Betty Pettersson portrait handed over on Equal Opportunities Day
Deputy Vice-Chancellor Coco Norén receives the artwork from Birk Juniwik, President of the Gotland student nation. Photo: Mikael Wallerstedt.
On Tuesday 27 May 2025, a portrait of Uppsala University’s and even Sweden’s first female student, Betty Pettersson, was presented to the University as a gift from the Gotland student nation.
Photo: Mikael Wallerstedt.
2025 marks 150 years since Betty Petterson from Visby, Gotland, was awarded a university degree. This was recently commemorated by the Gotland student nation donating a portrait of Betty Pettersson, by the artist Anna Ardin, to Uppsala University as part of the spring semester’s Equal Opportunities Day.
Deputy Vice-Chancellor Coco Norén warmly thanked the Gotland student nation when the portrait was presented, stressing the importance of the student nations to the University.
“The University stands for a broad educational base, but in the everyday it can be easy to forget that we also stand on a firm values base. So it is good to be reminded that Betty Pettersson’s courage, her boldness that was also a kind of norm-breaking, can be a role model for us even today,” she said.
Birk Juniwik, President of the Gotland student nation, thanked the University and expressed gladness at being able to celebrate this occasion together.
“On behalf of the Gotland student nation, I would like to thank you for this opportunity to hand over the portrait of Betty Pettersson. It is so important to continue work with equal opportunities at the University,” said Birk at the celebrations.
‘Women on the verge of knowledge’
Signe Rudberg Selin. Photo: Mikael Wallerstedt.
Journalist Signe Rudberg Selin, who is working on a book about Betty Pettersson, gave a lively lecture about Sweden’s first female student titled “Women on the verge of knowledge”. She touched on Betty Pettersson’s family history and Scanian family ties, and talked about other female students who studied at Uppsala University at the same time as Betty Pettersson.
“Betty Pettersson had completed her secondary schooling at the Nya elementarskolan (New secondary school) in Stockholm, and in June 1871 she wrote to a friend of her plans to travel to a university in the autumn. She was admitted to Uppsala University in 1872. Betty Pettersson was born in 1838 and so she was 33 years old when she was admitted to the University. She was the only woman at the University for the first semester, but soon another handful of women were admitted,” said Signe.
Betty Pettersson appears to have had a strong drive to succeed and high self-esteem and the male students at Gotland student nation were none too pleased about her arrival on the scene. Male students told many jokes about female students in order to disparage and ridicule them. They also tried to prevent Betty Pettersson’s entry into the student nation, and this included writing satirical songs about her gender and her age. A classic master suppression technique, Signe Rudberg Selin argued.
“Female students were either mocked for being too glamorous, or for not being glamorous enough. Whatever they did, their presence at the University was seen as inappropriate. Many said that women only studied at the University ‘to make a good match’; in other words, to find a good marriage partner,” said Signe.
After graduating, Betty Pettersson became the first female teacher employed at a state secondary school. She was also a governess and private teacher within the nobility, including in the De Geer family, and many are the voices who describe how much she was liked as a teacher.
Johan Ahlenius