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Yale Needs Women: How the First Group of Girls Rewrote the Rules of an Ivy League Giant
“If Yale was going to keep its standing as one of the top two or three colleges in the nation, the availability of women was an amenity it could no longer do without.”
In the summer of 1969, from big cities to small towns, young women across the country sent in applications to Yale University for the first time. The Ivy League institution dedicated to graduating “one thousand male leaders” each year had finally decided to open its doors to the nation’s top female students. The landmark decision was a huge step forward for women’s equality in education.
Or was it?
The experience the first undergraduate women found when they stepped onto Yale’s imposing campus was not the same one their male peers enjoyed. Isolated from one another, singled out as oddities and sexual objects, and barred from many of the privileges an elite education was supposed to offer, many of the first female students found themselves immersed in an overwhelmingly male culture they were unprepared to face. Yale Needs Women is the story of how these young women fought against the backward-leaning traditions of a centuries-old institution and created the opportunities that would carry them into the future. Anne Gardiner Perkins’s unflinching account of a group of young women striving for change is an inspiring story of strength, resilience, and courage that continues to resonate today.
In the summer of 1969, from big cities to small towns, young women across the country sent in applications to Yale University for the first time. The Ivy League institution dedicated to graduating “one thousand male leaders” each year had finally decided to open its doors to the nation’s top female students. The landmark decision was a huge step forward for women’s equality in education.
Or was it?
The experience the first undergraduate women found when they stepped onto Yale’s imposing campus was not the same one their male peers enjoyed. Isolated from one another, singled out as oddities and sexual objects, and barred from many of the privileges an elite education was supposed to offer, many of the first female students found themselves immersed in an overwhelmingly male culture they were unprepared to face. Yale Needs Women is the story of how these young women fought against the backward-leaning traditions of a centuries-old institution and created the opportunities that would carry them into the future. Anne Gardiner Perkins’s unflinching account of a group of young women striving for change is an inspiring story of strength, resilience, and courage that continues to resonate today.
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First published September 10, 2019
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About the author
Anne Gardiner Perkins
2 books42 followersAnne Gardiner Perkins grew up in Baltimore and attended Yale University, where she earned her BA in history and was the first woman editor-in-chief of the Yale Daily News. She is also a Rhodes Scholar and completed a BA in modern history at Balliol College, Oxford University. She has spent her life in education, from urban high school teacher to elected school committee member. She received her PhD in higher education at UMass Boston and has presented papers on higher education at leading conferences.
When she is not writing or doing research, Anne enjoys hiking, tending her vegetable garden, and beating her son at board games. She lives with her husband in Boston and in Harvard, Massachusetts. YALE NEEDS WOMEN is her first book.
When she is not writing or doing research, Anne enjoys hiking, tending her vegetable garden, and beating her son at board games. She lives with her husband in Boston and in Harvard, Massachusetts. YALE NEEDS WOMEN is her first book.
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September 1, 2019
Sonia Sotomayor. Janet Yellen. Elizabeth Kolbert. Jodie Foster. Maya Lin. Angela Bassett. Anne Applebaum. Sigourney Weaver. Marian Wright Edelman. All of these notable women have gotten a leg up in life by attending Yale University. Applying to Yale may seem like a no brainer to top female high school students today, but as recently as fifty years ago, many top private universities only admitted men. With Betty Friedan and Simone de Beauvoir stimulating the feminist revolution in the late 1960s, the closed door to women in prestigious universities was about to end. Anne Gardiner Perkins, a remarkable woman in her own right and the first female editor of the Yale Daily News, has written about the first female students at Yale in time for the event’s fiftieth anniversary. Yale Needs Women looks back at a pivotal moment in the history of higher education in the United States.
Yale, Harvard, Princeton, and Dartmouth have been known as the best of the best universities in the United States since their inception. Yet, for the entire time these universities opened their doors, the only students had been men. Yale prided itself on educating America’s future leaders and instilling a one thousand man quota plus twenty five extra each year. Notable graduates had included presidents, Supreme Court justices, Nobel and Pulitzer Prize winners, and Wall Street executives; all men. In the world of eastern establishment gentleman’s clubs, only men were capable of being leaders of tomorrow. In the 1960s decade of turmoil coinciding with the fledgling women rights movement this was about to change. Yale President Kingman Brewster, Jr was a member of the eastern establishment. He believed that men and women operated in separated spheres of society, which in his eyes included higher education. Brewster received millions of dollars each year from male alumni, who he believed did not want Yale to open its doors to women. Students, however, wanted a change. A single sex environment did not mirror society as a whole, nor did the student mixers which brought in busloads of women from Vassar and Smith each weekend. Yale students desired co-education, and in 1969, Brewster relented, opening Yale’s doors to its first 230 female undergraduate students.
Perkins centers the book around the experiences of five diverse students: freshmen Kit McClure and Lawrie Mifflin and sophomores Betty Spahn, Connie Royster, and Shirley Daniels. Yale had allowed women to enroll in its graduate programs for a number of years, yet even they felt isolated. By 1969, the year of Yale’s first undergraduate women enrollment, there were only two women tenured professors and no women in higher administration. In order to get a female perspective on female enrollment, President Brewster turned to Elga Wasserman to head the Co-Education committee. Wasserman held a PhD in chemistry but could not find a tenured position at any institution of higher education due to her gender, so she accepted Brewster’s overtures to lead the committee, as she wanted to be a voice for the women of the next generation. What Wasserman desired and Brewster supported, however, did not mesh, leading to friction between the two of them as Yale moved toward greater co-education in the years to come. More women students would not be for a number of years, and for the first year the 230 would suffice for Brewster, who did not really desire their presence in the first place.
The passage of Title IX was still three years away. In 1969 Yale did not have any varsity sports for women nor any role for them on the university’s newspaper staff, choir, or senior secret societies. Mory’s club excluded women, yet Yale professors and administrators continued to conduct their business there. With only 230 women in the freshman class as well as 575 overall across the entire university, often times the women felt isolated. Yet, they made gains albeit small ones. Kit McClure joined the marching band as a trombonist. Lawrie Mifflin started a field hockey team that she hoped would eventually gain varsity status. Connie Royster majored in theater and starred in a number of plays. Betty Spahn anchored a Women’s Collective that met once a week and encouraged women to speak their minds and not feel so alone. Shirley Daniels became an active member of the Black Society at Yale and a member of its student board. While Kingman Brewster and his cronies still believed that only men were future leaders, the first women at Yale had other ideas.
Perkins prose reads so quickly that I finished this book in one day. She discusses what happened in society as a whole including the Black Panther trial, Vietnam protests, Kate Millet and second wave feminism, and the passage of Title IX. All of these events played a role in eventually ending Yale’s one thousand man quota and making admission gender blind. I rooted for Perkins’ five pioneering students as well as Elga Wasserman to make changes to the eastern establishment. Along the way, readers meet other students and administrators, male and female, who left their mark on Yale’s push toward co-education. Whether it was chairing a student committee, signing a petition to end Mory’s single sex policy, working toward creating female varsity sports, or starting a female only band, the women in this book quickly showed President Brewster that they meant business and exhibited qualities that would make them members of America’s future leadership class.
So much happened in the United States in the late 1960s: the Civil Rights Act, man walking on the moon, Vietnam, Woodstock. It is easy to overlook Ivy League schools opening their doors to women, yet this watershed moment allowed women to show their metal as America’s future leaders. Judging from the list at the opening of this review, Yale made the correct choice to go co-educational. Yale has been at the cutting edge of educating future award winners, politicians, and business leaders, both men and women, and for the last fifty years, women have proven that they are also up to the task as leaders of society. From 1988-2008, the President of the United States had been Yale educated. With Yale at the cutting edge of educating future leaders, perhaps one day a female president will join the list of notable female Yale alumna.
4+ stars
Yale, Harvard, Princeton, and Dartmouth have been known as the best of the best universities in the United States since their inception. Yet, for the entire time these universities opened their doors, the only students had been men. Yale prided itself on educating America’s future leaders and instilling a one thousand man quota plus twenty five extra each year. Notable graduates had included presidents, Supreme Court justices, Nobel and Pulitzer Prize winners, and Wall Street executives; all men. In the world of eastern establishment gentleman’s clubs, only men were capable of being leaders of tomorrow. In the 1960s decade of turmoil coinciding with the fledgling women rights movement this was about to change. Yale President Kingman Brewster, Jr was a member of the eastern establishment. He believed that men and women operated in separated spheres of society, which in his eyes included higher education. Brewster received millions of dollars each year from male alumni, who he believed did not want Yale to open its doors to women. Students, however, wanted a change. A single sex environment did not mirror society as a whole, nor did the student mixers which brought in busloads of women from Vassar and Smith each weekend. Yale students desired co-education, and in 1969, Brewster relented, opening Yale’s doors to its first 230 female undergraduate students.
Perkins centers the book around the experiences of five diverse students: freshmen Kit McClure and Lawrie Mifflin and sophomores Betty Spahn, Connie Royster, and Shirley Daniels. Yale had allowed women to enroll in its graduate programs for a number of years, yet even they felt isolated. By 1969, the year of Yale’s first undergraduate women enrollment, there were only two women tenured professors and no women in higher administration. In order to get a female perspective on female enrollment, President Brewster turned to Elga Wasserman to head the Co-Education committee. Wasserman held a PhD in chemistry but could not find a tenured position at any institution of higher education due to her gender, so she accepted Brewster’s overtures to lead the committee, as she wanted to be a voice for the women of the next generation. What Wasserman desired and Brewster supported, however, did not mesh, leading to friction between the two of them as Yale moved toward greater co-education in the years to come. More women students would not be for a number of years, and for the first year the 230 would suffice for Brewster, who did not really desire their presence in the first place.
The passage of Title IX was still three years away. In 1969 Yale did not have any varsity sports for women nor any role for them on the university’s newspaper staff, choir, or senior secret societies. Mory’s club excluded women, yet Yale professors and administrators continued to conduct their business there. With only 230 women in the freshman class as well as 575 overall across the entire university, often times the women felt isolated. Yet, they made gains albeit small ones. Kit McClure joined the marching band as a trombonist. Lawrie Mifflin started a field hockey team that she hoped would eventually gain varsity status. Connie Royster majored in theater and starred in a number of plays. Betty Spahn anchored a Women’s Collective that met once a week and encouraged women to speak their minds and not feel so alone. Shirley Daniels became an active member of the Black Society at Yale and a member of its student board. While Kingman Brewster and his cronies still believed that only men were future leaders, the first women at Yale had other ideas.
Perkins prose reads so quickly that I finished this book in one day. She discusses what happened in society as a whole including the Black Panther trial, Vietnam protests, Kate Millet and second wave feminism, and the passage of Title IX. All of these events played a role in eventually ending Yale’s one thousand man quota and making admission gender blind. I rooted for Perkins’ five pioneering students as well as Elga Wasserman to make changes to the eastern establishment. Along the way, readers meet other students and administrators, male and female, who left their mark on Yale’s push toward co-education. Whether it was chairing a student committee, signing a petition to end Mory’s single sex policy, working toward creating female varsity sports, or starting a female only band, the women in this book quickly showed President Brewster that they meant business and exhibited qualities that would make them members of America’s future leadership class.
So much happened in the United States in the late 1960s: the Civil Rights Act, man walking on the moon, Vietnam, Woodstock. It is easy to overlook Ivy League schools opening their doors to women, yet this watershed moment allowed women to show their metal as America’s future leaders. Judging from the list at the opening of this review, Yale made the correct choice to go co-educational. Yale has been at the cutting edge of educating future award winners, politicians, and business leaders, both men and women, and for the last fifty years, women have proven that they are also up to the task as leaders of society. From 1988-2008, the President of the United States had been Yale educated. With Yale at the cutting edge of educating future leaders, perhaps one day a female president will join the list of notable female Yale alumna.
4+ stars
Read
March 26, 2025The title of this fascinating book about the struggle to make Yale, one of the last bastions of men-only Ivy League schools in the 1960s and 1970s, is somewhat of a misnomer. While it was true that Yale needed highly qualified female students, most of Yale's faculty and male students didn't really want the young women there (unless they happened to be girls from Vassar College looking for dates on a Saturday night).
The author adds human interest in her telling of this time of great social change in the country, as readers meet and get to know the key players in this battle to make the campus truly co-ed.
Give this one a try! -Louisa A.
The author adds human interest in her telling of this time of great social change in the country, as readers meet and get to know the key players in this battle to make the campus truly co-ed.
Give this one a try! -Louisa A.
July 20, 2019
I was particularly interested in reading this book as I also found myself an unlikely pioneer in college......among the first women attending Washington and Lee University in 1985. We numbered only 100 of 1600 undergrads on campus. I found many similarities, not all of them positive, between my experiences and those of the women of Yale in 1969. This book is well-written and easily engages the reader with the lives of 5 women as well as many other figures at the university at that time. There are some fascinating details, including the shadows of the civil rights movement and the Vietnam war protests, looming among these students battling for equality in their secondary education. I think this book is a must-read for those interested in the evolution of university coeducation as well as women’s rights. We must study history, not ignore or destroy it, in order to learn how to better ourselves for the future. This is a great study in the history of American education.
Read
September 17, 2019This is a fabulous historical nonfictional work.
Yes, Yale needs more women. Every top Uni out there needs more women. All the women they can get. And I do not exaggerate. It is not an exaggeration, it is something wonderful
For everyone with feminist inclination, this actually might be an interesting nonfictional read. Just a bit of a mind-opener. Really shows that with the right materials, everyone can build beautiful things.
Yes, Yale needs more women. Every top Uni out there needs more women. All the women they can get. And I do not exaggerate. It is not an exaggeration, it is something wonderful
For everyone with feminist inclination, this actually might be an interesting nonfictional read. Just a bit of a mind-opener. Really shows that with the right materials, everyone can build beautiful things.
November 12, 2019
An engrossing, detailed and frequently appalling account of the first years of coeducation at Yale, serving as a timely reminder of how very different the world was 50 years ago and how glacial was and remains the pace of change at the white male bastion that is Yale. Kingman Brewster in particular comes in for a large share of the opprobrium, I think deservedly and very much at odds with his popular image and memory.
There are minor errors which don't detract from the narrative. No Yorkside Pizza in 1971!
There are minor errors which don't detract from the narrative. No Yorkside Pizza in 1971!
September 3, 2019
"The phrase rankled, and some women liked to extend it: "one thousand male leaders and two hundred concubines," they would say to each other, underscoring what the tagline implied for their own status. The male undergraduates were the given, the nonnegotiable, the heart of Yale's mission. The women were add-ons."
In 1969, Yale admitted the first 575 women into their undergraduate school - a quantity that meant the ladies were outnumbered by their male counterparts at a ratio of roughly 7:1. And what was one of the primary reasons Yale president Kingman Brewster, Jr. decided to let these ladies in in the first place? Equality? Fairness? Guess again: by 1968, 40% of students accepted by Yale were choosing to go elsewhere, with a majority citing Yale's single-sex status as the reason. Essentially, he didn't want Yale's status to suffer.
So these 575 ladies get admitted, and then life is all peaches and cream and rainbows for them, right? Not so much. These ladies had to deal with constant sexual harassment - even if that term hadn't been invented yet. There were no sports for women to play, only a "women's exercise" class. The Yale Wiffenpoofs, the most prestigious singing group at Yale, stated "it would make an inferior sound to have girls singing," and thus, wouldn't allow women in. Mory's club, where Yale professors would wine, dine, and conduct business meetings, was off-limits to ladies as well.
Yale Needs Women primarily follows five women who were admitted in that first class of 575 - Kit McClure, the only female (reluctantly) allowed in the Yale marching band; Lawrie Mifflin, a field hockey enthusiast who wanted nothing more than to establish a female Varsity team at Yale; Connie Royster, a budding dramatist; Betty Spahn, a political activist; and Shirley Daniels, a leader in the Black Student Alliance at Yale.
Although Yale Needs Women's principal focus is on, well, women at Yale, Perkins also weaves in a lot of events that were also happening at the time and impacted Yale life, such at the Black Panther movement, the Vietnam War, and abortion rights. This helped the reader get a more holistic sense of life at Yale, rather than just the slice of the fight to increase the number of ladies enrolled.
I'm blown away that this book started out as Perkins's history dissertation and is her first book. If you just read "history dissertation" and equate that with "boring," you'd be oh so wrong in this case. Perkins writes in a style that grabs the reader's attention from page one and doesn't let it go until the story is wrapped up. As an avocado toast eating millennial, I had no idea that it was as recently as when my mother went to college that Yale wasn't enrolling women in their undergraduate program. So I found it fascinating to read about the plights of the first ladies as they paved the way for future generations. The amount of research and the thoroughness through which it is conducted is clearly evident. Basically, this book checks a lot of the boxes for me: well written, interesting, about a topic I knew little about going in, and relevant to conversations going on in the world today. Perkins writes in a non-ranty, tell-it-like-it-is manner that I didn't find off-putting like I've found with some other feminist books I've read as of late. I can already tell that Yale Needs Women will be sticking in my brain for a long time to come. I started talking this book up at a party I attended this past weekend, and I'll continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Go forth and pick yourself up a copy, stat!
Thanks NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for my unbiased review.
In 1969, Yale admitted the first 575 women into their undergraduate school - a quantity that meant the ladies were outnumbered by their male counterparts at a ratio of roughly 7:1. And what was one of the primary reasons Yale president Kingman Brewster, Jr. decided to let these ladies in in the first place? Equality? Fairness? Guess again: by 1968, 40% of students accepted by Yale were choosing to go elsewhere, with a majority citing Yale's single-sex status as the reason. Essentially, he didn't want Yale's status to suffer.
So these 575 ladies get admitted, and then life is all peaches and cream and rainbows for them, right? Not so much. These ladies had to deal with constant sexual harassment - even if that term hadn't been invented yet. There were no sports for women to play, only a "women's exercise" class. The Yale Wiffenpoofs, the most prestigious singing group at Yale, stated "it would make an inferior sound to have girls singing," and thus, wouldn't allow women in. Mory's club, where Yale professors would wine, dine, and conduct business meetings, was off-limits to ladies as well.
Yale Needs Women primarily follows five women who were admitted in that first class of 575 - Kit McClure, the only female (reluctantly) allowed in the Yale marching band; Lawrie Mifflin, a field hockey enthusiast who wanted nothing more than to establish a female Varsity team at Yale; Connie Royster, a budding dramatist; Betty Spahn, a political activist; and Shirley Daniels, a leader in the Black Student Alliance at Yale.
Although Yale Needs Women's principal focus is on, well, women at Yale, Perkins also weaves in a lot of events that were also happening at the time and impacted Yale life, such at the Black Panther movement, the Vietnam War, and abortion rights. This helped the reader get a more holistic sense of life at Yale, rather than just the slice of the fight to increase the number of ladies enrolled.
I'm blown away that this book started out as Perkins's history dissertation and is her first book. If you just read "history dissertation" and equate that with "boring," you'd be oh so wrong in this case. Perkins writes in a style that grabs the reader's attention from page one and doesn't let it go until the story is wrapped up. As an avocado toast eating millennial, I had no idea that it was as recently as when my mother went to college that Yale wasn't enrolling women in their undergraduate program. So I found it fascinating to read about the plights of the first ladies as they paved the way for future generations. The amount of research and the thoroughness through which it is conducted is clearly evident. Basically, this book checks a lot of the boxes for me: well written, interesting, about a topic I knew little about going in, and relevant to conversations going on in the world today. Perkins writes in a non-ranty, tell-it-like-it-is manner that I didn't find off-putting like I've found with some other feminist books I've read as of late. I can already tell that Yale Needs Women will be sticking in my brain for a long time to come. I started talking this book up at a party I attended this past weekend, and I'll continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Go forth and pick yourself up a copy, stat!
Thanks NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for my unbiased review.
February 12, 2020
My great-aunt, so the story goes, entered graduate school in English at University of Chicago at the turn of the 20th century. She dropped out after her masters as they would not allow a woman into the faculty lounge, where graduate seminars were held.
Her three sisters taught high school and never married. Maybe that was their choice, although they would have lost their jobs if they had married.
When I was preparing to head to graduate school in 1977, one of my father's students asked what I would do with my degree. My mother responded that I could "always get married." (She would never say this now.)
Times have changed, but the change process has not always easy.
It is difficult to embrace change for women when they are merely “the most prized piece of chattel in the college man’s estate” (p. 8). The status quo was stacked against women. In 1968, Yale had two tenured women – and 391 tenured men – on its faculty. Faculty and administration held meetings in a club that did not admit women, even as guests of members.
When the first class of women at Yale was finally admitted (because male students preferred to attend a coeducational rather than a male-only school), women were only 18% of the freshman class and well less than that overall; they remained tokens. A 1970 American Council on Education study reported male high school students in the top fifth of their class had a 92% chance of being accepted by a selective US university; only 62% of top-ranked high school girls received acceptances. The "dean" of coeducation was given a meaningless title, insufficient power, and blocked at every turn. Women's dorms and bathrooms had insufficient safety measures. There were no women's varsity sports and no women were allowed in marching band or any of Yale's choirs. The Whiffenpoofs, Yale's premier singing group, did not admit women until 2018.
At the same time that Yale was (sort of) considering coeducation and sex-blind admissions – and believing that women could not truly be leaders – future Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen was earning her PhD in economics and future UC Berkeley chancellor Carol Christ was earning hers in English; Hillary Rodham had been recently accepted at Yale Law; future Connecticut Supreme Court chief justice Ellen Peters was on the faculty; and future Children’s Defense Fund founder Marian Wright Edelman had graduated six years earlier.
The story of creating change at Yale was interesting. Protests. Building alliances and creating friends. Infiltrating the newspaper and marching band. Creating a field hockey team without resources. Challenging the club's liquor license. And, in the winning strategy, fighting from within by insiders.
Yale Needs Women sounds like an interesting story, but dry. This is a fascinating story – smart, well researched, and well-written. Well done!
Her three sisters taught high school and never married. Maybe that was their choice, although they would have lost their jobs if they had married.
When I was preparing to head to graduate school in 1977, one of my father's students asked what I would do with my degree. My mother responded that I could "always get married." (She would never say this now.)
Times have changed, but the change process has not always easy.
It is difficult to embrace change for women when they are merely “the most prized piece of chattel in the college man’s estate” (p. 8). The status quo was stacked against women. In 1968, Yale had two tenured women – and 391 tenured men – on its faculty. Faculty and administration held meetings in a club that did not admit women, even as guests of members.
When the first class of women at Yale was finally admitted (because male students preferred to attend a coeducational rather than a male-only school), women were only 18% of the freshman class and well less than that overall; they remained tokens. A 1970 American Council on Education study reported male high school students in the top fifth of their class had a 92% chance of being accepted by a selective US university; only 62% of top-ranked high school girls received acceptances. The "dean" of coeducation was given a meaningless title, insufficient power, and blocked at every turn. Women's dorms and bathrooms had insufficient safety measures. There were no women's varsity sports and no women were allowed in marching band or any of Yale's choirs. The Whiffenpoofs, Yale's premier singing group, did not admit women until 2018.
At the same time that Yale was (sort of) considering coeducation and sex-blind admissions – and believing that women could not truly be leaders – future Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen was earning her PhD in economics and future UC Berkeley chancellor Carol Christ was earning hers in English; Hillary Rodham had been recently accepted at Yale Law; future Connecticut Supreme Court chief justice Ellen Peters was on the faculty; and future Children’s Defense Fund founder Marian Wright Edelman had graduated six years earlier.
The story of creating change at Yale was interesting. Protests. Building alliances and creating friends. Infiltrating the newspaper and marching band. Creating a field hockey team without resources. Challenging the club's liquor license. And, in the winning strategy, fighting from within by insiders.
Yale Needs Women sounds like an interesting story, but dry. This is a fascinating story – smart, well researched, and well-written. Well done!
October 15, 2019
In this riveting book, Anne Gardiner Perkins presents the stories and history behind Yale’s decision to become coed and start accepting female undergraduate students in 1969, at a time when feminism, women’s lib, and activism was increasingly making the news. Yale Needs Women is one of the best works of feminist nonfiction I have ever read, set during an eventful time in American history. Focusing on the lives of five of the first female students at Yale, this book discusses the issues female students faced when they were often the only women in the room.
I loved this book. It was everything I wanted it to be, and perhaps more. This book is a page-turner, and after I first picked it up, I couldn’t stop picking it up again to read more and more, finishing it in three days. The stories of all five women were varied and different and included many voices and experiences. I love narrative-driven nonfiction, and the women we follow in this book are a perfect mix to highlight life at Yale during this fascinating time in Yale’s (and America’s) history.
In fact, that’s one of the things that I loved best about this book. Feminism is, of course, a big theme in this book, but it does not focus only on white feminism, and instead makes a point to showcase how black students did not feel represented by some of the white-led activism on campus, and shared how black female students were equally vocal and active in their efforts, including creating a seminar class that studied black women’s leaders and hosting the “Conference on Black Women” which featured Maya Angelou as a speaker.
For much of the book, I was a little bit disappointed that there didn’t seem to be any mention of LGBTQ students, but was later happy to read that one of the five students comes out as a lesbian and becomes involved with other lesbian feminists outside of Yale. I was so excited!
Perkins also wrote earlier in the book:
Suffice to say, by the end, I was no longer disappointed in this book’s LGBTQ content.
I loved this book, and while I try not to assign star ratings, this book is definitely a five-star book and well-worth reading. It’s engaging, informative, and educational. Especially pick this up if you have an interest in campus activism and second-wave feminism!
I received this book via NetGalley for an honest review.
I loved this book. It was everything I wanted it to be, and perhaps more. This book is a page-turner, and after I first picked it up, I couldn’t stop picking it up again to read more and more, finishing it in three days. The stories of all five women were varied and different and included many voices and experiences. I love narrative-driven nonfiction, and the women we follow in this book are a perfect mix to highlight life at Yale during this fascinating time in Yale’s (and America’s) history.
In fact, that’s one of the things that I loved best about this book. Feminism is, of course, a big theme in this book, but it does not focus only on white feminism, and instead makes a point to showcase how black students did not feel represented by some of the white-led activism on campus, and shared how black female students were equally vocal and active in their efforts, including creating a seminar class that studied black women’s leaders and hosting the “Conference on Black Women” which featured Maya Angelou as a speaker.
For much of the book, I was a little bit disappointed that there didn’t seem to be any mention of LGBTQ students, but was later happy to read that one of the five students comes out as a lesbian and becomes involved with other lesbian feminists outside of Yale. I was so excited!
Perkins also wrote earlier in the book:
"The gay women were there, of course, but the climate made sure most kept that identity hidden. Many aspects of sex at Yale went unseen in 1970. The presence of gay students was just one of them."
Suffice to say, by the end, I was no longer disappointed in this book’s LGBTQ content.
I loved this book, and while I try not to assign star ratings, this book is definitely a five-star book and well-worth reading. It’s engaging, informative, and educational. Especially pick this up if you have an interest in campus activism and second-wave feminism!
I received this book via NetGalley for an honest review.
December 22, 2020
It was fascinating to me when I learned that until about a fifty years ago, many of the elite universities in the US didn’t allow women to apply, so I was very much interested to read this book and know the history of how Yale finally decided to allow women and what kind of challenges these young women faced in such an old all male environment.
The story here focuses mainly on five students but we also meet many other women and people in the administration who strived in their own ways to challenge the status quo and make the application process gender blind. I was very inspired by these women who took up this unprecedented challenge and made me a mark of their own. But it was also quite disappointing to see so many of the men in powerful positions including the president of Yale believe that the university’s goal of nurturing future leaders of the country didn’t include women, and that the minuscule number of them who got into the university should just be grateful for the opportunity. The numerous barriers they created and how unsupportive they were made me quite angry, but kudos to the women who believed in equity as a virtue and their own worth, and never gave up on their goals.
This is definitely an important piece of history and I would recommend the book to anyone who likes reading historical feminist works - because this is a great insight into the fact that gender discrimination was made unlawful only a few decades ago and we still have a long way to go. The audiobook is also narrated very well and kept me engaged throughout.
The story here focuses mainly on five students but we also meet many other women and people in the administration who strived in their own ways to challenge the status quo and make the application process gender blind. I was very inspired by these women who took up this unprecedented challenge and made me a mark of their own. But it was also quite disappointing to see so many of the men in powerful positions including the president of Yale believe that the university’s goal of nurturing future leaders of the country didn’t include women, and that the minuscule number of them who got into the university should just be grateful for the opportunity. The numerous barriers they created and how unsupportive they were made me quite angry, but kudos to the women who believed in equity as a virtue and their own worth, and never gave up on their goals.
This is definitely an important piece of history and I would recommend the book to anyone who likes reading historical feminist works - because this is a great insight into the fact that gender discrimination was made unlawful only a few decades ago and we still have a long way to go. The audiobook is also narrated very well and kept me engaged throughout.
August 20, 2019
A few reviewers referred to Yale needs Women as a novel and it is not. This is an academic work although written in a very accessible style for the average reader. The book started as a graduate paper and morphed into a dissertation over time. Anne Gardner Perkins has a wonderful writing style for what could become dry material. Perkins really allows readers into the lives of several of the students and one administrator in particular. The author straddles the line nicely between fitting in the comprehensive detailed research she managed and making it interesting enough that someone mighty think it was a novel.
As others have said, Yale needs Women was eye opening. It’s not a book for feminists only and I sincerely hope it doesn’t get classified as women’s studies and left there. This work deserves a wider audience. That first wave of women had a difficult time. They weren’t wanted by many, they were taken advantage of by many, endured discouragement and harassment in the name of a quality education. There are many sad chapters in our nation’s history and this is one. As a woman I am not always aware of the struggles of those who have gone before me to break down barriers and I really appreciated this research.
My thanks to #NetGalley for this ARC of #YaleNeedsWomen
As others have said, Yale needs Women was eye opening. It’s not a book for feminists only and I sincerely hope it doesn’t get classified as women’s studies and left there. This work deserves a wider audience. That first wave of women had a difficult time. They weren’t wanted by many, they were taken advantage of by many, endured discouragement and harassment in the name of a quality education. There are many sad chapters in our nation’s history and this is one. As a woman I am not always aware of the struggles of those who have gone before me to break down barriers and I really appreciated this research.
My thanks to #NetGalley for this ARC of #YaleNeedsWomen
September 21, 2019
Yale Needs Women by Anne Gardiner Perkins is a fabulous historical account (nonfiction) based on the first females that were accepted and lived on campus at Yale starting the summer/fall term of 1969.
This is particularly interesting for anyone that is interested in female rights/liberties, how we have acquired what we have so far, and to gage how far we still need to go. It is fascinating (and honestly very sad) to see how difficult it was for these women to just want to have the same opportunities and educational experiences as men, and how they were treated and probably overwhelmed doing so.
This gives the positives as well as the cascade of repercussions of this monumental integration.
A fascinating read. I was able to devour this gem in less then 2 days. 5/5 stars.
Thank you NetGalley for this ARC and in return I am giving my unbiased and voluntary review.
Thank
This is particularly interesting for anyone that is interested in female rights/liberties, how we have acquired what we have so far, and to gage how far we still need to go. It is fascinating (and honestly very sad) to see how difficult it was for these women to just want to have the same opportunities and educational experiences as men, and how they were treated and probably overwhelmed doing so.
This gives the positives as well as the cascade of repercussions of this monumental integration.
A fascinating read. I was able to devour this gem in less then 2 days. 5/5 stars.
Thank you NetGalley for this ARC and in return I am giving my unbiased and voluntary review.
Thank
March 23, 2023
Outstanding! The debt we owe these women, and the progress that still needs to be made, is immeasurable.
March 29, 2020
I need more books like this!! I want to know this hidden and obscure history or more appropriate herstory that is not common knowledge!! I loved that this book was intersectional as well since Yale did have black women as well as white women attend in their first class.
Yale Needs Women is the story of how Yale became a co-ed institution and the various obstacles that arose and how the first classes of women felt at Yale. This was such an intriguing narrator and to me, besides the women students, the unsung hero was Elga Wasserman. Her tenacity and spirit throughout the whole story was amazing and I'm so sad she didn't get the title she deserved. However, I am totally going to read The Door in the Dream: Conversations with Eminent Women in Science!
There was so much going on in this book and I loved following the stories of each of these determined and passionate young women. My heart ached whenever they faced a setback, but I was so happy when they'd succeed. Every time I pick this book back up, I didn't want it to end. Hearing how the women's movement got started in the Yale area was so exciting and inspiring.
Yale Needs Women is the story of how Yale became a co-ed institution and the various obstacles that arose and how the first classes of women felt at Yale. This was such an intriguing narrator and to me, besides the women students, the unsung hero was Elga Wasserman. Her tenacity and spirit throughout the whole story was amazing and I'm so sad she didn't get the title she deserved. However, I am totally going to read The Door in the Dream: Conversations with Eminent Women in Science!
There was so much going on in this book and I loved following the stories of each of these determined and passionate young women. My heart ached whenever they faced a setback, but I was so happy when they'd succeed. Every time I pick this book back up, I didn't want it to end. Hearing how the women's movement got started in the Yale area was so exciting and inspiring.
January 8, 2020
This book which could have been a dry and overly academic drudgery was however, a riveting page turner. Anne Gardiner Perkins brilliantly captures the trials , disappointments and triumphs that a small band of women pioneered in the early days of coed education. Not only does Perkins cover the history of education at Yale but she skillfully weaves the early days of the equal rights movement, the tumultuous Vietnam war, the beginnings of the feminist movement, rape culture and the discrimination against African Americans, Jews and other minorities. By following the lives of 5 women this book felt very personal and the nonfiction narrative became absolutely engaging. I highly recommend this book, this read would make for lively bookclub discussion.
I listened on audio via Hoopla. Narration was wonderful.
I listened on audio via Hoopla. Narration was wonderful.
September 29, 2019
I love books about feminism, I love books about higher ed, I love books that take a micro topic (the first cohort of women admitted to Yale) and use that to examine a macro topic (women’s place in higher ed from the 1960’s to today).
September 5, 2019
Tightly woven, nuanced true history of five of the First Women who entered Yale College in the fall of 1969. Set during the turbulent 60s, with the Vietnam War protests, Black Panther trials, and the emergence of the Second Wave of Feminism, Perkins brings the era, and the lives of these young women to life. Perkins, herself a 1981 Yale graduate, Rhodes Scholar and PhD historian, was the first woman to serve as Editor in Chief of the legendary Yale Daily News.
The saga of the women's field hockey team's journey to become the first women's varsity sport at Yale alone is worth the read. At times hilarious and others truly heartbreaking, Perkins writes with verve and style.
(Disclosure. This reviewer is one of the five women portrayed in the book. In all likelihood that makes me a tougher audience.)
The saga of the women's field hockey team's journey to become the first women's varsity sport at Yale alone is worth the read. At times hilarious and others truly heartbreaking, Perkins writes with verve and style.
(Disclosure. This reviewer is one of the five women portrayed in the book. In all likelihood that makes me a tougher audience.)
October 14, 2019
I chose this book to be one of two non-fiction books I would be discussing in my November Book Talk at my library. I found it fascinating and very informative. I devoured it in two days.
Needless to say I was blown away when I attended the Library Journal Day of Dialog in October and who was there on a panel? Anne Gardiner Perkins! She was great (as well as the rest of the panel).
I have been recommending the heck out of this book.
Needless to say I was blown away when I attended the Library Journal Day of Dialog in October and who was there on a panel? Anne Gardiner Perkins! She was great (as well as the rest of the panel).
I have been recommending the heck out of this book.
April 17, 2024
Absolutely in awe of what these first women enrolled at Yale were able to overcome. Some really upsetting (and sadly not surprising) stories in this book of what they experienced as some of these situations still happen today. This was a great and informative read. Highly recommend.
April 7, 2025
I love a good popular press history book written by a historian. Perkins wrote Yale Needs Women off of her PhD dissertation on the same topic. This book does NOT read like a dissertation. As my professor says, and I agree with, it reads "like a pleasure book." Perkins tells the story of the coeducation of Yale, from the beginning of women being allowed on campus to when Yale admissions became officially sex-blind (or closer to it) four years later. The actors in this history are the (mostly) women who fought endlessly to have the school change its mind. She also weaves in the personal lives of the women students and staff who made this happen. Really good book! Really good history! Would recommend.
May 12, 2022
This history of the evolution of co-education at Yale was surprisingly interesting! Perkins did a great job identifying a few young women who epitomized the first class of women admitted to Yale. The book follows them as the University leaders and students grappled with how to address coeducation. I thoroughly enjoyed learning about the women's experiences at Yale and the challenges they overcome. Another favorite was Elga Wasserman, one of the VERY few female administrators at Yale. She repeatedly challenged the University leadership to admit more women and make the educational opportunities more equitable.
I always looked forward to picking this book up, which can be rare for nonfiction like this. It was engaging and informative!
I always looked forward to picking this book up, which can be rare for nonfiction like this. It was engaging and informative!
September 9, 2025
Yale Needs Women: How the First Group of Girls Rewrite the Rules of an Ivy League Giant by Anne Gardinier Perkins is a must read piece of history. I didn't know much at all about the topic going in, but the author presents it well. I'm glad there are photos to put some featured names to faces.
March 2, 2021
Quick, enjoyable read about the fall of 1969 when 575 women joined the undergraduate classes at Yale University, previously a college for men only. I was a senior at a women's college and this was a very exciting time to be in college: the beginnings of "women's liberation", the Panther trials, the Vietnam war protests are all viewed through the lens of the women of Yale. When this group came to Yale, there was a 7:1 ratio of men to women! Very, very interesting story of how coeducation finally happened.
February 13, 2022
I tweeted out some thoughts about this book, so I figured I'd put them here too. This book was recommended to me by a friend - I have studied this era of Yale's history pretty extensively, but not from this angle.
First, the things I think Perkins does well. This is a breezy but very moving history. It is clear that Perkins put a great deal of thought into how to frame her subjects, and what voices to center. The students she chooses to highlight all have interesting perspectives on the university, feminism, the moment, etc. one is John Huggins’ cousin, raised in New Haven. Another is one of the first African American studies majors. Her discussion into the ubiquitousness of sexual harassment and assault of the first classes of women undergraduates is striking and compelling. Her attention to class disparities among students is also welcome. As someone who has written about the “bursary boys,” the students who worked in the dining halls as a condition of their financial aid, I found especially valuable the passage on one woman bursary worker who witnesses the routinized sexual assault of a non-student dining hall waitress by a manager. This anecdote helps to contextualize Perkins’ brief discussion of the 1969 Colia Williams incident, which I wrote about here and which I will discuss a little more below. https://academia.edu/27254731/Broken_....
Gardiner intentionally and frequently foregrounds the experiences of black students, their estrangement from white feminism, their relation to what Martha Biondi calls “The Black Revolution on Campus,’their work in New Haven public schools, their relationships with and distance from the BPP and the Mayday 1970 strike. I also appreciate the focus on the New Haven Women’s Liberation Rock Band, which included Virginia Blaisdell, who, decades later, would design the logo for Yale’s grad employee union (in addition to a bunch of other union graphics.)
Ok, now to critique: while, to its credit, Yale Needs Women does portray the tensions between black students and police as a central aspect of black student organizing at Yale during this moment, throughout most of the book, the securitization of campus is cast as a feminist goal. I raise this point less to suggest that this was not the case and more to note the ways that this goal operated alongside the university’s role in hollowing out postwar new haven’s working class neighborhoods (in particular, the oak street neighborhood that once separated the main campus from its medical school,) and in violently policing downtown new haven from raced and classed “threats” to the safety and property of well-heeled students and faculty. Perkins notes that Kingman Brewster’s plan to build two new residential colleges to accommodate more women undergraduates ran afoul of New Haven’s machine democrat mayor, Bart Guida. She doesn’t really explain why, (it was in no small part about growing anxieties over Yale's expansion and concomitant removal of prime downtown real estate from the taxable "grand list") nor are the critiques of university expansion by the New Haven panthers, here praised for their alleged abandonment of their Oakland comrades’ radicalism in favor of Free breakfast & education programs, or the American Independent Movement (on which see Mandi Isaacs Jackson’s book Model City Blues) given any attention. The conflicts between Yale and black organizers in the city - see Yohuru Williams’ Black Politics/White Power- are a bit caricatured here. Similarly, because many of Perkins’ informants were Yale administrators, figures like Kingman Brewster and Henry “Sam” Chauncey are portrayed sympathetically. While we hear about the aforementioned Colia Williams incident, in which radical students held administrators hostage to demand the rehiring of a black dining hall waitress fired for resisting harassment by a manager - one of Perkins’ subjects participated in the action - Perkins relies heavily on the Yale Daily News’ reporting on the incident and retains some of its studied disapproval of anything too radical - the occupation and hostage-taking are crazy things that happened to one of Perkins' informants - and got her temporarily suspended -- but have no narrative importance aside from that. The longer story of dining hall labor is not front and center here. Perkins mentions the Yale Non-Faculty Action Committee, the fourth of the many attempts to organize the campus’s clerical and technical workers, which lasted from 1969 to 1972ish, roughly the time span the book covers, only because the union was involved with the HEW complaint that women students, faculty, and "pink collar" workers filed against the administration for gender discrimination. But one would not know simply from reading this book how feminist that union drive was, nor how much of an impact it had on feminism on campus - the feminist periodical Yale Break is discussed, but the extent to which that publication was centrally concerned with the gender politics of clerical work is downplayed substantially. Similarly the fact that Yale between 1968 and 1977 was a hotbed of labor turmoil merits mention here only in a couple of sentences about the 1971 strike by food service and custodial workers. That strike, which my dissertation and book are mostly about is mentioned here only to note the extreme inconvenience posed to students by closed dining halls and the solidarity some students practiced with striking fellow dining hall waitresses. (A cool anecdote.) Perkins even writes that union's business agent out of her description of an important antiwar rally on the green at which Kingman Brewster spoke.
All of this is understandable, since this is really a book about students, not workers. But what if it understood the category of student as in part produced by such solidarities and conflicts, what if it saw in the three women members of the class of 1974 who wrote during the 1971 strike of the violence with which Yale had tried to crush the strike an important and untold story about how coeducation and the transformation of the university’s workforce and their union existed in relation to each other? What would this story look like if told from the perspective of dining hall workers?
Chauncey and fellow administrator Inslee "Inky" Clark. The latter is problematic for the allegations against him surrounding the child sexual abuse scandals at Horace Mann, which Clark left Yale to administer. At least one man has accused Clark of raping him when he was a minor teenager. Perkins casts Clark as deeply sympathetic to coeducation, and does not mention the allegations against him. (He died in 1999.) Sam Chauncey, the career Yale administrator, has a less sordid record, but it was he and Frances Beinecke - whom Perkins represents as a kind of feminist hope for the Yale Corporation - to whom Yale administrators turned to defeat an insurgent campaign by a pro-union local AME clergyperson, the Reverend W. David Lee, for a seat on the Yale Corporation in 2002.) Brewster gets off too easy here too, lauded for the liberalism of his liberal republicanism, chastised when he fails to go further and/or throws figures like Elga Wasserman under the proverbial bus, but one would not know from reading this book that Brewster's administration aggressively busted organizing drives by women workers, or that Brewster's tenure as president, and his attempts to "modernize" the university's labor structure, led directly to years of bitter strikes - every contract expiration for a decade, each longer than the last. Making coeducation the frame tells a compelling and important story about these years, but while the stories Perkins tells here have a lot to say about the culture and politics of academic liberalism at its apogee it is much more forgiving of some key figures than someone chronicling, say, the history of the university police department and its spread into Dixwell and Newhallville, might be.
First, the things I think Perkins does well. This is a breezy but very moving history. It is clear that Perkins put a great deal of thought into how to frame her subjects, and what voices to center. The students she chooses to highlight all have interesting perspectives on the university, feminism, the moment, etc. one is John Huggins’ cousin, raised in New Haven. Another is one of the first African American studies majors. Her discussion into the ubiquitousness of sexual harassment and assault of the first classes of women undergraduates is striking and compelling. Her attention to class disparities among students is also welcome. As someone who has written about the “bursary boys,” the students who worked in the dining halls as a condition of their financial aid, I found especially valuable the passage on one woman bursary worker who witnesses the routinized sexual assault of a non-student dining hall waitress by a manager. This anecdote helps to contextualize Perkins’ brief discussion of the 1969 Colia Williams incident, which I wrote about here and which I will discuss a little more below. https://academia.edu/27254731/Broken_....
Gardiner intentionally and frequently foregrounds the experiences of black students, their estrangement from white feminism, their relation to what Martha Biondi calls “The Black Revolution on Campus,’their work in New Haven public schools, their relationships with and distance from the BPP and the Mayday 1970 strike. I also appreciate the focus on the New Haven Women’s Liberation Rock Band, which included Virginia Blaisdell, who, decades later, would design the logo for Yale’s grad employee union (in addition to a bunch of other union graphics.)
Ok, now to critique: while, to its credit, Yale Needs Women does portray the tensions between black students and police as a central aspect of black student organizing at Yale during this moment, throughout most of the book, the securitization of campus is cast as a feminist goal. I raise this point less to suggest that this was not the case and more to note the ways that this goal operated alongside the university’s role in hollowing out postwar new haven’s working class neighborhoods (in particular, the oak street neighborhood that once separated the main campus from its medical school,) and in violently policing downtown new haven from raced and classed “threats” to the safety and property of well-heeled students and faculty. Perkins notes that Kingman Brewster’s plan to build two new residential colleges to accommodate more women undergraduates ran afoul of New Haven’s machine democrat mayor, Bart Guida. She doesn’t really explain why, (it was in no small part about growing anxieties over Yale's expansion and concomitant removal of prime downtown real estate from the taxable "grand list") nor are the critiques of university expansion by the New Haven panthers, here praised for their alleged abandonment of their Oakland comrades’ radicalism in favor of Free breakfast & education programs, or the American Independent Movement (on which see Mandi Isaacs Jackson’s book Model City Blues) given any attention. The conflicts between Yale and black organizers in the city - see Yohuru Williams’ Black Politics/White Power- are a bit caricatured here. Similarly, because many of Perkins’ informants were Yale administrators, figures like Kingman Brewster and Henry “Sam” Chauncey are portrayed sympathetically. While we hear about the aforementioned Colia Williams incident, in which radical students held administrators hostage to demand the rehiring of a black dining hall waitress fired for resisting harassment by a manager - one of Perkins’ subjects participated in the action - Perkins relies heavily on the Yale Daily News’ reporting on the incident and retains some of its studied disapproval of anything too radical - the occupation and hostage-taking are crazy things that happened to one of Perkins' informants - and got her temporarily suspended -- but have no narrative importance aside from that. The longer story of dining hall labor is not front and center here. Perkins mentions the Yale Non-Faculty Action Committee, the fourth of the many attempts to organize the campus’s clerical and technical workers, which lasted from 1969 to 1972ish, roughly the time span the book covers, only because the union was involved with the HEW complaint that women students, faculty, and "pink collar" workers filed against the administration for gender discrimination. But one would not know simply from reading this book how feminist that union drive was, nor how much of an impact it had on feminism on campus - the feminist periodical Yale Break is discussed, but the extent to which that publication was centrally concerned with the gender politics of clerical work is downplayed substantially. Similarly the fact that Yale between 1968 and 1977 was a hotbed of labor turmoil merits mention here only in a couple of sentences about the 1971 strike by food service and custodial workers. That strike, which my dissertation and book are mostly about is mentioned here only to note the extreme inconvenience posed to students by closed dining halls and the solidarity some students practiced with striking fellow dining hall waitresses. (A cool anecdote.) Perkins even writes that union's business agent out of her description of an important antiwar rally on the green at which Kingman Brewster spoke.
All of this is understandable, since this is really a book about students, not workers. But what if it understood the category of student as in part produced by such solidarities and conflicts, what if it saw in the three women members of the class of 1974 who wrote during the 1971 strike of the violence with which Yale had tried to crush the strike an important and untold story about how coeducation and the transformation of the university’s workforce and their union existed in relation to each other? What would this story look like if told from the perspective of dining hall workers?
Chauncey and fellow administrator Inslee "Inky" Clark. The latter is problematic for the allegations against him surrounding the child sexual abuse scandals at Horace Mann, which Clark left Yale to administer. At least one man has accused Clark of raping him when he was a minor teenager. Perkins casts Clark as deeply sympathetic to coeducation, and does not mention the allegations against him. (He died in 1999.) Sam Chauncey, the career Yale administrator, has a less sordid record, but it was he and Frances Beinecke - whom Perkins represents as a kind of feminist hope for the Yale Corporation - to whom Yale administrators turned to defeat an insurgent campaign by a pro-union local AME clergyperson, the Reverend W. David Lee, for a seat on the Yale Corporation in 2002.) Brewster gets off too easy here too, lauded for the liberalism of his liberal republicanism, chastised when he fails to go further and/or throws figures like Elga Wasserman under the proverbial bus, but one would not know from reading this book that Brewster's administration aggressively busted organizing drives by women workers, or that Brewster's tenure as president, and his attempts to "modernize" the university's labor structure, led directly to years of bitter strikes - every contract expiration for a decade, each longer than the last. Making coeducation the frame tells a compelling and important story about these years, but while the stories Perkins tells here have a lot to say about the culture and politics of academic liberalism at its apogee it is much more forgiving of some key figures than someone chronicling, say, the history of the university police department and its spread into Dixwell and Newhallville, might be.
February 10, 2025
We hear so many stories leading up to women getting the right to vote, the right to speak out, but rarely do we hear about what happens after they reach the goal. This book tells about women's struggles and continuing fights after they are able to attend Yale.
The book includes tons of quotes from both female and male students, faculty members, and family members, and it includes photographs. It's a great book!
The book includes tons of quotes from both female and male students, faculty members, and family members, and it includes photographs. It's a great book!
August 19, 2019
Writing for an academic audience (such as in a dissertation) is totally different from how stories are told in popular non-fiction, so it is rare when an author can turn academic research into a compelling, readable book that non-specialists will enjoy. Anne Gardiner Perkins has done it here.
This is the eye-opening story of how change happens at the cultural and institutional levels, as well as the personal. I really hope this book won't simply be labeled "feminist" and buried on the women's studies shelf, because, while it is a great resource for that field, it is also useful to anyone interested in how societies undergo rapid (and, it turns out, not-so-rapid) changes over "flashpoint" issues.
Those who lived through the 60s will enjoy this look back at the good and bad aspects of the time, and those who have grown up since then will learn a lot about the factors that shape our present-day world and its issues.
This is the eye-opening story of how change happens at the cultural and institutional levels, as well as the personal. I really hope this book won't simply be labeled "feminist" and buried on the women's studies shelf, because, while it is a great resource for that field, it is also useful to anyone interested in how societies undergo rapid (and, it turns out, not-so-rapid) changes over "flashpoint" issues.
Those who lived through the 60s will enjoy this look back at the good and bad aspects of the time, and those who have grown up since then will learn a lot about the factors that shape our present-day world and its issues.
June 1, 2023
This is the book you didn't know you needed to read.
When Yale began losing students to coeducational colleges, it finally admitted women. In 1969, Yale admitted 575 undergraduate women, and while it would be nice to say the university was never the same, this book exposes the truth. A combination of societal shifts distracting people in power and those same people clinging to outdated ideas meant that the shift to a truly coeducational institution took far longer than it should have.
Perkins's book grew out of dissertation on the event, but it is written in a lively and engaging way that belies its origins. Full of both solid data and compelling stories pulled from interviews with the people who were there, the book is an important resource for anyone interested in the history of education and an entertaining read for people who like fresh, entertaining non-fiction.
When Yale began losing students to coeducational colleges, it finally admitted women. In 1969, Yale admitted 575 undergraduate women, and while it would be nice to say the university was never the same, this book exposes the truth. A combination of societal shifts distracting people in power and those same people clinging to outdated ideas meant that the shift to a truly coeducational institution took far longer than it should have.
Perkins's book grew out of dissertation on the event, but it is written in a lively and engaging way that belies its origins. Full of both solid data and compelling stories pulled from interviews with the people who were there, the book is an important resource for anyone interested in the history of education and an entertaining read for people who like fresh, entertaining non-fiction.
June 1, 2025
Book club read, RTC
June 1, 2021
More people need to read about women's history. Way too much of what we all enjoy today is taken for granted. Books like these shed light on all that the previous generations have done for us. This one has definitely stoked my fire to continue to push for progress for those who come after us.
October 27, 2024
Everyone needs to read this book
September 16, 2019
While working on a PhD in History at the University of Massachusetts, the author had a light bulb moment about the first females at historically all-male Yale. The slightly more than 200 women admitted in 1969 as freshmen, sophomores and juniors had become a footnote in history but no one had ever told their stories. So she decided to do it.
Yale Needs Women reminds us of how much has changed over the past 50 years as well as how little essential change has occurred. Those of us who came of age in the bad old days of the 1960s and 1970s will identify with the struggles of the female undergrads at Yale. Despite being eminently qualified for admission and for the most part outperforming their male cohorts, they were treated as “lesser than” and simply ignored by most of the 99% all-male faculty. For the majority of their male classmates they were simply sexual targets.
The university president, Kingston Brewster, Jr., reluctantly succumbed to pressure to allow coeducation in 1967 but only with the commitment to keep male admissions at a 7:1 ratio. He added no female faculty or female residence halls. In fact, they spread the new female undergraduates throughout the residences of the 12 colleges - minimizing the fellowship/sense of belonging that all-women residences might have produced. It also made them easier targets for harassment.
I found this book enthralling to much a deeper extent than I had anticipated. I knew it would be interesting but Ms. Perkins' writing style is such that she transformed an extensive amount of data, including statistics, into a very palatable read. Besides delivering the information about the co-education transformation, she followed up on many of those first female coeds at Yale and other females involved in the process. All these decades later, the statistics for females in higher education faculty and administrative still lag greatly behind.
This is a great read in my opinion because it deals with an important topic and highlights the harsh reception that these first Yale female undergrads were given. Fortunately, they were strong enough to carve a way for themselves and the coeds who followed them. It is not just for feminists - this is a great story of the human spirit that encompasses those who pioneer change as well as those who champion "tradition." I was given an advanced reader copy through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Yale Needs Women reminds us of how much has changed over the past 50 years as well as how little essential change has occurred. Those of us who came of age in the bad old days of the 1960s and 1970s will identify with the struggles of the female undergrads at Yale. Despite being eminently qualified for admission and for the most part outperforming their male cohorts, they were treated as “lesser than” and simply ignored by most of the 99% all-male faculty. For the majority of their male classmates they were simply sexual targets.
The university president, Kingston Brewster, Jr., reluctantly succumbed to pressure to allow coeducation in 1967 but only with the commitment to keep male admissions at a 7:1 ratio. He added no female faculty or female residence halls. In fact, they spread the new female undergraduates throughout the residences of the 12 colleges - minimizing the fellowship/sense of belonging that all-women residences might have produced. It also made them easier targets for harassment.
I found this book enthralling to much a deeper extent than I had anticipated. I knew it would be interesting but Ms. Perkins' writing style is such that she transformed an extensive amount of data, including statistics, into a very palatable read. Besides delivering the information about the co-education transformation, she followed up on many of those first female coeds at Yale and other females involved in the process. All these decades later, the statistics for females in higher education faculty and administrative still lag greatly behind.
This is a great read in my opinion because it deals with an important topic and highlights the harsh reception that these first Yale female undergrads were given. Fortunately, they were strong enough to carve a way for themselves and the coeds who followed them. It is not just for feminists - this is a great story of the human spirit that encompasses those who pioneer change as well as those who champion "tradition." I was given an advanced reader copy through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
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