Hedwig Katschinka

Doctor of Technical Sciences

For a very long time, women were denied access to higher education. It was not until 1901 that female secondary school graduates began to receive a note on their school leaving certificate stating that they were “qualified to attend university”, but the choice of courses was initially limited. At that time, young women were only allowed to enrol in the Faculty of Philosophy (since 1897) and the Faculty of Medicine (since 1900, including pharmacy). In the academic year 1919/20, women were finally allowed to enrol as regular students at a technical university.

After studying technical chemistry at the Technical College Vienna, Hedwig Katschinka, who was born in St. Pölten, Lower Austria, became the first woman to obtain a doctorate at the Technical College in Graz. On 26 October 1926, she obtained her doctorate with a thesis titled “On the Vapour Pressure Curves of Binary Liquid Mixtures” at the Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences and was awarded the title of Doctor of Technical Sciences. Between 1901 and 2015, a total of 5,365 students obtained this doctorate, only 652 of whom were women.

However, gender-stereotypical job profiles are not a thing of the past; even today, the cliché persists that certain professions are not suitable for women, as the content of technical studies in particular is too difficult for them. In this respect, women in technology and the sciences serve as role models and prove that they are in no way inferior to men in these fields. However, it remains important to support young women in their choice of studies and careers, to encourage them to choose supposedly ‘typically male’ professions, and to convey to them that they can perform these jobs at least as well as men and thus play a significant role in shaping our society.