ABSTRACT
There is an expanding literature on women’s participation in higher education as students, teachers and researchers (Adams, 1996; Dyhouse, 1995; Davies, Quinn and Lubelska, 1994; Griffiths, 1996) but although some research has been undertaken on the role of women in trade unions (Lawrence, 1994) little of it has been specific to higher education. This is therefore necessarily a very personal account of the place of trade union activity in an academic career and the necessity of collective action to improve the position of women in higher education. The first member of my family to attend university, I went to Oxford in the late 1950s where I was outnumbered nine to one by males. I was, of conrse, a member of an all-female college and I distinctly remember being berated by an elderly female don for not wearing my gown - ‘We fought for your right to wear a gown’. My only experience of collective action as an undergraduate was organizing a petition against the disgusting college food. After graduating and a spell of postgraduate research (my supervisor did not approve of doctorates, even for ‘gentlemen’), I found a post as, what would now be called, a contract research worker - a suitable job for a woman. I was then fortunate to obtain a university lectureship at a time of expansion
when there were sufficient jobs available to take a risk on a woman (‘how useful to have a woman in the department’).
