The Exceptions: Nancy Hopkins and the Fight for Women in Science

by Kate Zernike

Ann divided the men of Harvard into those who wore dark socks and those who wore white: the dark socks were worn by the boys who had gone to boarding or elite private schools, the white socks were worn by the boys from public schools, Bronx Science or Stuyvesant if they were lucky.

“When overcome by such doubts I recall the famous advice from great man to aspiring young scientist: ‘When you get tired of studying—study harder’ and I return to my Schrodinger equations with renewed vigor.”

(“Only men who are sure of their sexual potency are attracted by the independent woman,” Lazarsfeld wrote in one of its less racy passages. “Indeed, it is possible to gauge the degree of a man’s potency from his attitude on the question of gainful employment for women.”)

“It’s easy to be nice if you don’t do anything.”

“By proudly offering its students the privilege to sit at the feet of Harvard’s Great Men, it lost the opportunity to awaken in us the expectation that we might someday become Great Women.”