Educating Women: A History of Access, Exclusion and Backlash

The war against “radical gender ideology” has been staggering. The ascent of President Trump brought calls for the elimination of women’s and LGBTQ centers, rollbacks on Title IX protections, the exclusion of trans women from college sports and the purging of gender and sexuality studies from college curricula across U.S. higher education. These actions signal a massive backlash against decades of progress—and are inseparable from a broader assault on civil rights-era protections for people of color. However, this moment is nothing new. It echoes an earlier race- and gender-based backlash over a century ago, when growing numbers of white middle-class women began to attend college. Against the backdrop of Black emancipation, increased migration and the expanding feminist movement, women’s education was cast as a threat—not just to patriarchy, but to the future of the white race. Today’s backlash is the latest attempt to restore the status quo—to draw boundaries around who is entitled to higher education and to reinforce a racial and gender hierarchy that has always shaped access to learning in the United States. (This essay is part of the FEMINIST 250: Founding Feminists series, marking the 250th anniversary of America by reclaiming the revolution through the women and gender-expansive people whose ideas, labor and resistance shaped U.S. democracy.) The post Educating Women: A History of Access, Exclusion and Backlash appeared first on Ms. Magazine.

4/13/2026 7:00:00 AM Read more