I am the token woman in this collection, both as contributor and in having the explicit mention of women in my title. It is not entirely fanciful to treat this as a metaphor for relations between the University of Cambridge and women students and scholars for much of the last century and a quarter. Cambridge was initially hostile towards women with academic ambitions, deeply reluctant even to tolerate their presence and for a long time treated them as marginal figures.

The first women with aspirations to be students arrived in 1871. In 1881 they were admitted to University examinations; but thereafter they were held at arm's length. The University of London admitted women to full membership in 1878; the University of Oxford managed it in 1918. But Cambridge only admitted women to full membership of the University after the Second World War in 1948.

Throughout this time the proportion of women in the University remained tiny. For nearly a century from the 1870s there were only two women's colleges, Girton and Newnham. In 1954 they were joined by a third college, New Hall, and then in 1966 by a fourth, Lucy Cavendish, which has come to concentrate its efforts on mature women returning to study. In the 1970s, too, men's colleges began to open their doors to women students.

Even now, women remain in a clear minority.