Colonial counterparts: The first academic women in Anglo-Canada, New Zealand and Australia

During the early years of the twentieth century, women first gained permane nt academic positions in most universities across the Western world. This a rticle considers the first academic women in Anglo-Canada, New Zealand and Australia as colonial counterparts. It argues that these women's experience s were shaped by a colonial setting that was infused with powerful gender-, race- and class-specific codes concerning knowledge and the institution of the university. The first academic women were simultaneously situated as ' insiders', as supporters of the institutions in which they worked, and as ' outsiders' because of their sex and the patriarchal attitudes of the time. In recovering some of their lives and experiences, it is shown how such a p ositioning shaped the careers of academic women, as well as how these women attempted to subvert and change their place within the university. As a gr oup, the first academic women in Anglo-Canada, New Zealand and Australia we re much more concerned with advancing the place of women in higher educatio n than they were with critiquing the colonial knowledges that were a part o f their various institutions.