Feminist Mythology
The New Age MIT and its chorus.

By Kathryn Jean Lopez, NR associate editor
April 10, 2001 9:50 a.m.

he New York Times thinks she's some kind of wonder woman who is making science safe for the sisterhood. In

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reality, there's nothing scientific about Nancy Hopkins and her claim to fame.

In its quarterly "Education Life" supplement this weekend, the New York Times profiled Nancy Hopkins, "The Reluctant Feminist." Hopkins is a professor of biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology "who has become the emblem of the struggle by women for equal treatment in higher education."

In the summer of 1994, Hopkins talked to some of her MIT School of Science female colleagues. As the subsequent MIT "Study on the Status of Women Faculty in science at MIT" later reported: "In the course of their careers these women had come to realize that gender had probably caused their professional lives to differ significantly from those of their male colleagues. Interestingly they had never discussed the issue with one another, and they were even uncertain as to whether their experiences were unique, their perceptions accurate."

As it turns out, these women had never noticed the discrimination until Hopkins pointed it out. Discrimination had been a non-issue for these women. The meeting with Hopkins has been described as "akin to a religious experience" in its revelatory impact for the women.

The MIT mea-culpa report is a classic product of a New Age MIT, with little more than feelings as evidence of discrimination. Gender discrimination is "subtle but pervasive," the report concludes, "and stems largely from unconscious ways of thinking that have been socialized into all of us, men and women alike." MIT's Committee on the Status of Women, for instance, reported, "a common finding for most senior women faculty was that the women were 'invisible.'" The study found that, "Many tenured women faculty feel marginalized and excluded from a significant role in their department." If MIT did collect any data about this "universal problem," the school has refused to release it, claiming it was "confidential."

But if these women scientists really were trailblazers, wouldn't they want to waive any confidentiality relating to this information?

The New York Times this weekend wasn't the first to miss some of these key details. (In the past, the Times has gushed over Hopkins on the front page and the editorial page (is there any difference?).) CNN has reported, uncritically, that the MIT report "didn't dwell on obvious disparities like salaries. Instead, it focused on subtle discrimination that made women invisible and excluded them from plum assignments."

Excuse me? So science isn't as important as making women feel good? Is that the message from MIT, a supposed oasis of scientific inquiry?

It seems that way. You'd think MIT would be embarrassed, but it seems almost proud of its public humiliation. Despite considerable public protest, the dean of the school at the time of the Hopkins complaint, Robert J. Birgeneau, admitted to a Toronto reporter that, "it wasn't gross discrimination, but what these women came to understand was that part of their marginalization was a series of minor insults." When asked to expand on other occasions, he said the quote was taken out of context. For Birgeneau, the complaint and ensuing furor were career boosters; soon after, MIT's diversity hero assumed the presidency of the University of Toronto.

And Birgeneau is not the only one to have benefited his career. Despite the fact that this seven-year-old saga has never been much of a story at MIT — notwithstanding the ongoing media obsession — the whole incident has done wonders for Hopkins's career, and for other female scientists at MIT. Hopkins got a salary hike, new grants, a seat on the National Academy of Sciences's Institute of Medicine, and an invitation to the Clinton White House. Reparations to tenured women on the MIT science faculty included a 20 percent salary boost, more research money, and lab space. Women who had already retired were awarded with pension increases. And more women were hired. One of Hopkins's female colleagues was quoted in the MIT report as saying, "after the committee was formed and the dean responded, my life began to change. My research blossomed, my funding tripled. Now I love every aspect of my job."

Of course, the Committee on the Status of Women never bothered to examine why MIT didn't have enough women on the faculty to satisfy the diversity bean counters. Maybe that's because Nancy Hopkins, the woman who launched the original complaint, led the investigative committee (talk about statistical bias!). What's more, the Hopkins team only looked at three of MIT's six science departments.

Notably, when Patricia Hausman and statistician James Steiger took a look at the MIT biology department on behalf of the Independent Women's Forum, they did, in fact, find some disparities between men and women scientists. The men published more and were cited more often in scientific journals. So why shouldn't they get more lab space?

Then there's another important issue, one that is never really addressed by the feminist firebrands at MIT: Why are there fewer women in science then men? The simple truth is that women just aren't as interested. Judith Kleinfeld, a professor at the University of Alaska, whose father went to MIT, wrote a trenchant analysis of the MIT report at the time, explaining, "The explanation for the sex disparity is the shortage of women in these scientific fields overall, not gender discrimination on the part of MIT."

Sadly, however, the study of reality is out of vogue at MIT. This is especially so when science doesn't jibe with the research goal--in this case, appeasing feminists.