‘This Is What Happens When Women Read': New Oxford MBA Scholarship Champions Liberation Through Education

Yahoo

20-05-2025

A new University of Oxford Saïd Business School will pay full MBA tuition to one woman per year who is looking to overcome economic or personal barriers through education. Courtesy photo
The change for Julianna Glasse came in church.
After 33 years in a conservative Christian denomination, Glasse says she stumbled into philosophy and literature after meeting a gay couple who challenged everything she'd been taught. She couldn't imagine telling her own daughter that they may be somehow separate from God for who they love, or that her proximity to God was somehow tied to her proximity to a husband.
She started reading, and she started questioning. That day in church, Glasse spoke up in favor of both women's and LGBTQ+ rights. A man pointed at her and delivered a line that would pave the runway for the rest of her life.
'Well,' he said, 'this is what happens when women read.'
Glasse says she left the church that day. The former Christian pop singer lost her marriage, a book deal, and a career she'd built up over years.
But she gained a calling: To liberate oppressed women around the world through education, literature, and community.
In March, she launched This Is What Happens When Women Read, a nonprofit rooted this mission. Today (May 19), she announced with University of Oxford for women pursuing a full-time MBA. The scholarship will cover full tuition for a woman looking to overcome economic or personal barriers through education while providing mentorship and community.
'We are not just opening doors to academic opportunity, we are igniting a movement where women can reclaim their narratives, challenge systemic barriers, and shape their own futures,' Glasse says.
Julianna Glasse
The scholarship will fund one woman per year over the next five years. Each scholar will also select 10 other women to form a personal cohort, creating a network of 55 ambassadors for by the end of the program, Glasse tells Poets&Quants.
Scholars will build their own public voices through writing, speaking, and feminist events. Each will also serve as an ambassador for global nonprofit in their home countries, helping to grow a global community of women advocating for autonomy.
Glasse chose to partner with Oxford Saïd for a couple of reasons, including its commitment to international and female representation in business education. Saïd's was the , enrolling a 2023-2024 cohort that was 51% women. It was just the third major business school in the world to meet the milestone. The 2025 MBA cohort includes 348 students from 59 nationalities, 48% of whom are women.
'We need women in business. We need women running things. We need women using their creative spirits and being entrepreneurs, and climbing the ranks,' Glasse says.
Glasse also chose Oxford after completing the B-school's Advanced Management and Leadership Programme, a one-month executive course that draws professionals from around the world. For the class, she wrote a case study Glasse focused on how internal oppression – shame, fear, psychological manipulation, and isolation – keeps women in place, particularly within religious systems.
During her presentation, a classmate from Saudi Arabia, who usually never spoke in class, raised her hand to share how the story resonated with her. Then another woman from the Maldives spoke. Then Morocco. Then China. Then Japan. They moved the discussion to a bar after class because so many women had more to say.
'We were all sharing our stories of liberation with one another,' Glasse says. 'Without a doubt, access to education, access to literature, access to books is so, so fundamental to a woman's liberation.'
Though she released seven music projects and published three books, Glasse had no formal business training before Oxford. She sees business education in particular as a powerful tool for women's liberation.
The MBA, as a degree, trains candidates not just on the fundamentals of business, but to reflect on themselves. It teaches them to build something, whether it be their own venture or a fulfilling career.
Soumitra Dutta, dean of the University of Oxford Saïd Business School
'The spirit of business, to me, as an entrepreneur myself, is one of creativity,' she says. 'And I do not think that a woman can liberate herself without being a creative individual.'
Soumitra Dutta, the Peter Moores Dean of Oxford Saïd, praised Glasse's vision and partnership.
'We are incredibly grateful to Julianna for her generous gift. Like all of us at Oxford Saïd, she recognises the importance of supporting the next generation of female leaders from across the world in their education and personal development,' he says.
'Her work with This is What Happens When Women Read sets out her stall as a world-leading advocate for women and girls and we are incredibly proud to have partnered with her to propel one student's ambitions to enroll on our prestigious MBA programme.'
The scholarship is open to any international applicant to Oxford Saïd's MBA who has overcome serious barriers to education. The first scholar for Fall 2025 has been selected and will be announced later this year. Glasse will travel to Oxford to meet the recipient, host a cohort event, and begin building the new ambassador network.
She hopes to eventually expand the scholarship to other universities worldwide.
Glasse is also developing a self-guided curriculum for her nonprofit with a clinical psychologist from UC Berkeley. The curriculum addresses how women can reconstruct meaning after leaving high-control systems, blending philosophy, psychology, meditation, case study, and poetry. It will be made available as a book, video series, and potentially an academic course.
In 2026, she will release her memoir, also titled This Is What Happens When Women Read, which will be followed by a global book tour designed to create physical gathering spaces for women's stories and healing. Isolation is one of the greatest inhibitors to a woman's liberation, she says. Women stay in oppressive systems because they don't know where to go for help.
'We know what happens when women read: We challenge systems of oppression. We can see systems of oppression. We can put names and words to the systems of oppression,' Glass says.
'And then we go back to school, we apply for that job, we demand that raise, and we run for office.'
Learn more about the scholarship .
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