Book Review: The Exceptions (2023)
In this post, Jess and I review the recently published book "The Exceptions: Nancy Hopkins and The Fight For Science" by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Kate Zernike.
Introduction
The recently published 2023 book The Exceptions by Kate Zernike tells the powerful story of Dr. Nancy Hopkins and the fifteen other women who came together at the turn of the century to bring to light the stark discrimination against women at the highest levels of science. Zernike takes us through Nancy’s life, beginning with her undergraduate experience at Radcliffe College, the women’s branch of Harvard University, in the 60’s and carrying through her career at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Along the way, we meet other scientists that fought for the cause of gender equality, such as Mary-Lou Pardue, a fellow biologist, chemist Sylvia Ceyer, social psychologist Lotte Bailyn, and “The Queen of Carbon”, physicist Mildred Dresselhaus. Their stories echo the barriers and injustices faced throughout their careers, from fights over lab space to significantly lower salaries to plain ignorance surrounding their achievements and capabilities. Their fight culminated in the 1999 report put together by the women, “A Study on the Status of Women Faculty in Science at MIT” (Chisholm et al., 1999), which detailed the injustices faced by women scientists, leading MIT to admit that they had discriminated against their female faculty. This report reverberated across the academic landscape, leading to a subsequent chain of similar admissions of discrimination from other universities. Though this marked a significant turning point in the push for equality, particularly in science, reading this book brought to mind many of the same issues women in STEM face today. Despite the massive strides that have already been made, women still do not face equal treatment in academic environments at the highest levels of science. In this review, we aim to provide our reactions to The Exceptions, from our views on issues that still stand to our personal reflections about our careers invoked by the stories told by Zernike.
Issues That Stood The Test of Time
Speaking Up & Addressing Discrimination
One of the main issues faced by the women is still very much present today: the fine line of speaking up if they feel they are being mistreated. Very often, women bear the invisible labor in their day to day lives, and this holds true in academia as well. From planning social events to organizing lab cleanings, minor laboratory “housekeeping” usually falls on women, a form of labor that has no place on a CV but must be done in order to keep the lab operating smoothly. The experiences recounted in The Exceptions not only include these issues of housekeeping but extend to even more egregious incidents–in a case where Nancy Hopkins wasn’t being listened to regarding concerns over lab space, she decided to measure all of the lab spaces by hand over the course of a few weeks to prove she was being given less resources. While it may seem easy to simply raise your voice and call attention to the issue at hand, women in science are often hesitant to do so for fear of fitting into the stereotype of the “aggressive woman.” This stereotype refers to someone who is not considered a team player or is thought to complain too often over seemingly petty issues, a label that negatively impacts the projects someone is given and the career opportunities brought their way. It is, in effect, a Catch-22: if you choose to complain, you may get recourse for your current issue but be left out of future opportunities; if you don’t complain for fear of retribution, you are subsequently left to work under the discriminatory conditions dealt to you. This conundrum allows for the perpetuation of gender discrimination, backing women into a corner and dissuading them from speaking out.
Normalization of Discrimination & Lack of Representation
The path to realizing that she was being discriminated against was a gradual one for Nancy Hopkins. Initially dismissing the possibility during her early career, she eventually had to admit to herself that she was being discriminated against because of her gender well into her career and professorship. This hesitancy to acknowledge the problem was not uncommon and was echoed in scholarship at the time, such as MIT social psychologist Lotte Bailyn’s description of the American Academy Symposium conference on women in America. It is said that she “didn’t understand the idea of a conference about ‘the women in America’. She was young enough to think it peculiar that anyone would regard women as different from all other Americans, though experience had begun to show her that it happened all the time” (Zernike, 2023, 42). This hesitancy to acknowledge discrimination is intertwined with another major theme of the book, namely that many of the issues of gender equality are more concentrated the higher up in academia one moves. This problem of unequal representation of women in top leadership positions is clearly still the case, as one can see from tenured professorships awarded to male versus female professors, not to mention the percentage of university deans that are men. This imbalance has far-reaching effects as well, denying women other kinds of resources in their positions. For example, while MIT chemist Sylvia Ceyer struggled to find housing she could afford near campus, male scientists helped their male colleagues secure grants from MIT for their housing–a network that women could not tap into or make use of for themselves. In being denied resources not only for their work but for their personal lives, these women were more likely to be driven out of their positions, a concept termed the “leaky pipeline”.
Family & A Woman’s Role
Other issues discussed in The Exceptions have deeper roots in our society. Despite the ability of women to pursue degrees in higher education and focus on their careers, there is still the expectation that women will be mothers and wives, putting their families above their professional lives while their husbands are free to chase their own career developments. A quote from the first chapter of The Exceptions rings scarily true to this day: “You’ll get married and then have kids. Then what good will a PhD have done you?” While this may seem harsh by today’s standards, the same threads of societal expectations permeate the messages women are told. During a commencement speech at the 2024 graduation of Benedictine College in Kansas given by Kansas Chiefs Kicker Harrison Butker, Butker questioned the place of women in higher education, perpetuating harmful ideas about the place of women in society and arguing that a woman’s vocation is not to have a successful career (despite his own mother’s position as a medical physicist). This speech, given to students on a day meant to celebrate their academic accomplishments, marked the first day that these students–many of them women–emerged from college into the career world. To be told, as a woman who just completed a four year degree with hopes of beginning a career, that your vocation is not to pursue an education but to instead fit into conservative standards of the subservient woman is frankly demoralizing and disheartening. Decades after the fight for gender equality described in The Exceptions, women are still faced with similar expectations.
Personal Thoughts & Reflections
In my opinion (Jess speaking), one of the most powerful quotes from this book comes from Ellen Swallow Richards, the first woman to attend MIT Chemistry. She wrote in a letter, “my life is to be one of active fighting”. It felt disheartening to realize that some of the issues I see around me were still present fifty years ago, especially because I am at the start of my scientific career. At the same time, I felt solidarity with the women who came before me and I doubled down on my belief that talking about systemic problems is the first step to change. The power of their group coming together and beginning with a conversation of what had affected them led to tangible change in their circumstances. I have hope that maybe this is still possible today, but I admit that it worries me how many of the problems stemming from gender discrimination, whether explicit or from implicit bias, permeate the corners of not only higher education and science but every field that has been historically dominated by men. We will keep fighting, since from the start, all our lives were to be ones of active fighting.
In some ways (Isabella speaking), I found The Exceptions to be a cathartic read; in others, I found the situations and experiences I was reading about so infuriating that I needed to physically put the book down and walk away. While it is a relief to know that one isn’t alone in the issues they face as a woman in science, the persistence of these issues decades later is both disappointing and concerning. Science loves to advertise itself as a meritocracy, a place where anyone can come in to contribute to the progression of human knowledge–but this isn’t true. While some like to consider science a field driven by the same principles of objective truth it seeks, it’s just like any other aspect of human nature: influenced by biases and preconceptions. The more I’ve progressed as a scientist, the more I’ve realized the ways in which cultures of discrimination and harassment continue to permeate the field, even today. While The Sixteen accomplished something incredible and sparked a movement across the nation, there is still so much more to be done–a reality that is as optimistic as it is exhausting. Though I wish I could end this reflection on a positive note and claim that a solution is imminent, that these problems will cease to exist somehow, I defer instead to the approach that Nancy Hopkins took when forced to listen to Larry Summers’s sexist arguments: to refuse to tolerate sexist and discriminatory action, to continually call attention to these issues, and to stand by other women.
Conclusion
The Exceptions is an incredibly compelling read, filled with both infuriating tellings of discrimination and powerful moments of compassion and solidarity amongst the women. We highly recommend that everyone take the time to read Zernike’s book, particularly if you are planning to pursue a career in a STEM field or already work within one. While some may be gaining exposure to the nature of these issues for the first time, we are sure that many women who are a part of academia will sympathize with the issues raised. We hope you enjoy The Exceptions as much as we did, and that it inspires you to continue speaking out and raising awareness of discrimination against women–both in STEM and beyond it.
Sources
Chisholm SW, Friedman JI, Hopkins N, et al. A study on the status of women faculty in science at MIT: how a committee on women faculty came to be established by the dean of the School of Science, what the committee and the dean learned and accomplished, and recommendations for the future. MIT Faculty Newsletter. 1999;11:4. http://web.mit.edu/fnl/women/women.html
Farrell, J. (2024, May 18). Here’s Harrison Butker’s controversial commencement speech in full. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesfarrell/2024/05/15/heres-harrison-butkers-controversial-commencement-speech-in-full/