User:KayleeLong/Women's education in the United States

Early Colonial Ideology
Ideologies held by the majority of early colonial society regarding women’s access to education contributed greatly to the lack of opportunity for education among these women. Seventeenth-century attitudes did not stress significant importance on women’s education, as evidenced by early opinions in the New England colonies. This majority also considered their access to education as unnecessary or dangerous, as their commonly held roles as mothers prevented society from seeing other possible abilities that would demand a need for education. The primary source of respect among these colonial New England women derived from their completion of domestic tasks, not a desire for or fulfillment of intellectual practices.

Structurally, men undoubtedly held a much greater position of power and control than women, as proves true historically. As a result of this imbalance, an inferior perspective to which women became viewed under carried over into intellectual opportunities. Overall, their abilities were not considered level with those of their male counterparts, so no pressing need to further develop their intellect was acknowledged.

These public attitudes that did not recognize a need for women’s education would need to be altered greatly for its future improvement. The number of advocates for women’s improved access to educational institutions grew gradually, and major points of success from their efforts occurred few and far between. New England’s town school in Farmington, Connecticut saw a push for the school to include young girls as well as boys by a minority of people in 1687, a battle which would then extend into the next few centuries.