Copyright
© 2007 by José Cossa
In
the company of educated women is both a descriptive and
critical history of women’s struggles in the educational arena. Solomon paints a picture of a dialectic,
somehow in a Hegelian fashion, comprised of three forces, namely, (1) women’s
demands for education, (2) the opposition women faced due the characteristics
of the social fabric of the time, and (3) the consequent emergence of social
consciousness on women’s issues.
According to critics, this is the best history of educated women in
America written thus far.
Solomon
advances her thesis of educated women’s struggle for equality by engaging the
reader in the socio-political context of the time when certain milestone events
happened in the lives of educated women.
Through this historical milieu, Solomon highlights the brave and
persistent nature of her heroines in a somewhat-dramatic fashion that makes the
reader grasp the situation as if in the actual company of these educated
women. Her scope is purely to tell
the story of these women and not of institutions they represented, or were a
part of; however, an earnest reader will also grasp the characteristics of
institutions and draw inferences that might be useful to understand today’s
educational institutions. For Solomon,
apart from being a story of heroism, the battle of the educated women in America
is an unfinished revolution with paradoxes that deserve exploration.
The
book is divided into four themes: (a)
women’s struggles for access to institutions, (b) the dimensions of collegiate
experience, (c) the effects of education upon women’s life choices, and (d) the
uneasy connection between feminism and women’s educational advancement. These themes embody Solomon’s claimed
dialectic because on the one hand they present the rational for women’s demands
for education and on the other hand the opposition faced by women who
recognized education as a vehicle for equality with men. This opposition, according to Solomon, is
still evident today despite the continual struggle for equality. Solomon posits:
The expanding
company of educated women must still contend with the fear and ambivalence
implicit in public attitudes and policies toward women’s changing roles. To maintain and propel a momentum for
equality, it is vital to understand the enduring complexities facing women,
educated or not. In the company of
educated women aims to illuminate some of those complexities in the belief
that the knowledge will strengthen future generations in taking the next steps
toward true equality.
The
facts presented in the book are supported by a valuable list of primary
sources. I was personally impressed by
the presentation of extracts from the primary source materials that Solomon
places as an introduction to each chapter.
These extracts are a good summary of the historical context serving as a
landmark from which the reader-traveler ought to embark in the journey in
time. This combined literary style
enables Solomon to both justify the historicity of her work as well as engage
the reader in the emotional life of the time as interpreted by those who lived
the experiences first-hand. The extracts
add a personal touch to her research report.
Her
discussion sheds light to many issues all of which were linked to the
rationales in favor of women such as the fact that women are advantageous to
society, play a special role as mothers of male citizens, and have individual
rights too. Some of the articulations by
pioneers of women’s higher education reflect these values and enlighten one to
understand the challenges and journey faced by women and their
institutions. For example, the following
quote of Sophia Smith:
It is my
opinion that by the higher and more thoroughly Christian education of women,
what are called their ‘wrongs’ will be redressed, their wages will be adjusted,
their weight of influence in reforming evils of society will be greatly
increased as teachers, as writers, as members of society, their power for good
will be incalculably enlarged.
Following
this quote Solomon recalls her theme of women’s continual struggle by
indicating that Smith College only appointed male presidents for almost a
century and it was only in 1975 that a woman president, Jill Ker Conway, was
inaugurated. Also worth noting is the
fact that Smith was amongst the prominent schools in promoting women’s freedom
and professionalism and has persisted as a symbol of women’s education
today.
As
promised in her preface, Solomon sticks to the aim of presenting women as
students and graduates rather than on institutional history. In this history she presents women in
institutions as transparent as she can afford by describing their activities,
reaching the pick of this revelation in chapter seven, Dimensions of the
Collegiate Experience. The contrast
of the three generations is rich in informing the reader about the social
dynamics and emotions characteristic of college life in three different eras,
an aspect often omitted in literature about women. Activism of women took various shapes such as
academic expression, feminism, socialism, and even sexual preferences such as
lesbianism and celibacy. I was
personally informed by Solomon’s findings regarding the rationale for college
girls’ engagement in lesbian practices – this, in my opinion, could not be less
important since some men’s eyebrows raise when the idea of a women’s college is
brought to discussion, unless it is within a religious order.
The
chapters in Solomon advance her themes chronologically. Starting from the colonial period until
recent times (even more precisely, today), Solomon describes the nature of the
struggle and the reason for labeling the revolution an unfinished task. I
concur with Solomon that women still struggle with some of the issues they
fought against in the past and one does not have to go far to realize the
truthfulness of such struggle. A book
like this raises questions not only to educational inclusion or recognition but
also to the total integration and recognition of women in the wider
society. Women in today’s society are
still not equal to men. There is still
prejudice as to what professions and offices belong to women and to men. Women haven’t reached the office of president
in democratic America and one may venture to say that it is still early to
think of a possibility of a woman US president.
Solomon’s
book is implicitly about the paradoxes of American democracy, and that of other
societies. After a long struggle, Women
have received and made use of a great deal of civil rights through the court
system, i.e., individual freedom, freedom of speech, equality before the law,
freedom of thought, individual right, etc..
Women have also attained a considerable degree of social rights, but
they still have a long way to go in order to enjoy fully their political
rights. Without political rights the
other rights become a part of an unfinished revolution and such revolution will
only be more meaningfully achieved when women attain political rights which are
the guarantor of both civil and social rights – although not phrased in these
terms, these are the tears poured forth
by Solomon as she engages the reader of her historical dissertation. Solomon’s is a historical and scholarly book
that reads like a novel with chronological accuracy and style – one of the best
of its kind and recommendable to any student of history.
No comments:
Post a Comment