Are female medical students co-ed bluestockings and female freshman students?: The girls at the McGill University and the University of Montreal (1900-1960)

For a long time universities were the preserve of men. In Montreal, this situation changed in 1884, when McGill admitted the first "Donaldas", and in 1908, when Laval University in Montreal opened a few of its doors to the first graduates having received a classical education for young women. At the level of integration and identity, however, this official admission was not enough to turn these women into students in their own right. Based on student newspapers and institutional archives, this article examines the resistance but also the progress made in terms of the integration of female students in these two Montreal universities over a period of more than sixty years. Three specific aspects of the discourse of university authorities, male students, and the female students themselves, are examined in detail: being young, belonging to the institution and belonging to the student community. What emerges is that between 1900 and 1960, whereas female students succeeded in carving out a place for themselves at university and in gaining the recognition of their male colleagues, not all resistance had yet been removed.