Book of the Week - Bluestockings - Episode 4

Miriam Margolyes reads from Jane Robinson's account of the pioneering British women who overcame all odds to get a university education. Women had to wait until 1869 before they could enrol at Cambridge University, and even then the odds were stacked against them. Female brains were considered too small to compete with those of men, and the country's leading doctors warned that if women studied too hard their wombs would wither and die. Although academic success comes easily to many bluestockings, some still find relationships something of a stumbling block. Friendships, crushes and full-blown affairs with both students and tutors become treacherous for those young women who have barely spoken to a man before. Meanwhile, from fighting for academic equality, it is only a short step to agitating for political enfranchisment. The suffragette movement that is taking off across the country soon makes its mark on academia.