Mum's the word: Why Oxford students are putting motherhood before career

By Lucy Tobin
Published: 19 July 2007

Oxford students Amy Butler, Chloe Mattison and Danielle Abbiss

A group of women students at Oxford are scrutinising a photo of 100 beaming freshers, wondering who will end up being famous. As an Oxford undergraduate myself, I am part of the group and I notice that, after identifying candidates for Prime Minister, next year's Pop Idol and a university professor, the girls all discount themselves from the top of any career ladder on the grounds that their maternal ambitions are stronger than their professional aims. Oxford's undergraduates are billed as among Britain's brainiest, but we female students are prioritising marriage and children over a career. continue...