Well-educated women? On the rise!

Whether health, law, architecture, economics, language and much more: women are very much at home at Swiss universities. But that wasn't always the case.

Today, we want girls - in the past they were a «burden»

According to surveys, expectant mothers in Switzerland increasingly want girls. But it wasn't so long ago that the birth of a daughter meant a huge financial burden for the family. If you wanted to survive, you had to work and earn money, and the less well-educated girls often had a hard time doing so. With the introduction of compulsory education in Switzerland in 1830, girls were entitled to four to six years of education in reading, writing and arithmetic. But it was not appropriate for well-off daughters to work - and poorer girls could only find poorly paid jobs on this basis.

For a long time, women were considered unsuitable for studying

For a long time, young women were excluded from higher public schools, gymnasia or even universities. This was because it was long debated whether their mental capacity and physical constitution made them suitable for studying at all. Although secondary schools for girls were founded in the second half of the 19th century, with teacher training colleges, commercial departments and gymnasium classes, they were reserved for wealthy circles and, above all, prepared girls for their role as wives and mothers.

The first female Swiss doctor needed her father's signature to study

Nevertheless, there were women who were not deterred. Marie Heim-Vögtlin, for example. She was the first Swiss woman to start studying medicine at the University of Zurich, a decision that caused a scandal throughout Switzerland. Her father had to give written permission to her to take her exams in 1873. She was awarded her doctorate in 1874. Her father had to intervene again so that she could then open a practice in Zurich. In 1901, she opened her first Swiss women's hospital with an affiliated nursing school.

The firs female Swiss lawyer was denied admission to the bar

Emilie Kempin-Spyri fared even worse. In 1887, she was the first woman to be awarded a doctorate and habilitation in law at the University of Zurich. However, her lack of active citizenship prevented her from being admitted to the bar. Her plea to the Federal Supreme Court that the term «Swiss» in the Federal Constitution included both men and women was rejected with the comment «equally new and bold». She therefore emigrated to New York, where she taught at a law school for women that she had founded. Today, the proportion of women in high schools and universities is very high, and in many cases even exceeds that of men.