Review: Yale Needs Women

Yale Needs Women by Anne Gardiner Perkins
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I really enjoyed this highly readable nonfiction account of the first class of women who were accepted to attend Yale University. This had been a long-standing, male only institution of higher education, only allowing the women on campus to work menial jobs or for short parties in order to try to arrange proper couples. This was part of what drove the push for inclusion of women, in that the "sister" institution was not convenient and therefore Yale was losing attendees to other schools who already had a more enticing co-ed policy.
It was an interesting account of the lack of insight the men in charge had into even the basics that the women would need, requiring them to put a woman in place as Dean of Women's Education. And given that so much of the push to involve these highly qualified young women was about marriage to the men, the men were expecting the women to "be available" to them. Whereas, the women were looking for a great chance at the educational opportunity that was now offered. This book gives a great collection of insights into what that culture must have been like for both the women and the men. These are the growing pains faced at many universities around the same time when inclusion, be it gender or ethnic or racial, etc. was relatively new to shake up the status quo. And this was not that long ago. We have made a lot of progress but still have a long way to go and this book helps to show the hurdles that Yale faced at the time.
Really well done. Highly recommend.
#YaleNeedsWomen #Netgalley #Sourcebooks

View all my reviews