Scholars have long debated the complicity of Southern white women after the Civil War in helping create a racialist and racist regional identity and denying or delaying civil rights for African Americans. These studies have largely focused on the activities of elite white women property owners, club members, and writers. Yet few scholars have…

Views of the deep-rooted assumptions and myths surrounding the role of women in academic institutions of the South are presented in scholarly articles, experience-based essays, and poems. Among the themes that are explored are the history of women's involvement in higher education, women's studies, women's status, racial stereotypes, alienation,…