History of Dominican University of California
Education of Women at Dominican
by Julia McMahon
In an article for the Marin Independent Journal, Dorothy Gardiner called attention to the leaps and bounds the Dominican sisters made for women’s rights; “A half-century before the birth of women’s liberation when suffragettes across the nation were fighting for the right to vote, the Dominican Sisters of San Rafael opened a liberal arts college for women”. The women’s rights movement started around 1848 at Seneca Falls when 300 women and men signed the Declaration of Sentiments, which was a plea for the end of discrimination against women. Although they were allowed to grant degrees in the 1890s, Mother Louis said that they should wait and improve their skills through teaching primary and secondary school. At this time in the women’s rights movement, the first state had just granted women the right to vote in all elections.
It was obvious to everyone who was involved in the college that it was a progressive environment that encouraged growth and challenged the social norm. "The borders of small-mindedness have broken down here’, exclaimed Sister Mary Patrick, O.P., a former dean, president from 1945 to 1968 and a member of the first resident class”. The students and sisters worked together to make huge societal changes by not being afraid of the social repercussions they would most likely face because of their actions.
Unfortunately, the sisters were not able to do all this amazing work without some backlash. It was not a common held belief that women should go to school beyond high school as it was still expected that women stay at home and raise the children, do household chores, and find happiness through doing so. The Dominican sisters saw a women’s role differently than much of America.
