Fundamentalism versus education - a word-wide women's struggle

'Please note that if I am committing suicide today … it is not for economic reasons … but for political reasons. For I have decided to send Ad Petres [to the fathers] the feminists who have ruined my life … The feminists always have a talent for enraging me. They want to retain the advantages of being women … while trying to grab those of men … They are so opportunistic that they neglect to profit from the knowledge accumulated by men throughout the ages. They always try to misrepresent them every time they can.'

Lepine attached a list of 19 women whom he intended to target, saying they had escaped through not 'fitting in' to his timeframe. The named women held non-traditional occupations, including Quebec's 'first' woman police captain and 'first' woman fire-fighter. These women 'nearly died today', wrote Lepine, however 'the lack of time (because I started too late) has allowed these radical feminists to survive'.

If more evidence is needed, upon entering a classroom where a male professor instructed 10 women and 48 men students, Lepine fired two shots into the ceiling, crying: 'I want the women. I hate feminists.' Sending the men from the room, he lined the women up against the wall, then fired upon them all, killing six and injuring the others. He continued the rampage by shooting dead women in the cafeteria, an office, and another classroom. At the final count, the dead included Genevieve Bergeron, 21; Helene Colgan, 23; Nathalie Croteau, 23; Barbara Daigneault, 22; Anne-Marie Edward, 21; Maud Haviernick, 29; Barbara Maria Klucznik, 31; Maryse Leclair, 23; Michele Richard, 21; Maryse Laganiere, 25, Anne-Marie Lemay, 22; Annie St.-Arneault, 23; Sonia Pelletier, 28; and Annie Turcotte, 21.

Some may see these events as isolated in the present, without historical precedent. Yet the denial of history is an easy way out of recognising the longevity of antagonism toward women's right to education and entry into trades and professions alongside their male counterparts.

In 1910 the Sydney Morning Herald column 'Puck's Girdle' carried the following item:

'Frenchmen have hit upon a unique method of boycotting women from the professions usually held by men. The woman lawyer is fairly firmly established in Paris, but her confreres do not mean her to remain so, for the junior members of the Bar have entered into a solemn league not to propose marriage to any lady who follows a profession which belongs by tradition to the other sex. The movement has been joined by other professional men who are afraid of competition, and seems to be formed in all seriousness …'

Puck's sense of humour prevailed, the column concluding:

'Apparently it has not occurred to these gentleman that women who are capable of entering the learned professions would hardly be likely to listen to proposals of marriage from men who so openly confess their weakness and inefficiency.'

More than half a century before, in the 1860s, Sophia Jex-Blake and six would-be fellow medical students fought through the United Kingdom legal system to be accepted as having a legitimate right to join the Edinburgh University student body. Sophia Jex-Blake had already successfully passed her first year of medicine, however, when the next half-dozen women sought to join her, the University decided it was 'no place for a woman' – much less seven of them. Finding refuge in University regulations referring to 'persons' with particular qualifications being entitled to enter, the University authorities decided that 'person' did not include 'woman', meaning the regulations precluded women's entry. The only persons in existence – according to this 'analysis' – were men.

The University Visitor – a member of the House of Lords – had earlier determined that women were within the regulations. However, when the matter went to the House of Lords on appeal, he changed his mind: sitting as a Law Lord, he joined with his fellow judges in finding neither Sophia Jex-Blake nor her six fellow-claimants were 'persons'. One of the judges said that as no woman had applied to the University before, this meant that universities were not meant to educate women. He overlooked the fact universities elsewhere – such as Bologna – had admitted women. He also avoided the fact that Sophia Jex-Blake had applied – and had been admitted one whole year before the further six applicants made their play for entry. Still, the idea that women were not 'persons' held sway, a refuge for courts and judges where women sought entry not only to university, but to professions – particularly the law.

When in 1899 Ada E. Evans applied to study law at the University of Sydney, she was allowed to enter: the spectre that she was not a person was not raised at that time. Her admission occurred, however, in the absence of the Dean, Professor Pitt Cobbett – who was overseas on sabbatical leave. Upon his return, doors slammed, chairs flew about the room and there was much banging on desks, Pitt Cobbett expostulating that Miss Evans should have been admitted to the medical faculty, a stream of study in which she (in his view) would be far better placed (she 'did not have the physique for law and would find medicine more suitable'). Nevertheless, Miss Evans remained – to successfully complete her degree, graduating in 1902. The first woman law graduate in Australia, she did not go on to practice law, for the notion that she was not a person caught up with her: the Legal Practice Act referred to 'persons' with a law degree as entitled to practice. As a woman with a law degree, this did not include her. The Bar in England excluded her, too.

Others having applied to practice at the English Bar, Gwynth Bebb came forward as a 'test case', to be told officially – by the courts – that she was a non-person. The test case, Bebb v. Law Society, was decided in 1913. Bebb had graduated from Oxford University with a 'first' in law. Eventually, with the passage of the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act 1919 (UK), the United Kingdom Parliament acceded to the notion that women, like men, could practice law.

A year previously, the passage of the Women's Legal Status Act 1918 (NSW) enabled women to enter the legal profession in that state, with New South Wales being the last Australian jurisdiction to extend this right to women. This meant, however, that the 'women are not persons' notion was embedded: the Legal Practice Act having been taken to apply to men (as persons) only, required passage of an Act referring explicitly to 'women'.

Why this fundamentalism, crossing national boundaries, when it comes to women and education? Perhaps the answer lies in the revealing comment made by one of the House of Lords judges in the Sophia Jex-Blake case; that 'knowledge is power'.

For fundamentalists, power is both sexed and gendered. Hence, women and girls must remain outside the realm advancing them to knowledge. For fundamentalists, women, girls and power have no place. The shooting of Malala Yousufzai stands as another episode in the historical struggle of women against the patriarchal denial of women's right to empowerment.