Though I didn’t study in one myself, women’s colleges were all around me in Chennai where I grew up. At home, generations of women in my family went to the Government Women’s College, Thiruvananthapuram. Yet it was only last year, while archiving the campus magazines of a Mangalore-based women’s college that I began thinking about the impact they have.
I was smitten by the written accounts and grainy black-and-white photographs of happy, confident women playing badminton, acting in plays, on the students’ council, and having the time of their lives during a zoology excursion. It stood out in contrast to my own uninspiring and highly policed science higher education in Tamil Nadu’s coeducational private colleges.
Would a women’s college have given me the freedom to be myself, the space to explore science and to fall in love with it? Curious, I conducted a survey in which 80 alumni of various women’s colleges in the country responded with rich and complicated stories about their experiences.
To make sense of them, we must travel back 180 years.
I: Origin
An image from a booklet from 1921 titled “The Union Missionary Medical School at Vellore, published by Joint Committee of the Women’s Union Christian Colleges in the Orient. Source: Internet Archives
Before women’s colleges, there were girls’ schools.
The 19th century was a time when child marriage was still prevalent. From the average upper-caste patriarch’s point of view, there was no need for their girls to receive formal education. Safeguarding their honour was top priority, and it could be achieved by secluding them from the rest of society. As for girls from lowered castes, formal education was not an option because of the extreme persecution their communities faced from the higher castes. Recognising that upper-caste orthodoxy was the root cause of all inequalities, social reformers Jyotirao and Savitribai Phule founded what was likely India’s first school for girls in Bhidewada Vishrambag, Pune, in 1848.
Around the same time, the British and various Christian missions realised that the backward status of women was coming in the way of their colonial and missionary goals. The only way families would consider education for their girls was to comply with the rules of ‘purdah’ or seclusion, so “zenana” (girls only) schools were set up. “Vehicles transporting girls to schools were enclosed with curtains, and public spaces in the school and college premises were blocked from public gaze,” writes sociologist Karuna Chanana in her 1993 Higher Education paper.
By the end of the 19th century, there were enough school-educated young women for the question of higher education to arise. Most existing universities would not accept Indian women; even if they did, few parents would allow their young daughters to join these male-dominated spaces. Women’s colleges were a feasible solution to this fix. Bethune College in Kolkata, founded in 1879, calls itself Asia’s first women’s college. It emerged from the Calcutta Female School, established in 1849 by John Elliot Drinkwater Bethune, an English mathematician who believed that education could make women “better wives and better mothers in their homes”.
Other early colleges include Lucknow’s Isabella Thoburn College (founded 1886), Palayamkottai’s Sarah Tucker College (1895), and Trivandrum’s Govt College for Women (1897). Most of these colleges grew out of girls’ schools and started off by offering pre-degree courses in fine arts. Degree colleges and courses in maths and science became more common only in the 1920s. Reportedly, Dorothy de la Hey, the founder of Chennai’s Queen Mary’s College (est. 1914), allocated free horse-drawn carriages to transport her science students safely to the nearby Presidency College, which had better facilities for science education. In 1921, India’s first-ever women’s university, SNDT University located in Bombay, opened its doors.
An image from a booklet from 1921 titled “The Union Missionary Medical School at Vellore, published by Joint Committee of the Women’s Union Christian Colleges in the Orient. Source: Internet Archives
A need for women medics
The same cultural taboos that kept women secluded also forbade male physicians from treating women. The trauma of witnessing the extent of infant and maternal mortality around her drove young Ida Scudder, the daughter of American medical missionaries based in Vellore, to start a hospital for women in 1903, and the Union Missionary Medical School (today known as Christian Medical College) for women in 1918. The latter became coeducational in 1946. Even before CMC, there was Lady Hardinge Medical College, founded in 1916 in New Delhi, and North India Medical School for Women in Ludhiana, founded in 1894.
“Thus Indian women could join one of the most prestigious modern professions, which was male dominated until recently in most of the first world countries,” reflects Karuna in her 1990 Sociological Bulletin paper. “This strategy [of women-only schools and colleges] succeeded in drawing women into the public and political domains without radically altering traditional notions of feminine roles,” she added.
The foundations of the first women’s colleges were not laid with equality of the sexes in mind. Yes, women in these colleges would receive education, but they were still expected to conform. As it turned out, the young women who went to these colleges exceeded these moderate expectations. They were able to find their voices and use these spaces to their benefit in brilliant, creative and inspiring ways.
I designed a questionnaire to get a clearer picture of how transformational—or not—women’s colleges have been to the lives of women in science. The only criterion the questionnaire demanded was that science (or maths) be one of the subjects they studied. 76 people responded.
II: The questionnaire
Results from the survey, with charts generated with the help of Claude AI. Credit: Nandita Jayaraj
I was pretty content with the 76, until I looked at the latest AISHE survey (which is sadly five years old), according to which there are at least 17 universities and 4,470 colleges in India that are exclusively for women!
Except for one respondent who identified as non-binary, the rest identified as women. Almost 83 per cent of respondents reported coming from middle-income families, 13 per cent from high-income families, and the rest from low-income families. About 20 per cent of the respondents belonged to the first generation of women in their families to receive a college education. The senior-most respondent attended college in the 1960s, and the youngest ones graduated in the 2020s. The vast majority carried out their undergraduate (BSc) studies at a women’s college, but a handful spoke about their pre-university and Masters’ level experience.
The largest representations came from Chennai, Mumbai, New Delhi, Trivandrum, Mangalore, and Bangalore.
What leads a young woman to a woman’s college? According to the respondents of my questionnaire, the top reason for enrolling in the women’s college was its academic reputation (58 responses), followed by the convenience of its location/proximity to home (35). Affordability was the next most commonly cited reason. Only 16 checked “Absence of boys and men made your family feel more secure”, and 6 checked “Your own sense of safety and comfort”. Interestingly, it was the more recent graduates who most cited family security as a reason. Another notable trend was that affordability came up more in the post-2000 cohort than among their seniors.
III: The science education experience
Students from St Agnes College, Mangalore, depicted in the college magazine. Credit: St Agnes College/Archives at NCBS
To the question “Do you believe that studying at a women’s college was beneficial to your science education?” 36 per cent of the respondents answered yes, 39 per cent said maybe, while the rest said no. 67 per cent of the respondents reported that they continued to pursue science in some way after college. And, 65 per cent were able to build a career in science. With respect to their personal experiences and the quality of science education they received, some themes stood out to me.
The freedom to be (for most)
More than half of the respondents used the language of freedom or liberation somewhere in their responses, even though none of my questions engaged with such ideas explicitly. For respondents such as 82-year-old Prasanna Kumari, who studied physics at Government College for Women, Thiruvananthapuram, in the 1960s, this meant the freedom to wear clothes of their choice “without the fear of vulgar comments”. Mahananda Bohidar, who did her pre-degree in science at RD Women’s College, Bhubaneswar, remembers feeling free to walk around and participate in extra curricular activities “without feeling conscious of my body and existence”. Another respondent was surprised to find during her coed PhD experience that running—which she did freely while in the women’s college she was earlier at—was suddenly looked at as “indecent” behaviour from a woman.
Until the recent crackdown on academic freedom and student autonomy, women’s colleges were considered relatively safe spaces for queer women. In her 2022 paper “The Women’s College, Between Queer Utopias and Heterotopias”, researcher Nivedita Tuli writes about “holding hands with my partner without the fear of being harassed, dress without worrying about whether my appearance would impress or trigger men, have long discussions with professors without the insecurity of being overlooked in favor of a male counterpart, and spend hours in the library and grounds delving into books and papers that helped me challenge everything about the world outside.”
Chayanika Shah, physicist, queer activist and author of Space, Segregation and Discrimination (2021), pointed out that this is not the case for gender transgressing queer women. I was not able to gather any data on the experiences of transgender persons in women’s colleges. It’s likely that transgender men have always existed in these spaces, just because it’s easier for the administration and the campus community to accept who they see as a ‘tomboy’ or a masculine woman. On the other hand, transwomen are practically absent from these spaces. SNDT Women’s University only recently opened its doors to trans women. In 2015, Bengali scholar Manabi Bandyopadhyay made history when she was appointed principal of Krishnanagar Women’s College in West Bengal. Every couple of years, we see news reports hailing a women’s college for admitting a transwoman, but these are exceptions. By and large, women’s colleges have been just as guilty of erasure of trans identities as any other educational institution in India.
Results from the survey, with charts generated with the help of Claude. Credit: Nandita Jayaraj
Better teaching & better learning
A free mind manifests in better teaching and learning, and examples of this cropped up in the survey. An alumnus of Chennai’s Ethiraj College pointed out, “we asked a lot of questions about reproductive health and hormones because it was women-only lectures”. Afifa Siddiqui, 27, who graduated from Sophia College for Women, Mumbai, brought up the comfort of women teachers. “I felt the teachers were able to be better at their job since there were no boys to make trouble”.
At least seven respondents specifically praised the field trips the college had organised for them. Aswathi Asokan, who studied zoology at Stella Maris College in Chennai, reported that professors took her class for several trips and walks to study the subject first-hand. She went on to do her masters in wildlife conservation, and today she works in nature education.
Back in 1975, Severine Rosario vividly remembers a trip with fellow maths students to the LIC office in Chennai, where they saw a (likely mainframe) computer for the first time in their lives. “The people working there allowed us to input a difficult maths problem and see if the computer could solve it. Using the punch cards, we entered an equation and within no time, the answer came out on a punch card. We would have spent two hours on this, but it took the computer just two minutes!”
Students from St Agnes College, Mangalore, depicted in the college magazine. Credit: St Agnes College/Archives at NCBS
A sense of empowerment
Nearly two-thirds of the respondents brought up the matter of safety. For most women, a (mostly) man-free atmosphere meant that they could afford to take their physical safety for granted. In particular, respondents from Delhi, expressed the value of having a safe space within their college. “In a city notorious for violence against women, my college provided a haven of freedom and safety,” commented Joyshree Chanam, who left home in Imphal to study botany at Miranda House.
It is interesting to note that for women pursuing higher education, it’s not just important for a place to actually be safe, but that their family perceive it as safe. “Had this been a co-ed college and that too in New Delhi, I don’t think my family would’ve allowed me to explore as many extracurricular activities, internships, and research experiences,” said Sreshtha Mondal, who studied zoology at Gargi College, New Delhi.
Another respondent who is currently working in vaccine discovery research summed up what a basic human right like safety can mean to a young woman at that point in life: “The kind of freedom we get being in a space where our safety is not at risk, it allows our mind to finally be capable to doing so much more.”
The word “empower” came up 17 times in the responses to the questionnaire. Some offered specific examples that illustrate what this looked like for them. One respondent was deeply inspired by the “unapologetically smart and outspoken” women around her at Sophia College for Women, Mumbai. “It shows that a man is not needed to run a great institute,” she wrote. Khushi Goel’s experience at Daulat Ram College, New Delhi, made her believe “I can choose whatever profession I want, and I can pursue it. I, as a woman, have the physical, analytical, intellectual, and psychological strength to pursue whatever I dream of.”
Proactive professors made a big difference to the experience of Tulsi Goyal, who studied botany and biotechnology at Women’s Christian College, Chennai. “You have constant reminders of just how vast and wide-reaching the work of women has been throughout history… we were always made aware of their contributions alongside the men’s by our professors.”
Though most didn’t articulate it directly, it is evident that the quality of the experiences at women’s colleges honed students’ leadership skills. This is also something that Karuna, the sociologist, brought up during our interview. At least two respondents spoke about how opportunities in college built their confidence in public speaking and occupying the limelight. One of them was Smitha Hegde, who studied at St Agnes College in Mangalore in the 1980s and has gone on to become a prominent figure in botany research and science education.
One of the Pinjra Tod protests at Banaras Hindu College. Credit: Pinjra Tod Facebook page
“For the longest time, these colleges were catering to parents who were worried about their daughters getting into relationships with boys… so they became proxy parents.” – Chayanika Shah.
Many colleges in the country impose strict rules on women students, such as dress codes as well as curfews. Between 2015 and 2019, women in such campuses around the country came together in the Pinjra Tod movement, which demanded an end to regressive rules in women’s hostels. Students from women’s colleges also participated in the protests.
A few respondents expressed bitterness about the rules and restrictions, but some wondered if this was perhaps a reasonable price to pay for freedom within the premises. Lipi Thukral, a computational structural biologist at CSIR-IGIB, remembers the culture shock that accompanied her move from Delhi to Banasthali Vidyapith—a private women’s university in Rajasthan—where she was to pursue an MSc in bioinformatics. Students were required to wear only Khadi, mobile access was banned, and the students were not permitted to leave campus. Yet, Lipi describes her academic experience as excellent. “We were given internet access and our own computer in the hostel room that four girls shared. Late-night practical classes were usual… [We had] the freedom to go to classes at night and walk freely back to the hostel without safety issues.”
For others, the restrictions dampened their experience. For Siva Shakthi A, a scientist-turned-bookshop owner from Pondicherry, it was the college hostel at Chennai that came in the way. “We were not allowed to go out on weekdays, except on Wednesdays. On weekends, we were allowed to go out, but we had to return by 6 pm. I wanted to learn piano, theatre, and attend book clubs, but most of these happened past 5 p.m. So nothing happened.” And in the case of science communicator Mrunal Kulkarni, the atmosphere at her women’s college in Hyderabad was “unnecessarily restrictive and non-motivating”.
Sexism and discrimination
By and large, it seems that the women-dominated environment within the campus shielded students from everyday sexism and discrimination that is common in society. “We were free to explore many new fields and see what we enjoy the most, without worrying about gender based comparisons and stereotypes,” said one respondent.
Several women’s colleges, such as St Agnes College in Mangalore, also employ male teachers. In fact, on noticing that most of the heads of the departments were men, Severine Rosario, who studied there in the 1970s, recalls aspiring for a future where her friends and she would occupy that position someday. “Especially in a boys’ college!” she added, on a cheeky note.
A batch of science students at a women’s college. Credit: St Agnes College/Archives at NCBS
That said, the women-only nature of colleges didn’t always protect their students from sexism. A respondent who currently works as a school teacher at a school recalled a bitter experience when she approached her lecturer at a women’s college in New Delhi, for guidance. “I had scored 506th rank in the IIT-JAM exam… he told me that I’m not Euclid, so I can join any college and it won’t make any difference.”
Societal expectations held back others, too. One of them complained about “the lack of healthy competition and career-oriented peers to share the excitement of science”. It seemed to her that most of her classmates at a women’s college in Hyderabad had only enrolled to delay marriage. Similarly, a physics graduate from a prominent Bangalore college observed that research exposure was sidelined and B.Sc. students were pushed towards teaching. “It felt stereotypical to think teaching was the only next option for the girls,” she noted in the questionnaire.
“A lot of negative messaging can get instilled in these spaces,” warned Chayanika. “Take a college like Sophia’s for example. In all these years, it has still not started a B.Sc. physics or maths programme,” she pointed out. Sophia College For Women, situated in Mumbai where Chayanika is based, offers only majors in life sciences and chemistry. Students can take physics and math only as additional subjects in the first year. “That is sending a message, right? That women don’t need to study physics.”
When the bubble bursts
“…the moment I stepped out, I felt vulnerable, as if I was being protected and pampered for so long.”
The single most commonly cited setback of women’s colleges was the difficulty mingling with men later on in life. One respondent spoke about “troubles dealing with how cruel and selfish men can be when they start working.” Another, now in her 70s, conveyed how this led to opportunity loss. “When I was working in an international company, I was the most hard-working woman in the team, but my communication skills were not so great, especially with men who were the bosses at the company. I was heartbroken when someone who did half the work as me but was very good at communicating her work got a very good raise in salary, and I didn’t get any!”
Though this respondent felt that her college helped her become academically strong, she felt underprepared socially. For this reason alone, she does not recommend women’s colleges to today’s young women. Considering that this is a common complaint, it makes sense for college administrations to take note and implement orientation programmes and other avenues through which young women can get used to socialising in more gender-diverse groups.
V: Looking beyond women-only colleges
A meeting of the students’ council at a women’s college. Credit: St Agnes College Magazine/Archives at NCBS
Towards the end of the questionnaire, the respondents were asked: “Would you recommend the experience of attending a women’s college to a young woman today?” 43 per cent answered yes, 27 per cent answered maybe, and 20 per cent answered no. The reasons for their answers are informed not just by their personal experiences but also by their understanding of the current social context.
The genesis of women’s colleges has a lot to do with female sexuality, reminds Karuna. “Sending her outside school/colleges means sending her to an unprotected world.” Moreover, she added that science was an added risk to women’s safety, “because it means staying after school or college hours. This means going home late, generally unaccompanied by collegemates or the college bus.”
But doesn’t that mean that by supporting women’s colleges we are perpetuating these regressive ideas? Perhaps, but it cannot be denied that these are still some of the few spaces where women are entrusted with roles and responsibilities that enable them to excel. Having spoken with so many women scientists working in male-dominated institutes over the years, a flood of examples rush to mind. In one case, a vexed space scientist shared with me her bitterness about being tasked with “Tree planting” for her institute’s Independence Day function. Her all-male colleagues, on the other hand, were assigned responsibilities such as “Inviting eminent people” and “Experimental setup”.
“I don’t see why all institutions should be co-educational,” challenged Karuna. She pointed to the fact that there are vast swathes of our country where traditional societal norms, safety concerns, social hierarchies and dynamics are still too rigid for us to have outgrown the need for girls’ schools and women-only colleges. “Although their proportion in higher educational institutions, (majority of which are coeducational) is now substantial, women [in coeducational institutions] still face structural and systemic barriers, in comparison to women-only colleges, to move up and become leaders in these institutions,” she said.
This concern was also echoed by some of the respondents of the questionnaire: “It has been due to aided format girls’ colleges that most of the women in my family have had an avenue to complete their education,” said one.
Astrophysicist and gender equity advocate Prajval Shastri, one of the respondents, believes that “women-only spaces should be jettisoned and spaces that are intentionally safe and welcoming for everybody should be built instead.” Chayanika Shah agrees: “I really feel that segregation is not the way to go. It doesn’t help anybody. It helped to get that access, but it is not helping to build a more gender positive and gender equal society.”
There is something to this. Remember, women’s colleges today are descendents of the zenana model of education, primarily built for upper caste and middle class women, by European missionaries, educationists, or social reformers who also belonged to these sections. Even today, women from socioeconomically backward groups and transgender persons do not have equal access to or the same quality of experience in these spaces.
Perhaps it need not have been this way. Think about the schools set up by Savitribai Phule and others in Maharashtra (18 of them from 1848 to 1852). These were focused on educating not just girls but also children from lowered castes. The schools also differed in terms of what they taught—prioritising maths and science over religious texts. Their founders faced significant social stigma for their audacious attempts at empowering the most oppressed. There was little support for these schools and, tragically, most of them were discontinued. It is fascinating to imagine an alternative trajectory of women’s education—and in fact Indian society itself—that could have been realised if the Phule model was championed.
In recent years, a number of women’s colleges have been quietly turning co-educational. Mount Carmel College in Bangalore and St Agnes College in Mangalore are two prominent examples. Though publicly, the management cites reasons such as ‘getting university status’ or ‘diversity’, it may also have to do with financial pressures due to a dip in admissions. For whatever reason, these colleges believe that the women-only model is no longer working for them.
The question is: would the evolution into mixed gender spaces be such a terrible thing?
***
The featured image of this story is from an issue of the St Agnes College Magazine, archived for public access by Labhopping. Digitised issues of the magazine are available on the Archives at NCBS.
Some of my sources remain anonymous on request or in order to protect their identities.
This is the second piece in the Labhopping Summer Science Trilogy 2026 supported by our donors. Keep Labhopping Science Media Forum running by making a contribution via Razorpay.
