Claiming their intellectual space: academic women at the University of New Zealand 1909–1941

Abstract

ABSTRACT The focus of this article is the first cohort of academic women who carved out an intellectual space for themselves in the Department of Home Science at the University of New Zealand. I begin with an overview of emerging appointment patterns of academic women against a backdrop of contemporary concerns about the higher education of women. I then turn my attention to ways in which women home scientists sought to define and develop their disciplinary expertise and professional knowledge. I trace the career trajectories of the first three women professors and highlight the extent to which these women worked to define their own intellectual boundaries, establish themselves as experts in a feminised scientific field while at the same time working within a gendered domain. I move beyond thinking about the factors and forces that inextricably linked women with domestic space of the home, and invite consideration of women’s work as scientists of the home, consumer educators, and experts in new fields of research.