BACKGROUND
Rhodes Scholarships were funded by a benefaction through the Last Will and Testament of Cecil John Rhodes, the mining magnate, southern African politician, and avatar par excellence of European imperialism, who died in 1902. Rhodes had attended Oxford but was a lukewarm student at best. But he had a fondness for Oxford, and wanted to bring together exceptional students from across the Empire as well as the US and Germany who demonstrated literary and scholastic accomplishments, skill in “manly outdoor sports,” “qualities of manhood” (such as truth, courage, duty, fellowship, and “protection of the weak,”) and “moral force of character and of instincts to lead.” He also wanted each of his young scholars “to esteem the performance of public duty as his highest aim.”
Needless to say, the scholarship was only open to men. It never occurred to Rhodes to consider women. One of his male confidents did raise the issue. Rhodes rejected the suggestion outright. And Oxford, at any rate, did not award degrees to women, and would not do so until 1920, more than 800 years after its founding.
The Rhodes Project most certainly disagrees with Cecil Rhodes about what constitutes moral leadership, service, and “public duty.” We also, again unlike Rhodes, believe - indeed, know - that women are equal to men in all abilities and talents. The Rhodes Trust for many years encapsulated the mission of the scholarship as “fighting the world’s fight.” It now announces on the website that the scholarship is about “Standing Up For The World.” Women can do that as well as men.
Since it was first established in the earliest years of the 20th century, the Rhodes Scholarship has expanded greatly. There are now 25 constituencies that specifically name more than 65 countries in North America, Europe, Asia, and Africa. But with the launch of the Global constituency in 2018, the scholarship is truly open to the entire world. More than 100 scholars are now selected each year, about a third from the largest constituency, the US.
Rhodes Scholars have been argued to represent an “elite within an elite.” Scholars have served as a US President and an Australian Prime Minister, the Foreign Minister of Canada and a UN Ambassador, as well as senior executives in tech firms, banks, corporations, and numerous justices, journalists, scholars, and poets. Yet there was always a nagging feeling that success among the community was not viewed in terms of public service. As early as 1920, a Rhodes Trust Secretary bemoaned in a private correspondence that “Too many Rhodes Scholars look upon the Bequest as a means of making better livings for themselves.” That remark was included in the 2008 book on the history of the Rhodes Scholarship written by Philip Ziegler and published by Yale University Press (Legacy: Cecil Rhodes, The Rhodes Trust and Rhodes Scholarships).
Although the Rhodes scholarships were first awarded in 1902/1903, women became eligible only in 1977. A few dozen women academics were awarded Rhodes Visiting Fellowships beginning in 1968. But these awards carried few of the privileges or prestige of the scholarship itself. It was a second-class status at best. The credentials the scholarship represents—its validation of academic attainment and leadership capacity, and the legacy established by the prominence of earlier Rhodes Scholars—makes it a potent passport for career success. But this was only given to women rather recently.
How have women fared? Ziegler offered his own assessment in his book, writing that the admission of women “has reduced the incidence of worldly success.” This assessment was based on mere impression, however, and not data. Nevertheless, as so often happens, the successes of women were disdainfully cast aside as a footnote to a long and distinguished register of male accomplishment. Women scholars were largely judged worldly failures. And by not actually speaking to women, this assessment denied our agency, silenced our voices, and diminished our struggles. It also, to repeat, diminished the successes of female scholars.
It was this invisibility that prompted me in 2004 to initiate The Rhodes Project. Although the project started narrowly as an investigation into the gender-gap in leadership, it expanded considerably into multiple arenas female scholars’ professional and private lives. It is now the most comprehensive ongoing study of diverse, so-called, including an online series of more than 200 inspiring profiles of Rhodes women (rhodesproject.com ‘elite women.’
How have women Rhodes Scholars made use of the scholarship? Has it proved a passport to success? Have we, in fact, amounted to less “worldly success” than the men? If so, why? Do women Rhodes Scholars have fulfilling lives? What are their professional struggles? Do they find balance in trying to juggle work and family? What has been the collective experience of this group of pioneering women and, just as importantly, what can it tell us about society more broadly? Indeed, while Rhodes Scholars are elite by any measure, do they encounter the same hurdles as all women everywhere and, if so, can we use female scholars’ lives as a springboard to think about wider changes to the workplaces that might help all women?
The Rhodes Project seeks to answer these questions.