María Goyri de Menéndez Pidal

María Goyri de Menéndez Pidal (1873–1955) was a Spanish Hispanist, literary critic, researcher, educator and advocate for women's rights. In 1896 she became the first Spanish woman to earn a degree in Philosophy and Letters and the first to earn her doctorate, in 1909, at a Spanish university (the University of Madrid). She was the wife of Ramón Menéndez Pidal.

Born in Madrid to a Basque family, she spent her early years in Algorta, a seaside village in the province of Biscay. She returned to Madrid with her mother, Amalia Goyri, a seamstress of great character and culture. Due to her delicate health she was educated at home by her mother who frequently gave her lessons outdoors in the Buen Retiro Park to help combat her tubercular arthritis. Ignoring the conventions of the time she enrolled María in a gym and when she was twelve she began business courses at the Association for the Education of Women. There she discovered she enjoyed the study of grammar and in 1887 she enrolled in the School for Governesses to become a teacher. In 1890 she and another young student, Carmen Gallardo, audited classes in the School of Philosophy and Letters at the University of Madrid. In 1892 she received permission from the General Secretary of Public Instruction to register officially as a female student in order to attend classes on the condition that her presence not distract male students. Prior to each class she was not permitted to wait in the corridor and had to wait in an office adjacent to her classroom. Her professor would then escort her to her own individual desk near his. At the end of class she would be escorted out the same way. One of her professors was the foremost academic of the day, the Spanish scholar and historian, Marcelino Menéndez Pelayo. In her first year she heard Emilia Pardo Bazán's presentation of "The Education of Men & Women" in which she attacked Rosseau and François Fénelon as anti-feminist and defended John Stuart Mill and Gottfried Leibniz for their progressive advocacy of educational reforms for women. When Concepción Arenal's presentation of her views on women's duties and rights provoked violent attacks, María stood up and vehemently defended the elderly activist. María Goyri obtained the titles of normal school professor (1893), licentiate in philosophy and letters (1896), and Doctor of Philosophy and letters (1909).

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