Oral testimonies generated in a research project involving a group of women graduates of Western Australia's state teachers' college indicate that contradictions existed between competing discourses of femininity and teaching in the State in the early decades of the twentieth century, and that these opened up new possibilities for women teachers. The research was feminist in that it foregrounded the hitherto "lost" history of women teachers. The danger of assuming a totally deterministic patriarchy was also considered. These matters are dealt with in the first part of this paper. The second part is an analysis of the recollections of the participants regarding the first formal phase in their learning to be teachers, namely, the monitoring period. What is revealed is that they were educated, were encouraged to enter the teaching profession, and were rewarded for their intellectual achievements. They learned to invest themselves in developing their rational and critical capacities. Nevertheless, there were still strong social expectations that they would remain "properly feminine", not challenge masculine authority, and eventually leave teaching in order to become wives and mothers.