11 July 2025
Bilbao Campus
It has been 66 years since the first women joined the University. It was in 1959 when Mª Sol Pineda, Mª Mar Vreugde, Itziar Monasterio, and Inmaculada Boneta enrolled at the Faculty of Law at the University of Deusto, breaking over seventy years of male exclusivity at the university — nearly sixty of them in the 20th century.
This July, three of those pioneers —Inmaculada Boneta, Itziar Monasterio, and Mª Sol Pineda— met again after some time, although they have maintained a close friendship throughout the years.
They faced jokes and difficult situations and forced a change in manners and human relations within the university. The “four pioneers” successfully completed their degrees in the same year that Deusto received official university recognition. Female presence in Law grew gradually, while in the Faculty of Philosophy and Humanities it expanded rapidly from the very beginning. In Business Studies – La Comercial – Father Bernaola admitted two women in the 1963–64 academic year: Mª Begoña Revuelta Alonso and Isabel Zarauza.
Today, after walking through the cloisters, it is hard to fully grasp how revolutionary that decision was — and not just for the early decades of the century. The first women were warned that their admission was considered a pilot program, and that, just for being women, they had to comply with a set of special rules and requirements. For example, they had to sit together and in the front row of the classroom so as not to attract the attention of the male students.
But from the start, they set the bar high. Not only did they sit in the front row, but they also consistently ranked at the top of their class. They earned the highest grades, winning the respect and admiration of both classmates and professors. Still, daily life at the university wasn’t easy for them. During breaks, they didn’t dare enter the small campus café and had to rely on the help of a male classmate willing to bring them a sandwich…
All of this now belongs to memory. And yet, if there has been a peaceful revolution anywhere, the triumph of women in higher education must be counted among the greatest — especially given its modest and difficult beginnings. A sweeping victory: today, 56% of students are women, as are 61% of faculty members, and 46% of leadership roles at the university are held by women.
