The exceptions : Nancy Hopkins, MIT, and the fight for women in science /
Material type: TextPublisher: New York : Scribner, 2023Description: xvi, 409 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 24 cmContent type:- text
- still image
- unmediated
- volume
- 1982131837
- 9781982131838
- Hopkins, Nancy (Nancy H.)
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Women in science -- Massachusetts -- Cambridge
- Women scientists -- Massachusetts -- Cambridge -- Biography
- Sex discrimination in science -- Massachusetts -- Cambridge -- Biography
- Sexism in education -- Massachusetts -- Cambridge
- Women -- Education (Higher) -- Massachusetts -- Cambridge
- Women college teachers -- Massachusetts -- Cambridge
- 331.133097 23
Item type | Current library | Home library | Collection | Call number | Copy number | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item holds | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Standard Loan | Coeur d'Alene Library Adult Nonfiction | Coeur d'Alene Library | Book | 509 ZERNIKE (Browse shelf(Opens below)) | 1 | Available | 50610023322816 | |||
Standard Loan | Hayden Library Adult Nonfiction | Hayden Library | Book | 331.13/ZERNIKE (Browse shelf(Opens below)) | 1 | Available | 50610024257185 | |||
Standard Loan | Liberty Lake Library Adult Nonfiction | Liberty Lake Library | Book | 331.133 ZER (Browse shelf(Opens below)) | Available | 31421000725300 |
Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
A New York Times Notable Book
As late as 1999, women who succeeded in science were called "exceptional" as if it were unusual for them to be so bright. They were exceptional, not because they could succeed at science but because of all they accomplished despite the hurdles.
"Gripping...one puts down the book inspired by the women's grit, tenacity, and brilliance." -- Science
"Riveting." --Siddhartha Mukherjee, author of The Gene
In 1963, a female student was attending a lecture given by Nobel Prize winner James Watson, then tenured at Harvard. At nineteen, she was struggling to define her future. She had given herself just ten years to fulfill her professional ambitions before starting the family she was expected to have. For women at that time, a future on the usual path of academic science was unimaginable--but during that lecture, young Nancy Hopkins fell in love with the promise of genetics. Confidently believing science to be a pure meritocracy, she embarked on a career.
In 1999, Hopkins, now a noted molecular geneticist and cancer researcher at MIT, divorced and childless, found herself underpaid and denied the credit and resources given to men of lesser rank. Galvanized by the flagrant favoritism, Hopkins led a group of sixteen women on the faculty in a campaign that prompted MIT to make the historic admission that it had long discriminated against its female scientists. The sixteen women were a formidable group: their work has advanced our understanding of everything from cancer to geology, from fossil fuels to the inner workings of the human brain. And their work to highlight what they called "21st-century discrimination"--a subtle, stubborn, often unconscious bias--set off a national reckoning with the pervasive sexism in science.
From the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who broke the story, The Exceptions chronicles groundbreaking science and a history-making fight for equal opportunity. It is the "excellent and infuriating" ( The New York Times ) story of how this group of determined, brilliant women used the power of the collective and the tools of science to inspire ongoing radical change. And it offers an intimate look at the passion that drives discovery, and a rare glimpse into the competitive, hierarchical world of elite science--and the women who dared to challenge it.
Includes bibliographical references (page 371-392) and index.
"In 1999, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology admitted to discriminating against its most senior female scientists. It was a seismic cultural event--one that forced institutions across the nation to reckon with the bias faced by girls and women in STEM. The Exceptions is the story of the women on MIT's faculty who started it all, centered on the life and career of their unlikely leader: Nancy Hopkins, a noted molecular geneticist and cancer researcher and protegee of James Watson, the codiscoverer of the structure of DNA." -- from dust jacket.
Table of contents provided by Syndetics
- A Note on Names and Language (xi)
- Prologue (xiii)
- 1 An Epiphany on Divinity Avenue (3)
- 2 The Choice (23)
- 3 An Immodest Proposal (37)
- 4 At the Feet of Harvard's Great Men (53)
- 5 Bungtown Road (71)
- 6 "Women, Please Apply" (85)
- 7 The Vow (101)
- 8 "We Should Distance All Competitors" (121)
- 9 Our Millie (131)
- 10 The Best Home for a Feminist (115)
- 11 Liberated Lifestyles (165)
- 12 Kendall Square (183)
- 13 "This Slow and Gentle Robbery" (197)
- 14 "Fodder" (207)
- 15 Fun in Middle Age (225)
- 16 Three Hundred Square Feet (235)
- 17 MIT Inc. (255)
- 18 Sixteen Tenured Women (279)
- 19 X and Y (295)
- 20 AU for One or One for All (311)
- 21 "The Greater Part of the Balance" (329)
- Epilogue (349)
- The Sixteen (355)
- Acknowledgments (363)
- A Note on Sources (369)
- Notes (371)
- Index (393)
Excerpt provided by Syndetics
Reviews provided by Syndetics
Publishers Weekly Review
Journalist Zernike (Boiling Mad: Inside the Tea Party) paints an inspiring portrait of MIT molecular biologist Nancy Hopkins and 15 other female scientists who pushed the university to acknowledge in 1999 a long-standing pattern of discrimination against women on its science faculty. In 1973, when Hopkins arrived at MIT as an assistant professor, the institution flaunted its sole female full professor, physicist Millie Dresselhaus, "as the emblem for what all women could be at MIT, and in science." Twenty-one years later, women made up less than 8% of the faculty in the School of Science. Zernike movingly details how Hopkins, after enduring years of slights and mistreatment while conducting important genetic research, began reaching out to her female colleagues, who were eager to share their own stories of discrimination. They persuaded the dean of science to back their case for a Committee on Women Faculty, which compiled a devastating report on how women in the science departments had been marginalized. Striking an expert balance between the big picture and intimate profiles of the women involved, Zernike offers an intriguing and often infuriating glimpse into the rarefied world of higher education. Readers will be fascinated. Agent: Elyse Cheney, Cheney Agency. (Feb.)CHOICE Review
"Each generation of young women, including those who are currently senior faculty, began by believing that gender discrimination was 'solved' in the previous generation and would not touch them." So observed Nancy Hopkins, now a molecular geneticist and cancer researcher at MIT, in her 1999 report on the findings of MIT's Committee on Women Faculty, which she headed. This book was a difficult read--not because of the writing but because anyone having what Hopkins considered "good will" is going to spend a lot of time being sad, angry, or both. Hopkins and others in this combination biography and institutional history struggled again and again against discrimination. Every victory rang hollow in the years that followed the 1999 report: peeling away one layer of mistreatment simply allowed the women to slowly recognize things that had previously been overshadowed. Outright sexual assault was eliminated, leaving a culture of exclusion; inclusion was granted by Title IX, but ingrained "women just aren't good at this" attitudes shone through. When someone has been marginalized, other problems easily become invisible and make it look as though discrimination has been fixed. Spoiler alert: discrimination has not been fixed. Summing Up: Essential. All readers. --Dave John Van Domelen, Amarillo CollegeBooklist Review
This engaging account details the professional lives of women scientists and their struggles for equality during the last decades of the twentieth century, specifically at the world-renowned Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1999, Boston Sunday Globe reporter Zernike broke a story in which MIT acknowledged the university's long-standing discrimination against women faculty. Zernike, a wonderful storyteller, seamlessly weaves together contemporary events, facts and statistics, and telling anecdotes from women who were working in the sciences at that time, recreating for readers an almost unbelievable culture of never-ending microaggressions, sexual harassment, and professional disdain. Zernike spends considerable time introducing molecular biologist Nancy Hopkins, who became chair of the MIT Committee on Women Faculty. She details Hopkins' horrific experiences, from being ignored to fielding threats of plagiarism lawsuits and enduring attempts to discredit her work. Zernike also covers what happened when the 1999 story broke, describing the overwhelming response from the press, the White House, and women scientists worldwide. The book ends with brief bios of the 16 women who were on the MIT faculty during the late 1990s, along with exhortations to encourage young women to consider careers in science. Zernike's profile of Nancy Hopkins provides brilliant inspiration.Kirkus Book Review
A powerful story of 16 women who "upset the usual assumptions about why there were so few women in science and math" in the U.S. In 1999, New York Times journalist Zernike broke the story for the Boston Globe. As she recalls, the president of MIT admitted, "I have always believed that contemporary gender discrimination within universities is part reality and part perception…but I now understand that reality is by far the greater part of the balance." The author chronicles the events through the lives of several MIT scientists, mostly Nancy Hopkins (b. 1943), a brilliant student who fell in love with biology, obtained a doctorate, and published groundbreaking research. Recruited by MIT at the dawn of affirmative action in the 1970s, she rose to become a tenured professor. Zernike writes that early-career women scientists have relatively few complaints, but they understandably chafe as they reach the top to discover that senior scientists compete viciously for status, grants, salary, publication, lab space, and assistants. The author demonstrates how the university system has always favored men. Much of the book recounts quarrels among professors and staff and the rampant sexism within the university system. Frustrated with the way she was treated, Hopkins discussed matters with other female colleagues and discovered that they were also fuming. As scientists, they gathered evidence showing how women professors had lower salaries and were promoted more slowly, given smaller laboratory space, omitted from important committees, and overlooked by the informal, male-dominated networks essential for career advancement. Perhaps surprisingly, most university officials agreed that the evidence revealed a problem and began making corrections even before the media took notice, producing front-page stories nationwide, with most praising MIT for admitting its error so quickly. "Practically overnight," writes Zernike, "MIT became the pacesetter for promoting gender equality in higher education." Since then, matters have improved. A fascinating, heartening account of successful advocacy in the scientific and academic communities. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.Author notes provided by Syndetics
Kate Zernike has been a reporter for The New York Times since 2000. She was a member of the team that won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting for stories about al-Qaeda before and after the 9/11 terror attacks. She was previously a reporter for The Boston Globe , where she broke the story of MIT's admission that it had discriminated against women on its faculty, on which The Exceptions is based. The daughter and granddaughter of scientists, she is a graduate of Trinity College at the University of Toronto and the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University. She lives in New Jersey with her husband and sons.There are no comments on this title.