Women became resistant to the oppression by men and they wanted to become more independent, which led them to argue for a higher education. One reason women were treated unequal when it came to education is that it was looked down upon for women to have a higher education in the late 1800s. It was established that a women’s role only took part in the household. Tending to a family and household chores brought out the opinion that education was not necessary for women. The American Pageant quotes, “Training in needlecraft seemed more important than training in algebra” (327). Moreover, people argued that men were more physically and mentally intellectual than women, when really there were women that were extremely smarter than men! “In 1819 Emma Willard, a teacher at a girls' academy, sought funding for an institution of higher learning for women. She argued that her curriculum would produce better homemakers and well-trained mothers—and, if necessary, self-supporting teachers” (Gender and Ethnicity in U.S. Higher Education). Since others believed that women weren’t as intellectual as men, they were the ones with the more important roles, and it was also their duty to be the more educated ones. For example, the Encyclopedia of Women and Gender states that, “Women from the same elite families that sent their sons to the universities in the 1800s and early 1900s were often not considered capable of the intellectual rigors of higher education” (Gender and Ethnicity in U.S. Higher Education). If women in the late 1800s would have been able to get a higher education, they would have become smarter and would’ve been able to have higher paying jobs. Additionally, coeducation was regarded as frivolous. Prejudices argued that too much learning could hurt the female brain, undermined health, and rendered