[3] She studied under Johan Nordström [sv], the creator of the new discipline Idé och lärdomshistoria, the history of intellectual ideas.

[1] In 1939, she married the teacher and later school principal,[1][3] Jonas Gunnar Verner Ekenvall, and the following year completed her dissertation for her licentiate.

Ekenvall decided not to continue with a PhD,[3] instead taking several years to raise her two children, Lena Kristina (1942) and Björn Axel (1945)[2] and conducting research.

In 1958, she joined with Rosa Malmström and Eva Pineus, who was chair of the Fredrika Bremer Association in Gothenburg, to set up the Kvinnohistoriskt arkiv (Women's History Archive).

[9] She continued her interdisciplinary approach to the evaluation of the roles women occupied throughout history, combining anthropology, historical analysis and philosophy to produce both research and textbooks.

In part, this was due to her recognition that to gain respect in the male-dominated academic world, research about women had to rely on a wide range of many different disciplines producing secure scientific results or they would be undervalued and dismissed.

[8] In 2018, during the celebrations for the 60th anniversary of the KvinnSam, the successor organization to the archive begun by Ekenvall, Malmström, and Pinéus, their pivotal role in preserving women's history in Sweden was honored.