Following the example of American Women's Studies, which has existed in the USA since the end of the 1960s, the Women's Summer Universities take place in West Berlin from 1976 to 1983. The first one was initiated from 6 to 10 July 1976 by the so-called Berlin Women Lecturers Group from the Free University (FU) and the Technical University (TU). Not only female students, but all women are invited to attend the courses. Men are explicitly not allowed (reporter Hallgerd Bruckhaus 1976: »The few who wanted to attend were hired as kindergarten teachers. They didn't come back on the second day.« (see Interview Dlf, see below). The women's university saw itself not only as a protest against the lack of professional and educational opportunities for women, but also as a means of demanding feminist science.

The aim is to address the gender-specific discrimination of women in the university space: »We want to become more than just the object and subject of science: we want to change it and society. Radically.« (see Gruppe Berliner Dozentinnen, ed. 1977). Women should not only have equal access to education and work, but also become the subject of scientific research.

The autonomous women's movement from which the summer university had emerged dissolved. Founders argued whether their experiment should be institutionalised. Today's Margherita von Brentano Centre (then called the Central Institution at the FU for Women's and Gender Studies) was founded by those who were in favour of institutionalisation, and the FFBIZ (Women's Research and Education Centre) was founded outside the university. The seventh and last summer university took place in 1983.
The Feminist Summer University in September 2018 and 2019 recalled and followed up on the model.

Group of Berlin lecturers from the Free University (FU) and the Technical University (TU)