WEBVTT - Special Episode: Kate Zernike & The Exceptions 0:00:44.120 --> 0:00:47.839 Hi, I'm Aaron Welsh and this is this Podcast Will 0:00:47.920 --> 0:00:52.360 Kill You. Welcome everyone to the latest episode in our 0:00:52.440 --> 0:00:55.960 tp w k Y book Club series, where we get 0:00:56.000 --> 0:00:59.640 to expand our minds and our bookshelves as we read 0:00:59.720 --> 0:01:03.640 fast books in science and medicine, covering a wide range 0:01:03.640 --> 0:01:08.000 of topics, from the origins of American gynecology to the 0:01:08.000 --> 0:01:11.760 plant and animal derived substances we used to harm and 0:01:11.880 --> 0:01:16.160 heal from a post pandemic COVID playbook to the impacts 0:01:16.280 --> 0:01:20.440 roads have on ecosystem and human health. 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Pullitzer Prize winning journalist reporter 0:02:16.240 --> 0:02:19.079 for the New York Times since two thousand and author 0:02:19.240 --> 0:02:23.920 Kate Zernike joins me to discuss her recent book, The Exceptions, 0:02:24.440 --> 0:02:27.960 Nancy Hopkins, MIT and the Fight for Women in Science. 0:02:28.919 --> 0:02:33.240 In nineteen ninety nine, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology MIT 0:02:33.880 --> 0:02:38.800 made an extraordinary admission that they had discriminated against women 0:02:38.919 --> 0:02:43.680 on its faculty, confirming a suspicion held by many for 0:02:43.960 --> 0:02:48.080 many years and prompting a reckoning for institutions of higher 0:02:48.200 --> 0:02:53.480 education across the country. In The Exceptions, Zernichi, who was 0:02:53.560 --> 0:02:56.040 one of the reporters at the Boston Globe to break 0:02:56.080 --> 0:02:59.640 this story in nineteen ninety nine, revisits the sequence of 0:02:59.639 --> 0:03:02.760 events that led to sixteen women on the faculty of 0:03:02.880 --> 0:03:06.600 MIT coming together to demand a seat at the table 0:03:06.880 --> 0:03:10.760 that had for so long been denied. Zernike centers this 0:03:10.840 --> 0:03:16.600 story on groundbreaking molecular biologist doctor Nancy Hopkins, taking readers 0:03:16.639 --> 0:03:20.760 through Nancy's educational and career journeys, and culminating with the 0:03:20.800 --> 0:03:24.280 story of how armed with a tape measure and Nancy 0:03:24.360 --> 0:03:29.880 began to quantify the marginalization that women faculty at MIT faced. 0:03:30.760 --> 0:03:34.760 By taking this panoramic approach, Zernichie paints a vivid picture 0:03:34.880 --> 0:03:38.480 of how gender equality in higher education evolved over the 0:03:38.480 --> 0:03:43.480 twentieth century, starting with more overt or explicit gender discrimination, 0:03:43.800 --> 0:03:48.520 such as denying women students access to the library on campus, 0:03:49.200 --> 0:03:53.400 and shifting to be more subtle, more insidious, like senior 0:03:53.440 --> 0:03:58.160 faculty men of course, lying about how much lab space 0:03:58.280 --> 0:04:02.840 women faculty have compared to the men. Spoiler, women actually 0:04:02.920 --> 0:04:03.680 had much less. 0:04:03.800 --> 0:04:04.840 But you probably could. 0:04:04.640 --> 0:04:05.120 Have guessed that. 0:04:05.840 --> 0:04:10.440 Zernike's thoughtful storytelling places these events in the broader context 0:04:10.480 --> 0:04:14.640 of changing gender roles and popular discourse on whether women 0:04:14.920 --> 0:04:17.599 could or should be scientists. 0:04:17.000 --> 0:04:18.120 In the twentieth century. 0:04:18.960 --> 0:04:25.159 What results is an enlightening, infuriating, but ultimately inspiring book 0:04:25.360 --> 0:04:29.080 that everyone should add to their to read lists. When 0:04:29.120 --> 0:04:31.960 this story broke in nineteen ninety nine, it was at 0:04:32.000 --> 0:04:35.520 a time when the problem of sexual discrimination in higher 0:04:35.640 --> 0:04:39.160 education was kind of thought to have been solved, at 0:04:39.240 --> 0:04:42.280 least for the most part. Nancy Hopkins and the other 0:04:42.360 --> 0:04:46.840 women faculty across the MIT campus who brought this marginalization 0:04:46.960 --> 0:04:50.440 to light showed that that was far from the truth, 0:04:51.160 --> 0:04:57.400 and being scientists, they quantified this marginalization and minimization clearly 0:04:57.480 --> 0:05:01.800 demonstrating that their experiences were not just one offs, that 0:05:01.880 --> 0:05:04.920 it was not just the attitude of one particular department, 0:05:05.200 --> 0:05:08.400 that it was not about scientific achievement or not being 0:05:08.480 --> 0:05:13.400 a team player. That the discrimination they faced was systemic 0:05:13.720 --> 0:05:19.240 and actively discouraged women from remaining in science in academic institutions. 0:05:20.520 --> 0:05:24.800 This story resonated with me so much to learn about 0:05:24.839 --> 0:05:28.240 these amazing women and how they refuse to be ignored, 0:05:28.720 --> 0:05:33.640 how through their tireless efforts they made higher education a better, 0:05:33.880 --> 0:05:37.840 more welcoming place for women in science today. I am 0:05:37.880 --> 0:05:41.799 so grateful. At the same time, I think this book 0:05:41.880 --> 0:05:45.640 resonated to such a degree because parts of this story 0:05:45.880 --> 0:05:50.280 feel painfully familiar. It serves as a reminder that the 0:05:50.400 --> 0:05:54.680 problem of marginalization in academia is not close to being solved, 0:05:55.440 --> 0:05:59.240 but we are a whole lot closer now than we 0:05:59.360 --> 0:06:02.839 would be without the efforts of Nancy Hopkins and the 0:06:02.960 --> 0:06:07.719 other women faculty at MIT featured in Kate Zernike's amazing book, 0:06:07.880 --> 0:06:11.359 The Exceptions. So let's take a quick break here and 0:06:11.400 --> 0:06:38.920 then get into some questions. Kate, thank you so much 0:06:38.960 --> 0:06:42.240 for joining me today. I am thrilled to chat with 0:06:42.279 --> 0:06:48.400 you about your incredible and incredibly infuriating book, The Exceptions. 0:06:49.000 --> 0:06:51.240 Can you tell me about the title of your book? 0:06:51.320 --> 0:06:54.080 Who are the Exceptions? Where did this title come from? 0:06:55.279 --> 0:06:55.479 Yeah? 0:06:55.520 --> 0:06:57.080 Well, first of all, I'm so excited to be here, 0:06:57.120 --> 0:07:00.279 thank you for having me. You know, it's really a 0:07:00.360 --> 0:07:02.840 question of not just two are the exceptions, but what 0:07:02.920 --> 0:07:07.000 are the exceptions? And I started out this book and 0:07:07.080 --> 0:07:09.320 I knew exactly what the story was. I knew the 0:07:09.400 --> 0:07:11.160 arc of the story, but I didn't know the title. 0:07:11.760 --> 0:07:14.080 And I would say about halfway through the reporting, it 0:07:14.120 --> 0:07:16.800 became clear to me that like, there was no other title, 0:07:16.800 --> 0:07:19.040 there was nothing else that I could call this book. 0:07:19.480 --> 0:07:21.880 Because every time I talk to people so often in 0:07:21.920 --> 0:07:24.560 conversation or as I was reading something, I would stumble 0:07:24.600 --> 0:07:27.080 on this word, which was like exceptions, or it was 0:07:27.080 --> 0:07:29.800 the exception, or she was exceptional, and so on some 0:07:29.920 --> 0:07:32.760 level it was like, well, historically, like why are these 0:07:32.760 --> 0:07:35.000 women so exceptional? Why is it so exceptional that women 0:07:35.040 --> 0:07:37.720 can succeed in science, you know, do you have to 0:07:37.720 --> 0:07:40.560 be exceptional in the sense of being exceptionally smart? Like 0:07:40.600 --> 0:07:43.240 is there something genius or unique about you? But it 0:07:43.360 --> 0:07:46.080 was also you know as women. As I talked to 0:07:46.120 --> 0:07:49.920 these women and ask them about their story or their stories, 0:07:49.960 --> 0:07:52.160 they would say to me, well, you know, this thing 0:07:52.200 --> 0:07:54.239 happened to me, but I thought it was the exception, 0:07:54.400 --> 0:07:56.640 or I thought I was the exception, or I thought 0:07:56.680 --> 0:07:58.400 it was just the circumstances. You know, it was really 0:07:58.400 --> 0:08:02.560 just the exception. And this just as it accumulates, you 0:08:02.560 --> 0:08:04.560 start to thinking, well, actually, no, that's not exceptional, like 0:08:04.600 --> 0:08:07.720 this is actually very common, and you know, the exception 0:08:07.800 --> 0:08:10.880 starts to look more like the rule. So for some women, 0:08:12.080 --> 0:08:15.840 this manner of dealing, you know, telling yourself this was 0:08:15.840 --> 0:08:18.720 the exception, this was just the circumstances. That was a 0:08:18.760 --> 0:08:21.320 way of coping, and it actually allowed them to be successful. 0:08:21.320 --> 0:08:23.120 Like they just put blinders on and said, you know, 0:08:23.120 --> 0:08:24.840 if I get distracted by this stuff, I'm going to 0:08:24.880 --> 0:08:27.360 go off the rails and I can't do that. But 0:08:27.440 --> 0:08:31.400 for other women it was it became very demeaning and 0:08:31.480 --> 0:08:34.000 very crippling in a way because they kept something would 0:08:34.000 --> 0:08:36.040 happen to them, and they would say, oh, well, I 0:08:36.160 --> 0:08:38.800 must be the problem here, and so it stopped them 0:08:38.800 --> 0:08:40.720 from succeeding. So it was just this sort of interesting 0:08:40.760 --> 0:08:43.719 you know. It was this idea of how seeing these 0:08:43.720 --> 0:08:46.000 things as the exceptions can help and can hurt. But 0:08:46.040 --> 0:08:49.240 also these women really were, on the most fundamental level, 0:08:49.240 --> 0:08:51.160 they were exceptional because they were able to get jobs 0:08:51.160 --> 0:08:53.520 in science at a time when women couldn't. They were 0:08:53.559 --> 0:08:57.280 exceptionally right, they were exceptionally accomplished. But this whole idea 0:08:57.440 --> 0:08:59.680 of being the exception was in some way holding them back. 0:09:00.200 --> 0:09:04.480 Even just what Mit did here, which was to admit, 0:09:04.559 --> 0:09:06.680 as a result of all the work, of all the 0:09:06.720 --> 0:09:09.880 research that these women did, that it had discriminated against 0:09:09.920 --> 0:09:12.600 the women on its faculty, that in itself was an 0:09:12.600 --> 0:09:15.720 exceptional move. And really it wasn't just the women who 0:09:15.760 --> 0:09:19.000 were affected and sort of influenced by this idea of 0:09:19.120 --> 0:09:22.920 things being exceptional, of circumstances being exceptional. It was the men. 0:09:23.520 --> 0:09:25.440 One of the men who became an early ally to 0:09:25.480 --> 0:09:28.719 these women talked about how he knew all of their 0:09:28.760 --> 0:09:31.240 stories and he understood, you know, he thought he understood 0:09:31.240 --> 0:09:33.480 what was happening in their lives. But there's a point 0:09:33.480 --> 0:09:36.080 in the book where all these women are in his office. 0:09:36.080 --> 0:09:38.520 There's six women in his office, six of the total 0:09:38.559 --> 0:09:41.760 sixteen of the story, and one after another they tell 0:09:41.960 --> 0:09:45.199 their stories and they tell their experiences, and he says 0:09:45.320 --> 0:09:47.960 later that this was he compares it later to one 0:09:48.000 --> 0:09:50.080 of the greatest scientific epiphanies he's ever had, like a 0:09:50.120 --> 0:09:52.080 real Eureka moment, and he said, you know, had any 0:09:52.120 --> 0:09:54.240 of these women come to me one on one, I 0:09:54.240 --> 0:09:56.720 would have said, oh, her problem is this. Her problem 0:09:56.760 --> 0:09:59.600 is that it's the exception, it's not the rule. Seeing 0:09:59.600 --> 0:10:02.040 as women and hearing their stories one after another, he 0:10:02.160 --> 0:10:05.040 was like, oh, we have a problem. And that's what 0:10:05.120 --> 0:10:07.280 really started the whole series of events in motion that 0:10:07.360 --> 0:10:10.720 did ultimately result in MIT acknowledging it had discriminated against 0:10:10.760 --> 0:10:11.720 the women on its faculty. 0:10:12.679 --> 0:10:17.920 Let's talk a little bit about that incredible, extraordinary admission. 0:10:18.240 --> 0:10:20.120 So this is kind of jumping to the end of 0:10:20.160 --> 0:10:23.160 your book chronologically, but can you tell me how you 0:10:23.240 --> 0:10:26.360 first came across this story of Nancy Hopkins and the 0:10:26.400 --> 0:10:31.680 other women faculty at MIT that faced this like decades 0:10:31.880 --> 0:10:35.439 of sexual harassment and discrimination. And then finally we're able 0:10:35.440 --> 0:10:36.600 to get that acknowledged. 0:10:37.760 --> 0:10:40.640 I started covering higher education for the Boston Globe in 0:10:40.640 --> 0:10:43.360 September of nineteen ninety eight, and my father, who was 0:10:43.400 --> 0:10:45.600 a physicist, said to me at the time, Oh, you 0:10:45.600 --> 0:10:47.680 should look into the work this woman named Millie dressel 0:10:47.679 --> 0:10:50.320 House is doing to get more women into physics. And 0:10:50.520 --> 0:10:52.640 Millie was this incredible when we talk about exceptional, she 0:10:52.720 --> 0:10:55.920 was amazing. She had four children. The story was that 0:10:55.960 --> 0:10:58.280 she had taken a total of five days maternity leave 0:10:58.400 --> 0:11:00.599 because two of the kids im born on weekends and 0:11:00.760 --> 0:11:02.280 one on a snow day. I mean, it was really 0:11:02.440 --> 0:11:05.800 she's extraordinary, She's exceptional. So my father says it to me, 0:11:05.840 --> 0:11:08.360 and I think, well, that is the worst idea ever, Like, what, 0:11:08.360 --> 0:11:10.720 what's the action there? What's actually happening in that story. 0:11:10.720 --> 0:11:12.600 It's going to be some story about, like, you know, 0:11:12.679 --> 0:11:15.600 some good program trying to solve a long standing problem. 0:11:16.200 --> 0:11:18.319 Six months later, I got a tip from someone in 0:11:18.320 --> 0:11:20.240 the newsroom that there was something going on with women 0:11:20.280 --> 0:11:23.319 in discrimination and MIT. And the only thing I had 0:11:23.400 --> 0:11:25.160 was the name of this woman, Nancy Hopkins, and her 0:11:25.200 --> 0:11:28.240 phone number, and so I called her and she told 0:11:28.320 --> 0:11:31.480 me that in fact, MIT was going to admit that 0:11:31.600 --> 0:11:34.160 to discriminated against the women on its faculty. And I 0:11:34.200 --> 0:11:36.600 was like, oh, well, there's definitely a verb in that story. 0:11:36.640 --> 0:11:38.320 There's you know, there's action there. And that was really 0:11:38.320 --> 0:11:40.280 striking to me. And this was not something in nineteen 0:11:40.360 --> 0:11:42.520 ninety eight you thought was going to happen. I thought 0:11:42.920 --> 0:11:45.480 when I heard about women in discrimination MIT, I thought, oh, 0:11:45.480 --> 0:11:47.640 someone's file of the lawsuit, right, and it'll be like this, 0:11:47.720 --> 0:11:50.840 he said, she said story. Then she tells me that 0:11:51.200 --> 0:11:53.960 the reason MIT is admitting this is because this group 0:11:54.000 --> 0:11:57.640 of women, including her, led by her, had gathered the 0:11:57.720 --> 0:12:00.200 data to show how women were discriminated against. So it 0:12:00.240 --> 0:12:03.320 was salary and lab space, and you know the amount 0:12:03.320 --> 0:12:05.880 of work that they did outside of their you know, 0:12:05.920 --> 0:12:09.160 their their usual job roles, you know, speeches and appearing 0:12:09.200 --> 0:12:12.319 on committees. That work was generally done for free. All 0:12:12.360 --> 0:12:14.760 of the ways in which women were disadvantaged compared to men. 0:12:14.920 --> 0:12:17.600 So that to me just struck me as kind of like, 0:12:18.240 --> 0:12:20.480 there's this traditioner on MIT of hacks right where they 0:12:20.520 --> 0:12:22.040 sort of you know, before we heard hackers, it was 0:12:22.120 --> 0:12:24.840 MIT hacks, and they would do things like clever scientists. 0:12:24.840 --> 0:12:26.800 They would do things like take a part a cop 0:12:26.840 --> 0:12:28.480 car and put it up, you know, reassemble it on 0:12:28.559 --> 0:12:31.079 top of the Great Dome and mit. But what these 0:12:31.120 --> 0:12:33.679 women had done struck me as that kind of hack, 0:12:33.800 --> 0:12:36.360 you know, like they had leaned into their science to 0:12:36.400 --> 0:12:38.480 prove their case. So I sort of love that aspect 0:12:38.520 --> 0:12:40.320 of it. So I went and I met with Nancy 0:12:40.320 --> 0:12:43.720 in her office, and she talked to me about really 0:12:43.760 --> 0:12:45.719 what I was so striking to me at the time. 0:12:45.720 --> 0:12:47.160 And again we have to remember this as March of 0:12:47.240 --> 0:12:50.520 nineteen ninety nine, but she talked about that this wasn't 0:12:50.520 --> 0:12:52.640 discrimination the way we tend to think of it, right, 0:12:52.679 --> 0:12:54.440 It wasn't like I mean, there was there was some 0:12:54.480 --> 0:12:58.680 overcases of that, right, like salaries were lower, but the 0:12:58.679 --> 0:13:01.120 way they described it was marginalation. And it was really 0:13:01.160 --> 0:13:03.800 just the sort of pushing with the gradual pushing aside 0:13:03.800 --> 0:13:05.920 of women across the arc of their careers, across the 0:13:06.000 --> 0:13:08.080 you know, as they got older. The problem wasn't as 0:13:08.080 --> 0:13:10.720 they were junior faculty members. It was really you know, 0:13:10.800 --> 0:13:13.000 as they advanced in their career, they were gradually sort 0:13:13.000 --> 0:13:16.559 of pushed aside what they described as marginalization. And again 0:13:16.600 --> 0:13:19.000 they said, like this was not what we thought discrimination 0:13:19.080 --> 0:13:22.520 looked like we thought discrimination was the door closed on 0:13:22.600 --> 0:13:24.520 you someone telling you they have to say I'm not 0:13:24.640 --> 0:13:26.959 hiring you because you're a woman. In fact, it was 0:13:27.040 --> 0:13:29.959 much more subtle than that. And now when we look back, 0:13:30.080 --> 0:13:31.640 they used this word at the time, and it was 0:13:31.640 --> 0:13:33.440 a fresh word at the time. What they were talking 0:13:33.480 --> 0:13:35.719 about was unconscious bias, which of course now we're so 0:13:35.760 --> 0:13:37.800 familiar with, But at the time that was really a 0:13:37.840 --> 0:13:40.280 new idea. And so I really do credit these women 0:13:40.280 --> 0:13:43.600 in MIT with making that concept, with popularizing that concept 0:13:43.640 --> 0:13:46.040 and making people understand just what it looks like. 0:13:47.120 --> 0:13:51.240 One of the most kind of compelling aspects of this 0:13:51.520 --> 0:13:54.080 is that were the most shocking aspects is that MIT 0:13:54.440 --> 0:13:59.280 acknowledged that this is what had happened over years. So 0:13:59.760 --> 0:14:04.280 what was so extraordinary about this admission and kind of like, 0:14:04.360 --> 0:14:08.640 what were some of the changes immediately that resulted from 0:14:08.800 --> 0:14:10.320 this acknowledgment. 0:14:11.360 --> 0:14:13.559 The admission by MIT is in nineteen ninety nine, but 0:14:13.600 --> 0:14:15.679 the women first came together in the summer of nineteen 0:14:15.760 --> 0:14:18.440 ninety four, and for many twists and turns that I 0:14:18.480 --> 0:14:21.040 tell in the book, it took an incredible four and 0:14:21.080 --> 0:14:23.160 a half years for this to happen, for this to 0:14:23.160 --> 0:14:27.920 become public. So MIT started fixing issues for the women 0:14:28.080 --> 0:14:30.320 pretty much almost as soon as they started coming together. 0:14:30.360 --> 0:14:32.400 The women come together, they ask for this committee to 0:14:32.440 --> 0:14:34.760 sort of outline the problems, to look into the problems, 0:14:35.080 --> 0:14:37.920 and the dean who was their great ally, starts beginning 0:14:37.920 --> 0:14:40.880 to address them. What happened in nineteen ninety nine that 0:14:40.960 --> 0:14:43.440 was really striking was the story. So my story ran 0:14:43.480 --> 0:14:45.440 on the front page of the Boston Globe on a Sunday. 0:14:46.120 --> 0:14:48.520 The women at MIT and I did not think we 0:14:48.600 --> 0:14:51.600 understood that this was really an incredible story and something amazing. 0:14:51.920 --> 0:14:53.480 But I think we all thought, maybe this is just 0:14:53.520 --> 0:14:55.680 an MIT story, or maybe just a story of women 0:14:55.680 --> 0:14:59.240 in science. What happens when the story appears the next morning, 0:14:59.320 --> 0:15:01.760 a Monday, the en of science. They're this man who 0:15:01.800 --> 0:15:03.560 was their great ally, the Dena of Science, shows up 0:15:03.560 --> 0:15:05.800 at his office and there's a news crew from CBS 0:15:05.800 --> 0:15:08.800 Evening News outside his office. That Tuesday, the New York 0:15:08.800 --> 0:15:12.480 Times runs the story and it's front page and suddenly, really, 0:15:12.520 --> 0:15:13.960 you know this again. This is like sort of it's 0:15:14.000 --> 0:15:16.400 an early Internet era, so things don't really go viral 0:15:16.440 --> 0:15:18.040 as much as they do now, but as much as 0:15:18.040 --> 0:15:20.720 they did then. It really did go viral, and women 0:15:20.840 --> 0:15:23.920 across the country and across the world started saying, like really, 0:15:23.960 --> 0:15:26.200 writing into Nancy and to all these other women and saying, 0:15:26.680 --> 0:15:28.800 I thought I was the only one who had this problem, 0:15:28.840 --> 0:15:32.640 but this is my problem too. So what MIT really 0:15:32.640 --> 0:15:35.560 did was acknowledge a problem that women thought that they 0:15:35.600 --> 0:15:38.520 had been suffering alone. It put the problem on the map. 0:15:38.560 --> 0:15:41.280 It made it a problem that other universities had to discuss. 0:15:41.760 --> 0:15:43.400 One of the things that the MIT women like to 0:15:43.400 --> 0:15:45.680 point out is that other universities initially said like, oh no, 0:15:45.760 --> 0:15:48.040 this isn't a problem we have, like Harvard was. You know, 0:15:48.040 --> 0:15:49.720 there's a great quote in the Harvard Crimson, like, oh no, 0:15:49.800 --> 0:15:51.520 this isn't an issue for Harvard. Well, of course, it 0:15:51.560 --> 0:15:53.720 had been an issue for Harvard for many, many years. 0:15:54.160 --> 0:15:56.200 Harvard had had, you know, a committee on the Status 0:15:56.200 --> 0:15:58.640 of Women. They've been doing reports on the status of 0:15:58.680 --> 0:16:01.520 women for years. The sorts would be issued, be printed, 0:16:01.800 --> 0:16:03.440 someone would put it on a shelf, no one would 0:16:03.440 --> 0:16:06.320 notice it. So I think, really, what was so extraordinary 0:16:06.680 --> 0:16:09.920 was that the president of MIT, Chuck Best, put his 0:16:10.040 --> 0:16:11.920 name to this, and he had this great quote that 0:16:11.960 --> 0:16:15.840 was repeated in every in every newspaper story, every editorial 0:16:15.840 --> 0:16:17.920 about this and what he said. I'm probably going to 0:16:17.960 --> 0:16:19.320 get the words a little bit wrong, but I think 0:16:19.360 --> 0:16:21.400 I can remember it pretty much word for word. Was 0:16:22.000 --> 0:16:25.080 I've always thought that gender discrimination in higher education was 0:16:25.120 --> 0:16:28.680 part perception, part reality true, but I now understand that 0:16:28.720 --> 0:16:31.440 it is that reality is the greater part of the balance. 0:16:31.840 --> 0:16:34.160 And for him to say that, I mean that was 0:16:34.160 --> 0:16:36.320 like Nancy Hopkins really, you know, almost fell off her 0:16:36.360 --> 0:16:38.640 chair the minute she read that phrase. And I think, 0:16:39.120 --> 0:16:40.840 you know, the fact that it was MIT, the fact 0:16:40.840 --> 0:16:44.200 that it was this prestigious institution, really helped. But it 0:16:44.240 --> 0:16:46.320 really did just put the discussion on the map. So 0:16:47.280 --> 0:16:50.160 in many concrete ways there were changes. You know, the 0:16:50.200 --> 0:16:53.120 Ford Foundation gave a million dollars for other universities, for 0:16:53.240 --> 0:16:55.480 MIT and other universities to work out the problem, to 0:16:55.560 --> 0:16:57.640 do the sort of analysis that these women had done 0:16:57.640 --> 0:17:00.200 at MIT, looking at resources for men and for women. 0:17:00.760 --> 0:17:03.280 They gave those that money went to help other universities 0:17:03.320 --> 0:17:06.199 do the same thing. Suddenly you really saw there was 0:17:06.240 --> 0:17:09.120 really an acceleration in the number of women at being 0:17:09.160 --> 0:17:11.040 asked to lead. By two thousand and two, you had 0:17:11.040 --> 0:17:13.960 three women as presidents in the Ivy League. You had 0:17:13.960 --> 0:17:16.400 a president of MIT, who's a woman, very soon after. 0:17:16.520 --> 0:17:19.119 So I really do think like this put that conversation 0:17:19.200 --> 0:17:21.560 on the map. It made women in science the question 0:17:21.600 --> 0:17:23.240 of why do we have so few women at the 0:17:23.280 --> 0:17:25.280 highest levels of math and science. It put that question 0:17:25.359 --> 0:17:26.119 on the map. 0:17:27.000 --> 0:17:31.800 And that question has deep, deep roots. And as someone 0:17:31.840 --> 0:17:34.440 who went to grad school in the twenty tens, it's 0:17:34.800 --> 0:17:38.080 really too easy to forget how different things are in 0:17:38.160 --> 0:17:41.760 higher education today compared to not just like the late 0:17:41.840 --> 0:17:46.200 nineteen nineties, but also the mid especially the mid twentieth century. 0:17:46.800 --> 0:17:51.280 Like I knew about pay differences, I knew about tenure 0:17:51.320 --> 0:17:54.480 being withheld or just not being hired in the first place. 0:17:54.960 --> 0:17:56.919 But when I was reading your book, it was the 0:17:57.000 --> 0:17:59.640 little things that really stood out to me, like these 0:17:59.680 --> 0:18:03.320 mon dane acts of discrimination, like not being able to 0:18:03.359 --> 0:18:10.040 buy faculty football tickets, or these like gender dining hall restrictions. 0:18:09.240 --> 0:18:12.480 No love room for you, little girl, Oh my gosh. 0:18:12.720 --> 0:18:15.159 And I was wondering if you could sort of paint 0:18:15.200 --> 0:18:17.040 a picture of what it was like to be a 0:18:17.080 --> 0:18:20.719 female student or a female faculty member at Radcliffe around 0:18:20.720 --> 0:18:24.520 the time that Nancy Hopkins then Nancy Doe was at 0:18:24.520 --> 0:18:25.160 school there. 0:18:25.760 --> 0:18:28.960 Yeah, so Nancy graduates from Radcliffe in nineteen sixty four, 0:18:29.440 --> 0:18:32.160 and that was I think the first or second year 0:18:32.200 --> 0:18:35.520 that Radcliffe and Harvard actually had a joint graduation, so 0:18:35.680 --> 0:18:38.320 women still got separate diplomas, which is kind of amazing. 0:18:38.440 --> 0:18:39.960 I mean, just to go to your point, I'll get 0:18:40.000 --> 0:18:41.800 back to that, but like to go to your point 0:18:41.840 --> 0:18:44.040 about being in the twenty tens, we forget that in 0:18:44.080 --> 0:18:46.680 even nineteen ninety nine there was no daycare on campus. 0:18:46.720 --> 0:18:49.040 Like that was I mean, that alone is it's just 0:18:49.080 --> 0:18:53.359 an extraordinary change. But Radcliffe, Harvard and Radcliffe in nineteen 0:18:53.359 --> 0:18:56.600 sixty so in nineteen sixty to nine sixty four. This 0:18:56.760 --> 0:18:59.560 was some of my really favorite part of the book 0:18:59.720 --> 0:19:03.160 to research because first of all, you write about universities, 0:19:03.160 --> 0:19:06.320 and they remember everything, they memorialize everything, so there's just 0:19:06.359 --> 0:19:08.240 a ton of archival work that you can look into. 0:19:08.280 --> 0:19:11.160 So that's really wonderful. But it is, as you say, 0:19:11.160 --> 0:19:13.080 it's so striking how different it was. You know, so 0:19:13.119 --> 0:19:15.280 there were you know, Radcliffe existed, that was where the 0:19:15.359 --> 0:19:17.840 quote unquot girls. There were men of Harvard and girls 0:19:17.880 --> 0:19:21.399 of Radcliffe. That was where the girls were educated. But 0:19:21.440 --> 0:19:23.159 of course there were no women on the faculty. Right, 0:19:23.240 --> 0:19:25.600 So if you were a young woman at Radcliffe, you 0:19:25.600 --> 0:19:27.960 were learning from men. You were not allowed to wear 0:19:28.000 --> 0:19:30.320 pants downstairs in the dorms at Radcliffe, you had to 0:19:30.320 --> 0:19:33.920 wear skirts. You were not allowed in the main library 0:19:34.000 --> 0:19:36.080 on the Harvard campus because there was some fear that 0:19:36.119 --> 0:19:38.480 you would be a distraction to the men. You know, 0:19:38.520 --> 0:19:40.760 you were in the same classrooms with men. But that 0:19:40.840 --> 0:19:43.280 was really only since World War Two. And the reason 0:19:43.400 --> 0:19:46.920 that Harvard made this accommodation was that during World War Two, 0:19:46.920 --> 0:19:49.440 of course, so many men left to be on the battlefield, 0:19:49.480 --> 0:19:51.960 so they needed the tuition from women. You know, you 0:19:51.960 --> 0:19:54.760 couldn't stay out past midnight. And what was so striking 0:19:54.760 --> 0:19:56.840 to me though about those years is I think we 0:19:56.960 --> 0:20:00.560 tend to think of, you know, maybe nineteen sixty, right, 0:20:00.560 --> 0:20:02.879 which is when the National Organization for Women is founded. 0:20:02.880 --> 0:20:04.320 We tend to think of that as kind of the 0:20:04.359 --> 0:20:06.639 beginning of the women's movement. But when you look at 0:20:06.680 --> 0:20:09.679 this class of you know, they arrive in nineteen sixty 0:20:09.680 --> 0:20:13.120 they graduate in nineteen sixty four, it really became clear 0:20:13.119 --> 0:20:14.919 to me that this was a generation very much on 0:20:15.000 --> 0:20:17.359 the cusp, right, like they're not quite that you know, 0:20:17.480 --> 0:20:21.160 full push of the second wave feminism. But they're starting 0:20:21.200 --> 0:20:23.800 to change, right, So they're starting to push for, Hey, 0:20:23.840 --> 0:20:26.639 we don't think we need to be checking into the 0:20:26.680 --> 0:20:29.000 dorm by midnight every night or eleven o'clock every night. 0:20:29.920 --> 0:20:32.440 We don't think we need that kind of babysitting. More 0:20:32.480 --> 0:20:35.040 women were starting to major in things like biology rather 0:20:35.040 --> 0:20:37.159 than the traditional fields of English and history, right Like, 0:20:37.200 --> 0:20:41.280 they were starting to imagine a more professional future for themselves. 0:20:42.000 --> 0:20:44.000 But they were also this was so you know, it 0:20:44.040 --> 0:20:46.800 was amazing to me reading their yearbook because there are 0:20:46.800 --> 0:20:49.480 these essays by these young women who are graduating and 0:20:49.520 --> 0:20:53.240 they talk about themselves as a generation of culturally induced schizophrenics. 0:20:53.800 --> 0:20:57.359 And the schizophrenia for them is they believe that they 0:20:57.359 --> 0:20:58.800 are going to be able. They're going to be the 0:20:58.840 --> 0:21:01.119 first generation that is going to be able to really 0:21:01.200 --> 0:21:04.159 have a career and to have a family, and they 0:21:04.160 --> 0:21:06.000 won't have to make the choices that women have had 0:21:06.000 --> 0:21:08.560 to make for so long. And they're being encouraged in 0:21:08.640 --> 0:21:11.720