Feminists’ in Mail Online – women students
fighting for the right to be in ‘beauty contests’, 2008
Reflections on a genealogy
'Within the spaces of these contested sites, ridden by
contradictions and uncertainties, the technologies
women used to map their existence would be a
nexus of resistance and accommodation practices,
inextricably interwoven'
.. and through these technologies of resistance
'women began to fashion new forms of subjectivity‘
(Tamboukou 2003, p. 4)
References
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Blackburn, R. M. and J. Jarman (1993). Changing Inequalities in Access to British Universities.
Oxford Review of Education 19(2): 197-216.
Bourne, R. (1963) 'Students' union' , The Guardian, 3 October.
Dyhouse, C. (2006) Students: A Gendered History. London: Routledge
Foucault, M. (1980). Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972-1977, C.
Gordon (Ed.). New York and London, Harvester Wheatsheaf.
Foucault, M. (1988). Politics, Philosophy, Culture: Interviews and Other Writings, 1977-1984
London, Routledge.
Ollerenshaw, K. (1967) The girls' schools: The future of the public and other independent
schools for girls in the context of state education. London, Faber and Faber.
Sampson, A. (1971) The New Anatomy of Britain, London, Hodder and Stoughton
Tamboukou, M. (2003). Women, Education and the Self: A Foucauldian Perspective.
Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan