̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Women at Cambridge

Cambridge Festival celebrates pioneering women for International Women’s Day

zs332 — Fri, 07 Mar 2025 10:28:52 +0000

For International Women’s Day (8 March), the Cambridge Festival (19 March – 4 April) is celebrating some of the remarkable contributions of women across diverse fields. From philosophy and music to AI and cosmology, the festival will highlight the pioneering work of women who have shaped our understanding of the world in profound ways.

Celebrating Cambridge Women: Part II

jek67 — Wed, 15 Mar 2023 22:06:40 +0000

Read the second part of our series marking Women's History Month, as we shine a light on even more of the inspiring women living and working here at Cambridge.

Celebrating the Cambridge Women Changing the World

jek67 — Wed, 08 Mar 2023 08:14:04 +0000

To mark International Women's Day and Women's History Month, the ̽��ֱ�� is delighted to shine a light on some of the incredible women living and working here at Cambridge. Here they share the advice they've learned along the way, and the songs that lift them up when the going gets tough.

Portrait exhibition marks record high for Cambridge college female leaders

ts657 — Tue, 08 Oct 2019 09:25:58 +0000

From this month, 15 Cambridge Colleges will be run by women, which will be marked from 14 October when Sonita Alleyne’s photograph is unveiled as part of a new exhibition ̽��ֱ��Rising Tide: Women at Cambridge at the ̽��ֱ�� Library.

̽��ֱ��Rising Tide marks 150 years since the founding of Girton College, the first women’s college in Cambridge. It focuses on the lived experience of women at Cambridge, the fight for equal educational rights, and the careers of some of the women who have shaped the institution and the world.

̽��ֱ��portrait exhibition of Cambridge women will run along the front corridors of the library. Clothes, letters, and audio-visual material will also be on display in the Milstein Exhibition Centre.

One of the objects is a badge bearing the phrase “Behave Badly”. These were given to female students by renowned historian and Jesus College’s first woman fellow Professor Lisa Jardine.

Jardine encouraged women friends to wear the badge, under their jackets if necessary. ̽��ֱ��badge has been loaned to the exhibition by Jane Tillier, first woman Lay Chaplain at Jesus College from 1984, who admits she ‘wore it under her clerical robes'.

Sonita was one of the first to be presented with a new version of the badge created for the exhibition, and wore it to her interview on this morning's BBC Radio 4 Women's Hour.

She said: “It’s an honour to be one of five women taking up college leadership positions at Cambridge this term, and I’m thrilled to join Jesus College in its 40th year of mixed education.

"During my time as a Cambridge student, I was conscious that there was still opposition to women students, even in the mid-1980s.

"It’s good to reflect and celebrate how far we’ve come, and I am proud to be part of this exhibition.”

̽��ֱ��Rising Tide: Women At Cambridge runs from 14 Oct 2019 – Sat 21 Mar 2020, Mon-Fri 9am-6.30pm, Sat 9am-4.30pm, at Milstein Exhibition Centre, Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Library, West Road, Cambridge CB3 9DR.

̽��ֱ��battle for gender equality at Cambridge will be celebrated with a portrait exhibition featuring new Jesus College Master Sonita Alleyne, whose appointment marks a record high in female senior leaders across the collegiate ̽��ֱ��.

Nick Saffell/ ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge

Sonita Alleyne

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

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Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Library unveils the rich histories, struggles and hidden labours of Women at Cambridge

sjr81 — Thu, 05 Sep 2019 10:27:39 +0000

Opening to the public on Monday 14 October, and curated by Dr Lucy Delap and Dr Ben Griffin, the exhibition will focus on the lived experiences of women at the ̽��ֱ��, the ongoing fight for equal educational rights, recognition, and inclusion in university activities, and the careers of some of the women who shaped the institution – from leading academics to extraordinary domestic staff and influential fellows’ wives.

̽��ֱ��exhibition will showcase the history of women at the ̽��ֱ��, the persistent marginalisation they were subject to, and the ongoing campaigns for gender justice and change since the establishment of Girton College in Cambridge in 1869, the first residential university establishment for women in the UK. Visitors will have the opportunity to explore rarely seen collections from across the ̽��ֱ�� and colleges. Through a mix of costume, letters and audio-visual material, the fascinating and little-known stories of individual women will be illustrated.

Dr Lucy Delap, exhibition co-curator and Fellow of Murray Edwards College, said: “From the founding of the first women’s college to the present day, the experience of women at Cambridge has differed greatly from their male counterparts.

"Though Girton College was established especially to give women the opportunity to study at the ̽��ֱ��, there were still many barriers that women faced – the first female students were required to ask permission to attend lectures, were not allowed to take exams without special permission, and usually had to be accompanied by chaperones in public until after the First World War. It was still not until 1948 that Cambridge began to offer degrees to women – the last of the big institutions in the UK to do so.

“Through ̽��ֱ��Rising Tide we hope to illustrate an all-encompassing picture of the incredible fight for gender equality within the ̽��ֱ��, while portraying the fascinating journeys of some of the militant, cussed and determined women of our institution too.”

Visitors to the exhibition will learn of the deep opposition and oppression women faced, including the efforts made to keep women out of student societies, the organised campaigns to stop women getting degrees, and the hostility faced by women trying to establish careers as academics. Surviving fragments of eggshells and fireworks illustrate the violent opposition to giving women degrees during the vote on the subject in 1897, as does the note written by undergraduates apologising for the damage that had been done to Newnham College during the riot of 1921.

̽��ֱ��exhibition will also reveal the creativity and courage of the women who defiantly resisted such opposition to establish lives and careers within the ̽��ֱ��. Resistance included: the signing of the 400 page petition demanding women’s degrees in 1880, which will be displayed over the walls of the exhibition; setting up new student societies for women; and finding opportunities for women to lecture.

Sometimes, resistance meant finding ways of avoiding the rules that discriminated against women – between 1904 and 1907, Trinity College Dublin offered women from Newnham and Girton the opportunity to travel to Dublin to graduate officially and receive a full degree. ̽��ֱ��robes of one of the graduates, which have been stored for many decades, will be displayed in the Women at Cambridge exhibition.

Dr Ben Griffin, exhibition co-curator and Lecturer in Modern British History at Girton College, added: “By telling the story of women at Cambridge, this exhibition also tells the story of how a nineteenth-century institution, which served mainly to educate young men for careers in the church, transformed itself into a recognisably modern university devoted to teaching and research.”

̽��ֱ��Rising Tide is a culmination of exhibitions, events and displays exploring the past, present and future of women at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge. Curated by Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Library in collaboration with students and staff, the events programme, pop-up exhibitions and displays will run at the Library and across the city. Women at Cambridge is the centre-piece of the programme and will launch on Monday 14 October, and run until March 2020. Entry is free.

One hundred and fifty years since the first women were allowed to study at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Library will be sharing the unique stories of women who have studied, taught, worked and lived at the ̽��ֱ��, in its new exhibition ̽��ֱ��Rising Tide: Women at Cambridge.

From the founding of the first women’s college to the present day, the experience of women at Cambridge has differed greatly from their male counterparts.

Lucy Delap

Girton College

Domestic staff of Girton College, 1908

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