In this riveting book, Anne Gardiner Perkins presents the stories and history behind Yale’s decision to become coed and start accepting female undergraduate students in 1969, at a time when feminism, women’s lib, and activism was increasingly making the news. Yale Needs Women is one of the best works of feminist nonfiction I have ever read, set during an eventful time in American history. Focusing on the lives of five of the first female students at Yale, this book discusses the issues female students faced when they were often the only women in the room.

I loved this book. It was everything I wanted it to be, and perhaps more. This book is a page-turner, and after I first picked it up, I couldn’t stop picking it up again to read more and more, finishing it in three days. The stories of all five women were varied and different and included many voices and experiences. I love narrative-driven nonfiction, and the women we follow in this book are a perfect mix to highlight life at Yale during this fascinating time in Yale’s (and America’s) history.

In fact, that’s one of the things that I loved best about this book. Feminism is, of course, a big theme in this book, but it does not focus only on white feminism, and instead makes a point to showcase how black students did not feel represented by some of the white-led activism on campus, and shared how black female students were equally vocal and active in their efforts, including creating a seminar class that studied black women’s leaders and hosting the “Conference on Black Women” which featured Maya Angelou as a speaker.

For much of the book, I was a little bit disappointed that there didn’t seem to be any mention of LGBTQ students, but was later happy to read that one of the five students comes out as a lesbian and becomes involved with other lesbian feminists outside of Yale. I was so excited!

Perkins also wrote earlier in the book:

"The gay women were there, of course, but the climate made sure most kept that identity hidden. Many aspects of sex at Yale went unseen in 1970. The presence of gay students was just one of them."

Suffice to say, by the end, I was no longer disappointed in this book’s LGBTQ content.

I loved this book, and while I try not to assign star ratings, this book is definitely a five-star book and well-worth reading. It’s engaging, informative, and educational. Especially pick this up if you have an interest in campus activism and second-wave feminism!

I received this book via NetGalley for an honest review.

Yale Needs Women by Anne Gardiner Perkins is a fabulous historical novel based on the first females that were accepted and lived on campus at Yale starting the summer/fall term of 1969.

This is particularly interesting for anyone that is interested in female rights/liberties, how we have acquired what we have so far, and to gage how far we still need to go. It is fascinating (and honestly very sad) to see how difficult it was for these women to just want to have the same opportunities and educational experiences as men, and how they were treated and probably overwhelmed doing so.

This gives the positives as well as the cascade of repercussions of this monumental integration.

A fascinating read. I was able to devour this gem in less then 2 days. 5/5 stars.

Thank you NetGalley for this ARC and in return I am giving my unbiased and voluntary review.

This is now posted on my GR, Amazon and B&N accounts. Some of the links did not work, so I put my UN on the link for reference (Amazon IN under RF B&N Rachel_Denise01). 9/10/19

I loved this book! Even though it is non-fiction, it read like a novel. I got attached to the young women who were the first at Yale and enjoyed learning about their achievements before, during and after Yale. This is one of my favorite non-fiction books and I can't wait to see what else Anne Gardiner Perkins writes! Thank you for this amazing story and shedding a light on this forgotten part of history!

"The phrase rankled, and some women liked to extend it: "one thousand male leaders and two hundred concubines," they would say to each other, underscoring what the tagline implied for their own status. The male undergraduates were the given, the nonnegotiable, the heart of Yale's mission. The women were add-ons."

In 1969, Yale admitted the first 575 women into their undergraduate school - a quantity that meant the ladies were outnumbered by their male counterparts at a ratio of roughly 7:1. And what was one of the primary reasons Yale president Kingman Brewster, Jr. decided to let these ladies in in the first place? Equality? Fairness? Guess again: by 1968, 40% of students accepted by Yale were choosing to go elsewhere, with a majority citing Yale's single-sex status as the reason. Essentially, he didn't want Yale's status to suffer.

So these 575 ladies get admitted, and then life is all peaches and cream and rainbows for them, right? Not so much. These ladies had to deal with constant sexual harassment - even if that term hadn't been invented yet. There were no sports for women to play, only a "women's exercise" class. The Yale Wiffenpoofs, the most prestigious singing group at Yale, stated "it would make an inferior sound to have girls singing," and thus, wouldn't allow women in. Mory's club, where Yale professors would wine, dine, and conduct business meetings, was off-limits to ladies as well.

Yale Needs Women primarily follows five women who were admitted in that first class of 575 - Kit McClure, the only female (reluctantly) allowed in the Yale marching band; Lawrie Mifflin, a field hockey enthusiast who wanted nothing more than to establish a female Varsity team at Yale; Connie Royster, a budding dramatist; Betty Spahn, a political activist; and Shirley Daniels, a leader in the Black Student Alliance at Yale.

Although Yale Needs Women's principal focus is on, well, women at Yale, Perkins also weaves in a lot of events that were also happening at the time and impacted Yale life, such at the Black Panther movement, the Vietnam War, and abortion rights. This helped the reader get a more holistic sense of life at Yale, rather than just the slice of the fight to increase the number of ladies enrolled.

I'm blown away that this book started out as Perkins's history dissertation and is her first book. If you just read "history dissertation" and equate that with "boring," you'd be oh so wrong in this case. Perkins writes in a style that grabs the reader's attention from page one and doesn't let it go until the story is wrapped up. As an avocado toast eating millennial, I had no idea that it was as recently as when my mother went to college that Yale wasn't enrolling women in their undergraduate program. So I found it fascinating to read about the plights of the first ladies as they paved the way for future generations. The amount of research and the thoroughness through which it is conducted is clearly evident. Basically, this book checks a lot of the boxes for me: well written, interesting, about a topic I knew little about going in, and relevant to conversations going on in the world today. Perkins writes in a non-ranty, tell-it-like-it-is manner that I didn't find off-putting like I've found with some other feminist books I've read as of late. I can already tell that Yale Needs Women will be sticking in my brain for a long time to come. I started talking this book up at a party I attended this past weekend, and I'll continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Go forth and pick yourself up a copy, stat!

Yale Needs Women – Anne Gardiner Perkins – Sourcebooks 2019 – Net Galley

While working on a PhD in History at the University of Massachusetts, the author had a light bulb moment about the first females at historically all-male Yale. The slightly more than 200 women admitted in 1969 as freshmen, sophomores and juniors had become a footnote in history but no one had ever told their stories. So she decided to do it.

Yale Needs Women reminds us of how much has changed over the past 50 years as well as how little essential change has occurred. Those of us who came of age in the bad old days of the 1960s and 1970s will identify with the struggles of the female undergrads at Yale. Despite being eminently qualified for admission and for the most part outperforming their male cohorts, they were treated as “lesser than” and simply ignored by most of the 99% all-male faculty. For the majority of their male classmates they were simply sexual targets.

The university president, Kingston Brewster, Jr., reluctantly succumbed to pressure to allow coeducation in 1967 but only with the commitment to keep male admissions at a 7:1 ratio. He added no female faculty or female residence halls. In fact, they spread the new female undergraduates throughout the residences of the 12 colleges - minimizing the fellowship/sense of belonging that all-women residences might have produced. It also made them easier targets for harassment.

I found this book enthralling to much a deeper extent than I had anticipated. I knew it would be interesting but Ms. Perkins' writing style is such that she transformed an extensive amount of data, including statistics, into a very palatable read. Besides delivering the information about the co-education transformation, she followed up on many of those first female coeds at Yale and other females involved in the process. All these decades later, the statistics for females in higher education faculty and administrative still lag greatly behind.

This is a great read in my opinion because it deals with an important topic and highlights the harsh reception that these first Yale female undergrads were given. Fortunately, they were strong enough to carve a way for themselves and the coeds who followed them. It is not just for feminists - this is a great story of the human spirit that encompasses those who pioneer change as well as those who champion "tradition." I was given an advanced reader copy through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. 5 stars

Take Needs Women gives us a look into the experience if the first women who came to Yale. As a millennial it is sometimes hard to imagine what women experienced in the the ‘60s and ‘70s but Perkins does a great job of making us feel like we’re right back in that time. While Ye becomes coed, the reasoning can feel infuriating and the level of support these women got was negligible. The strength of these women shine through the pages and Perkins reminds us that the story doesn’t end with those first women who moved to campus in the fall of 1969.

Compulsively readable and fascinating. I thoroughly enjoyed this. It reads like a novel rather than non-fiction, but there is still a wealth of grounding detail.

A few reviewers referred to Yale needs Women as a novel and it is not. This is an academic work although written in a very accessible style for the average reader. The book started as a graduate paper and morphed into a dissertation over time. Anne Gardner Perkins has a wonderful writing style for what could become dry material. Perkins really allows readers into the lives of several of the students and one administrator in particular. The author straddles the line nicely between fitting in the comprehensive detailed research she managed and making it interesting enough that someone mighty think it was a novel.

As others have said, Yale needs Women was eye opening. It’s not a book for feminists only and I sincerely hope it doesn’t get classified as women’s studies and left there. This work deserves a wider audience. That first wave of women had a difficult time. They weren’t wanted by many, they were taken advantage of by many, endured discouragement and harassment in the name of a quality education. There are many sad chapters in our nation’s history and this is one. As a woman I am not always aware of the struggles of those who have gone before me to break down barriers and I really appreciated this research.

My thanks to #NetGalley for this ARC of #YaleNeedsWomen

This book is very interesting. I know someone personally who went to Yale when it was all boys and learning about this from the opposite angle is fascinating. Must read for anyone who wants to feel empowered as a woman (or feminist in general).

Writing for an academic audience (such as in a dissertation) is totally different from how stories are told in popular non-fiction, so it is rare when an author can turn academic research into a compelling, readable book that non-specialists will enjoy. Anne Gardiner Perkins has done it here.

This is the eye-opening story of how change happens at the cultural and institutional levels, as well as the personal. I really hope this book won't simply be labeled "feminist" and buried on the women's studies shelf, because, while it is a great resource for that field, it is also useful to anyone interested in how societies undergo rapid (and, it turns out, not-so-rapid) changes over "flashpoint" issues.

Those who lived through the 60s will enjoy this look back at the good and bad aspects of the time, and those who have grown up since then will learn a lot about the factors that shape our present-day world and its issues.

brief summary
Drawing on first-hand interviews and numerous secondary sources, this eye-opening history follows five primary individuals and nearly a score of others involved in the tumultuous years of the late 1960s and early 1970s as Yale opens the doors of its hallowed halls to students of the fairer sex for the first time.

full review
Perkins' research shines throughout this volume, blending seamlessly with the narration in such a way that the nonfiction read almost like a novel. Much like a novel, readers will have a hard time putting the sequence of events from their minds until they get to the end, and the prevailing attitudes of the time will linger for days and days after finishing, bringing sharper focus to the parallels with today's social climate.

As a part of the Millennial generation, Yale Needs Women was eye-opening in much the same way New shoes was. It presents a version of the world which is so alien to my own experience that merely reading about the iniquities is almost like reading about a fictional dystopia. It is as enthralling as it is infuriating to read about the institutional foot-dragging and the casual misogyny presented herein.

This book has the potential to appeal to a wide audience. Millennial readers such as myself will come a greater appreciation of the work put in to achieve gender parity, as well as the distance yet to be covered. Older readers may remember living through some of the cultural zeitgeists alluded to in the text. The opportunity for cross-generational conversations presented by this book are ample, and the subject matter itself is relevant, even fifty years later. This is a book to borrow, to lend, to gift, and to share. It would be a great book club choice. I would be confident in recommending it to just about any reader.

I loved how researched and detailed this book was. It was well written, focusing on the general picture of the first years of coeducation at Yale, but also told the stories of different individual women. I was captivated from the first page. A must read for anyone who loves non fiction focusing on education and women's rights!

A book for feminists a book for all who believe in equal rights told in a very engaging style.The 60s Yale decides to go coed we meet this smart group of women watch their path adjustments struggles victories,as they enter this all male institution till they enter take their place,A book that would be an excellent point for discussion in bookclub s& +classrooms. #netgalley#sourcebooknonfiction.

This non-fiction book recounts how Yale went coed at the end of the 60s and the struggle that women faced to gain equality. What an incredible book. Well written, engaging and inspiring. Perkins has a way of describing past events that is very interesting. I expected something much more dry about historical events, but it read like a normal book following particular characters. I was touched and inspired by the way women were treated, by the way they fought back and tried to change, not just their position, but those around their state/the country. It's eye-opening that at the end it states the way it has changed/not changed for women and poc at Yale. I recommend it for anyone who is interested in Yale's history, gender and equality issues, and minorities in academia.

Anne Gardiner Perkins brought to us here in this truly excellent account the tale of the first women to be admitted to Yale and how their first experience was nothing like that of their male counterparts. Education globally has traditionally been views as a right, a privilege, an expectation of men within societies, predominantly in the developed world but increasing in the developing world also. When women wanted and were allowed to encroach on their territory they had no intention of making it easy for them to do so. Perkins here highlights the difficulties these pioneers faced, the degradation and discrimination they were subjected to and how men did anything but welcome these women into their fold. These women are to be revered, applauded, rewarded. Without their efforts, and those of many of their generation, we would still be at home, cooking, cleaning and bearing may children, denied the education that we have gained, that we value, that we deserve, enjoy and cherish. Thank you Anne Gardiner Perkins for this great account. I intend to seek our more on this topic such was the zeal with which I devoured this text. Well done,. Definitely 5 starts from me!!!

This is a fabulous historical novel.
Yes, Yale needs more women. Every top Uni out there needs more women. All the women they can get. And I do not exaggerate. It is not an exaggeration, it is something wonderful
For everyone with feminist inclination, this actually might be an interesting nonfictional read. Just a bit of a mind-opener. Really shows that with the right materials, everyone can build beautiful things.

Very wonderful history of the beginning of the Womens' Movement and literally the inception of many rights and privileges we take for granted today (and some, including the battle on abortion, which never ended). This is the true story of how Yale began to accept women and is told quite engagingly from the eyes of several of the inaugural class of women. It is not only the story of Yale but the fight for civil rights and challenges from the 50s by women that they deserve all the rights and privileges of men. This could have been a stark and colorless factual book but it was a fascinating and educational read. Recommended for all Womens' Studies curriculums.

I thought this book was fantastic and incredibly timely. A point well-made in the book is that history doesnt just happen. It happens slowly, sometimes painfully so. It is frustrating and many mountains must move for progress to occur. In light of the current political climate, I find this book to be particularly optimistic. I thought the pacing was great, and I felt personally invested in the fight as a reader.