ABSTRACT
"Women who read, much more women who write, are, in the existing constitution of things, a contradiction and a disturbing element" wrote John Stuart Mill in 1861. To accommodate educated women—to resolve our contradictory status—Mill wanted to reform society. Ultimately, the various versions of the claim that an educated woman is a contradiction reduce to such thinking. As Mill realized, many qualities are genderized—that is appraised differently by a given culture or society when possessed by males and females. Given that any acknowledgment of the workings of gender in education is likely to be construed as an acceptance of fixed male and female natures, it is tempting to adopt the strategy of ignoring gender entirely. Virginia Woolf was keenly aware and sharply critical of the different wages paid men and women. She also knew full well the costs to women of the sacrifice of self that was so often the price of helping others.
