Reflecting on Fifty Years of Progress for Women in Science

Abstract

Like young women today, 50 years ago I too assumed that gender discrimination in science was a thing of the past. Girls who grew up in America in the Sputnik era, as I did, were encouraged to become scientists. By 1964, when I graduated from college with a major in biology, I thought it entirely possible I’d win a Nobel prize. Why not? Dorothy Hodgkin won one that year. At Harvard, my professors had strongly encouraged me to go to graduate school. When I finished my postdoc in 1973, I was actively recruited to the MIT faculty. What were those feminists complaining about?