By Mary Brown Bullock, President of, Agnes Scott College and Incoming Chair of the Women's College Coalition (WCC)

Since 1998, the majority of families in the United States are supported by two wage earners. But few DEWK (dual-employed with kids) households existed in 1953, the year in which the new movie "Mona Lisa Smile" is set.

The film to be released Dec. 17 explores rigid social standards of the Eisenhower era and illustrates the reality of the time: that even at women's colleges with outstanding academic reputations such as Wellesley, social forces discouraged students from pursuing careers. Today, students at women's colleges are thriving in academic disciplines once dominated by men, and all career options are considered open.

In the 1950s, students at women's colleges such as Agnes Scott and Wellesley received excellent educations, but overwhelming social forces caused many to abandon hopes of careers and focus instead on families. Much has changed. Increasing numbers of women's college students are pursuing careers in the sciences, math and engineering once pursued almost exclusively by men.

If the character Katherine Watson, played by Julia Roberts in 'Mona Lisa Smile,' could visit a women's college today, she would be startled and quite pleased.

According to statistics provided by the WCC, women's college graduates:

- Constitute more than 20 percent of women in Congress, and 30 percent of a Business Week list of rising women stars in Corporate America.

- Have more opportunities to hold leadership positions than women at co-ed institutions.

- Report greater satisfaction than their coed counterparts with their college experience - academically, developmentally, and personally.

- Continue toward doctorates in math, science and engineering in disproportionately large numbers.

- Develop measurably higher levels of self-esteem than other achieving women in coeducational institutions

- Score higher on standardized achievement tests.

- Five of the top 10 and 11 percent of the 218 National Liberal Arts Colleges in U.S. News & World Report's "America's Best Colleges" are women's colleges.

Katherine Watson would find teaching in women's colleges today a very different experience. Not only are women graduating and holding leadership positions in academia and the business world, they are also finding it possible to combine these advances with their personal rewards such as family and other relationships. It's no longer an either-or situation.

(Mary Brown Bullock is a 1966 graduate of Agnes Scott College, a national liberal arts college that today enrolls nearly 1,000 women. She  married and started a career and family soon after completing her education. The former director of the Asia Program at The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, director of the Committee on Scholarly Communication with the People's Republic of China, and President of Agnes Scott since 1995, Bullock holds a doctorate in Chinese History from Stanford University. She also chairs the board of the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities. An articulate source on how single-sex education is a crucial component of diversity in American higher education, Bullock is among the vanguard of leaders who are increasingly concerned about the need to encourage both economic and demographic diversity in higher education. )