The Exceptions
Nancy Hopkins and the Fight for Women in Science
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4.6 • 16 Ratings
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
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.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Considering how vital science is to humanity’s future, this investigation into how sexual discrimination compromises the process of discovery and innovation should make all of us sit up and take note. Journalist Kate Zernike tells the story of Nancy Hopkins, who started her career at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the 1970s. Despite working extra hard to prove her worth, Hopkins still found herself coming up with excuses for why her male colleagues advanced faster and were paid more. It wasn’t until the 1990s that Hopkins connected with other female scientists at MIT and realized that decades of unfair treatment were part of a pattern of sexual discrimination. The story of how Dr. Hopkins and 15 other female scientists faced the dean and the president to demand the prestigious university recognize its inequitable work environment will make you want to stand up and cheer. Like Hidden Figures, this empowering history book is an engrossing reminder of the ongoing fight for gender equality in STEM.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
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.
