Transcripts For CSPAN3 Groundbreaking 20240703

Welcome, everyone and good evening and thank you for. Coming out for this, women history womens History Month event. But it is a Panel Discussion in featuring and Elizabeth Gilbert im so sorry elizabeth the pilbara and kate zernike the we are so happy to have them all here to discuss their their books and to honor womens History Month. So i can kate to nikki is a Pulitzer Prize winning New York Times reporter and, author of the just released book, the thousand. Nancy hopkins a mighty in the fight for women in science Allison Gilbert is an Emmy Award Winning journalist and coauthor of alice in the world how the intrepid Elsie Robinson became americas most read woman, a groundbreaking biography that the wall street journal receives is an important to womens history and Elisabeth Griffith historian, a former leader in the National Womens political caucus and womens Campaign Fund and author of formidable american women and the fight for equality the 1922 2020. But far available for sale and finding after the program and i youth give them a very warm welcome welcome here to. I also qualify as a biographer too. My first book was a biography of elizabeth really stanton that ken briggs into his only documentary about women not for ourselves alone but were here tonight to about these two authors and their biographies. Hes ever since the era of ancient warriors knights going on quests or the at the admirable warriors or generals or weems writing in accurately about George Washington biographies have been used to inspire young men with examples of character and courage. Very few people initially. Well, for centuries, wrote about women if they did, they were generally lessons in chastity, stories about virgin mothers, virgin martyrs, virgin queens. These were not lessons in leadership to inspire us. But publishers and prize committees have recognized what all of you know that are very appealing. They tell us an inside story. The best ones are not diaries or date books. They go deeper, although we all do love those intimate details. The best biography put their subject in the era of so Allison Gilbert with her listen world the intrepid life of Elsie Robinson talks about a woman who came to authority before women had any power. Born 1873. Women dont get the vote until 20. This is an era of powerlessness for women no rights to property, no rights to keep earnings, no right to divorce no right to child custody, no reproductive rights at all. This is a writing about a woman and her in this era where women no power. Kate zernike, the exceptions has written about Nancy Hopkins, a molecular biologist at m. I. T. , who will come of age during the resurgence of the Womens Movement during the 1960s. But it takes her a long time to understand the era in which she is living and that for herself. So you have both written about exceptional women taking them in chronological order. Tell us why they were exceptional. Well, thank you all for coming here tonight. We are so grateful and i so grateful to you, betsy, for reading this discussion. I am thrilled Elsie Robinson came from nothing she had no connections. She was impoverished, a time really having trouble to make ends meet and. What she knew came is the ultimate heroine story. She became the highest paid writer in the entire William Randolph hearst media empire. Her between the 1920s and the 1950 is and she was the most read woman in the entire during that time in earning a measure of the hearst platform was just there was no one comparable media outlet then to be a hearst writer. And so she used that platform to saying was on her mind and which we can get into there was no holding back for Elsie Robinson. And what about professor hopkins . Yeah, so Nancy Hopkins, thank you for having us and for your introduction. Nancy hopkins, as you said, was a molecular biologist. She joined i first met her. Sorry. After i first met her in 1999 when i was a reporter for the boston globe and so im a presenter. And i started out when i was a reporter for the boston globe and i got a tip that there was something going on with women and discrimination at mit. And i was given i was given the name of Nancy Hopkins, and i called her up and she said that, in fact, at mit, she was actually going to acknowledge discrimination against women on its faculty and they were going do this, which was striking to me. You know, my thats a man bites dog story. But this was striking to me. But was striking to me further was that nancy, the reason they were going to do this is that a group of women at mit had gotten together and gathered data to look at how men and women were treated differently and they approve of their case so much that. Oh, thank you. They prove in their case so successfully that the administration of mit had no really no choice but to say, you know we okay, we admit this. So nancy and the other women there, 16 women in the book, and there are 16 women in this group, they were exceptional in that most of them were hired at mit in the early 1970s, the beginning of affirmative action. So they had been in the 1960s, some of them in the 1950s. And it really was exceptional to have women in particularly elite scientific labs, but really in science at all. This is because science was a field that was very dominated by men. Men were the lab heads. There were antinepotism rules that kept kept, women that are kept where universities would only hire the husband, not the wife. So it was really unusual for them to get jobs. But i also talk about the exceptions that theres sort of a double meaning. There is a double of my title because the exceptions was really how these women explain their discrimination over the years and again well get into this but but time something happened to them they thought oh thats just know thats just a one off thats just thats just like a conflict or its me, its just the situation. So it was really only over time and once they came together, led by nancy, that they realized that this was these exceptions were in fact, the rule. So these two women are journalists, as alison has written about a journalist asked. And one of the things i so like about her is that Elsie Robinson writes verve and energy, and a lot opinion, and the only way you can tell the difference between the biographer and the subject is that when shes quoting Elsie Robinson, the the print is in italics, but otherwise this book flows with energy and this is a compel long book of a woman who scrape herself up. So pause. I ask the second part. Now keep. I like what youre saying, christine. Frankly, i thought when i wrote this book, which is a lot about black and White American women. After they got the vote that i had earned a second ph. D. , an american africanamerican history, i learning so much that i had never been taught. But case degrees are in journalism. She has scientists in her family tree. But i would think writing this book would have earned you a molecular biology. So my question is about writing about what you were able to use, what the challenges were about, even vocabulary, and using a language you might not have been so comfortable with. You talk a little bit about use of in your book, how you identify people, how you address chronology going back and forth do you straightforwardly go through and then if you might, i could ask, this is my follow up but you had to work. You worked with a coauthor. Yeah. You worked with a subject whos still alive. Yeah. I imagine that for authors those are challenging issues. So start anywhere. Start with start with. How did you find elsie . Oh, she. Sure, i speak loudly. Sure. How . I found out about Elsie Robinson. Its the first biography about Elsie Robinson to be written. And so the one question, of course. Well, then why you and how did you discover her . Why you all hear that hers is the first biography ever to have been written. Yes, yes. And it actually is a really personal story. It only came to me because as my mother died. And what i mean by that is i grew up here in new york. And shortly after i college, my mother passed away. My brother and i went to our childhood home in the bronx not too far away. And we were clearing out our home and getting it ready to sell and inside. One of my mothers books that we were packing fell out of a piece of paper that she had stuffed inside. And in this honest piece of paper, she had retired. Remember that old onion skin paper from back in the day. My mother had retired on a manual typewriter. The most tough love, inyourface poem, grief i had ever read and it was attributed to someone named Elsie Robinson. And i turned to my brother and i said, whos Elsie Robinson . You know, is it a friend of moms . Is it an old College Roommate . And we both had no idea Elsie Robinson was. And it set me on this course of learning. I could possibly could this what turns out to be this american died demo trailblazer badass. Incredible. Well have to return the bad part because shes not really going depth here. Yes. Tell me what you want. Sorry. So about how we hate to talk about the science. Oh, was it a challenge to write in such detail about this is really high level science. Yeah. So another reason that the women in my book, you know, nancy, as i said, graduated from college in 64 and then gets her ph. D. In 1971, starts mit in 1973, and she doesnt start she she doesnt consider herself an activist, not a feminist all. And it takes her 20 years to become an activist and a feminist and to realize that shes being discriminated. And one of the reasons is as for other women in the book, they really wanted to be known as scientists, not activists and not, you know, not necessarily feminists and so but when it came time to writing the book, they really know if i was going to memorialize in this way. They wanted to be known as scientists. They dont you know, when talk to, you know, female scientists, its you know, they say, i just want be known as a scientist, not a female scientist, which is understandable. So it was very important to the women in the book, as you say, many of whom are several whom are still alive. And to nancy, whos very much alive, that i celebrate the science and so it was really important to me to tell the story. It is incredibly difficult, partly its its technical terms. You know, i learned how to say and spell prokhorov try to the smallest most abundant organism in the ocean but and also in one of nancys big experiments that makes up through the end of the book that, shes trying to get this thing done. Its a very slow process, so she has to figure out things out. And its like, how am i going to make this interesting . And you just have to sort of keep reminding people why its important and what her next target is and all the different steps. But me. Theres one particular experiment is, as you say, a molecular biologist got into science, fell in love with science in a one hour lecture taught by james watson four months after he and Francis Crick won the nobel prize for decoding the structure of dna. And in that one hour lecture, she just like she just realizes that this new Revolution Genetics is going to tell her everything she needs to know the world. Shes 19 at the time. She then goes on to do one of the most important early experiments in gene expression. So, in other words, if all of our cells had the same genetic makeup, have the same dna, why . How does one cell know to become one . You know, how does dna know when to turn on a turn off . How does one cell become a hand, one cell become an ear or whatever so that express . And i knew it was really important because i had say, you know, establish for scientists reading it, its you know, its old hat at this point. So i had to make fresh for anybody who came to this with science but but understandable to people who who cant do it without any science. So finally what i mean it really was a breakthrough at one point i just thought, oh this is a story like every experiment is telling a story. And so thats what i tried to do and do you want to go your follow up but but well yeah keep going for a while. Yeah the science was was was actually once i got it particular early experiment i was like yes and its so its thrilling. And you realize you realize that, you know why these people got to do it. So my favorite question of everyone turned out to be tell me how you got into science. Ive been talking recently about one of the women, sylvia, whos a chemist, a physical chemist, which is a very, very tough field for for women. And she got into science. She went to her library in suburban chicago, a nine year old, and she was working her way through the books. The what is series of books . So, like, you know, what is American Revolution . What is it . And she comes to what is chemistry right because she doesnt know its chemistry, science, chemistry so she takes it out and she looks at and shes it and its like shes entranced by this and she takes out. So she checks out what chemistry and she goes home and she takes her peacock fountain pen and copies it out. And like, from then on, shes going to be a and so i mean so the science i actually i became kind of like evangelical, their science, which was really fun because it was, was definitely a turnaround for me. Can i add one thing . Yes of course you had said something before that i forgot to address, which was that i thank you for bringing it up, which is the structure of lists in world and how we italics to identify robinsons own words. And its only relevant in terms of the research because so much of writing wasnt digitized and so we had to do the painstaking labor of going to the microfilm and you know, getting the words, you know, in a very cumbersome manner. But the reason why this is relevant is that if we knew we were writing book about a writer and we dont present words in her own words, it just seemed a very odd choice for two women writers to want to resurrect a womans life and then not give air to not give her words. Oxygen. And we also knew that if we spent so much time this under digitized columns and articles and essays and works of fiction and poetry we knew we had to make it easier for readers. Appreciate Elsie Robinson voice and so using italics to bring in so much of Elsie Robinson to tell her own story alongside us as the authors we that would make sense. And in so doing we created a database. This is just kind of inside baseball. We did some math and we did some numbers crunching. She produced about 9000 pieces of content. Her massive 30 year plus. So we created a database of all of this writing she also produced editorial cartoons. And so we then were able to create tags and keywords within our database. What Elsie Robinson was writing about, put dates to everything was a cartoon attached to each one. And so then, then we could search. What did she write . Marriage. What did she write about . Relationships. Capitalism, antisemitism, war racism, etc. , etc. So then we could have the first repository of Elsie Robinson own words to exist ever. Huge gift. Yeah. I thought about bringing props. Yeah, i was thinking about dusty typewriter or an ax. Is that what they would have used in the gold mine. Yeah. And then of course a tape measure that starts with the gold mine. So Elsie Robinson was in a disaster stress marriage that was loveless and cold and left wanting this richer life that she could not. This is relevant because in. 1912 she checked out of marriage, took her only son in tow, and they began 1912 to live as a single mother and child, which was exceptionally at the time. If you were divorced, you were branded. So many women kept mrs. Because of the shame to having not be attached to a at that time. This is to say that she was in dire straits when she finally got back to her beloved california. And between 1915 and 1918. Elsie worked as a miner in a massive gold in the mother lode of california. The only woman on a crew of men. This was danger and back breaking work that was exceptionally frightening she worked 600 feet below the surface of the earth where people died. And yet she had no way of scrounging for a living and did this with her son by her side as a duo who would go through life together and form incredible bond that shaped her not only her personal life, but even how she began her career when she finally left the mine, it closed down, which will wait for in 1918. That became the shift that gave her this opportunity to pursue her dream of becoming an artist and becoming a writer. But shed been writing. Shed been writing childrens stories and illustrating them and she found in this dusty town. Yes. So thank you for reminding me of this story. I appreciate that. This is hard. So my coauthor and i went back to juanitas california, which is where this gold mining town is. And we went back there and exploring Ocean Mission during the research this book and Elsie Robinson made an exceptional with the daughter of a former slave who was brought to california as a slave and became one of the most incredibly successful black gold miners in the entire history of the american west. That mans daughter and Elsie Robinson became fast friends when Elsie Robinson was trying become a writer. She knew that she couldnt do these manuscripts by hand. And what this woman gave her was an ancient old manual typewriter. And what we are pretty certain. 99 certain that in the old abandoned post office that we were allowed to have access to, we found that typewriter. And we know within 99. 9 certainty that it is the one because we with typewriter experts who can then tell us by the keys and the manufacturer when it was produced where in the country it would have been utilize. And heres the best part about this typewriter or any typewriter here. Listening. This typewriter was so old and it matches robins description. So. That there were two rows of the exact same keys. One row was in kind black keys, and the second row, and these are multiple like four rows each were in kind of bone color keys. One set were all capital letters and then entire alphabet was repeated lowercase because it was before the invention of the shift key. Imagine typing your manuscripts on that. Yeah. So in the book we have pictures of this typewriter and it was covered and covered in dust it was just it was a remarkable find i think julie and i screened and this is why biographers and all historians, i have to admit, they love the detective work. Its hard to stop doing the detective work and actually write because youre sure youre going to find another cache of letters, some wonderful discovery. Kate, did you ever find measuring tape . Measuring tape exist . Yeah. So nancys measure, so tell about the measure. So nancy. So as i said, i get this call or get this tip. Someone in the newsroom that Nancy Hopkins theres something going on with an mit description. Call Nancy Hopkins and she said that they gathered this information and i said, great, im going to come over. I meet her in her lab and so i said, well, how did this all start . Which is kind of a normal question for journalists. And she said she said, well, know, i had i was switching i switched into a new and i was researching zebrafish and i needed more space for my fish tanks and i couldnt get more space. They wouldnt allow. And i knew that the men had more space. And i said, well, how did you know. And she said, i measured i was like, you measured . And she said with a tape measure. And nancy is very you know, you meet her and shes got the slight british accent. She grew up here in new york city, but she had a british who lived in the same building. So the slight british accent was very distinct seeming. And i thought, anyway, so she tells me that she shes like in her mid early midfifties, i guess at this point when she found out she didnt have as much space and head of the department was saying, no, no, no, thats not true. She was like, well, all i to do is prove to him and hell, you know, hell believe it. So she took her tape measure and she went around the building and she measured every of labs, making it at night, sneaking in at night, like under like. Wait until the postdocs left to go get dinner because she was too in bed and she thought like, here i am, is tenured professor crawling around in my hand and knees stretching out a tape measure. And theres one night that i tell in the book where she almost gets caught and shes just like, oh my, theyre going to think im crazy. And then she realizes maybe i am going crazy because theyre making me crazy with all this stuff. So she measures, she measures and she goes back to the guy whos in charge of space and he refuses to look at the numbers. So she no, she knows she knows from the measurements that she has less space than men, but not only less specimen, but less space than men who dont have tenure. She is at this point a fully tenured professor, mit. And that sort of becomes us. Thats like the first moment for her. And then the straw that really breaks the camels back that shes teaching a class. Shes asked to teach this very important class at mit. Its the first time that mit is going to require biology to be taught all undergraduates because up until now its been calculus, chemistry and physics. And in the early nineties, they recognized that given the revolution in everybody, all undergraduates from any institution of any institution considered itself as prestigious at mit, needs to understand basic biology. So every undergraduate is going to take biology. Nancy. They asked nancy to teach that to develop and teach this course. She develops the course with a guy and a man whos 14 years her junior. They teach a class three years. Its very successful, gets very high ratings. They both get very high teaching ratings. And then suddenly nancys into her. The head of the departments, and he says, what do you want to teach next . And she says, the bio course. And he says, oh, no, no, no. Eric wants teach that with harvey. What do you want to teach . And she said, well i want to teach that. Cant we teach it together . And theres, you know, no, you cant. How about you teach another class . She cant figure out whats going on because as i said, her teaching ratings are very high. So the head of the Department Says to her, ask eric, talk to eric. So she goes to talk to eric, the guy shes teaching with. And he says, well, you know, its not that i dont like teaching with you, but harvey and i, you know, were were im excited about teaching with harvey. And we got this idea to a textbook and were going to write a textbook and, you know, do some cdroms and and, you know, sell content from the course and were going anyway. So then she goes to talk to harvey. He wants teach with and harvey says well actually its gone farther than that. Weve hired it weve just formed a company, weve hired a president , were going to make millions in that first year. Biology students are in this are in this its just like you know, nancy, i would say at first, because she is in this mode of, you know, brushing things aside and sort of keeping her blinders on. Thanks. Well, you know something . I created is worth millions. And so she tells to a friend of hers, a guy whos an entrepreneur, hes like, are you out of your mind . Like, theyre stealing from you . So so thats when you she she goes and she tries fight to. Get this course back. They put her off. They put her out. They put off. And finally at wits end, she writes a letter to the president she takes. She shows the she says the president , you know, im Nancy Hopkins a professor of biology because. She assumes he has no idea who she is. And she shows it to a friend, another man, and he says, you know, i dont think you should send because he has no idea. You know, context on how to evaluate this. He might just think youre not a very good scientist. So she takes the letter and it to a woman who she really doesnt know well whose, ten years older in the Biology Department, this is the mayor, a woman named mary lou pardue, who is the first woman, the mit, to be elected to the National Academy of sciences. So nancy has huge respect for her she shows mary lou the letter and she sits there over a small lunch table and. Shes watching for what feels like an hour is mary lou reads this letter. And finally, mary looks up and says, id like to sign this letter because ive long thought that there was a problem for women in this department. And i think we should go see the president ultimate. What they do is decide that theyre going to hold off on going to see the president. And first, theyre going to interview all the women at mit. But they think like, oh, god, theres probably so many women at mit, how could we ever do . Lets start with the school of science. So they go back to Biology Department and they consult the third woman, lisa steiner, and she says, you know, we should into this. So they say, well, lets just start with the women in the school of science, and they pull down the course catalog from the shelf and they look through to see, you know, how women and who were the women in the school of science. And thats when they realize there are 15 tenured women in the school of science and 197 men. This in 1994. So like huge age disparity. And this is, you know, fully years at the dawn of affirmative action at. Mit, the numbers really have not, despite the fact that the number of undergraduate women in particularly in biology and chemistry has gone way up. So that was one of the big breakthroughs of mit report, was that it wasnt that women werent in science. It was that something was happening to them along the career trajectory that was making them drop. None of this is really a surprise to me. I was, in addition to teaching history for 40 years, i was for than 20 years the head of an Independent School for girls and. So part of my job was focusing on raising the expectations for those girls, making sure those girls had expectations about their lives, of course, carried over to working equal rights for women. One of the reasons that got suffrage in the United States prior to 1920, they got in the west, 12 states gave women and were all west of the Mississippi River and western states gave women because they saw them as economic partners. They were they were turning Raw Materials into agriculture, agricultural. They gave them equal pay to teach. They gave them Voting Rights because they wanted to population to their towns. They gave them rights, which was on third of and divorce rights. So women were doing pretty well in the west and it was based on the sense of merit that women merited that they had, that they had merit. They had proven themselves. When Nancy Hopkins was at radcliffe 1962. 64. Yeah. The president of radcliffe was a woman named, polly bunting. She was the mother of four. She was a widow. And she was a molecular biologist who was called mrs. Bunting. Part of that was. Doctoral protocol in a place. Everybodys a doctor. But she was not called doctor bunting, and she was struck. But she was radcliffes first president with a ph. D. Yeah, and radcliffe then was still sort of an underling of harvard, would be for some time. But she was struck by what she the climate of an expected emotion that women would not be exceptional, that nobody expected to be exceptional. And she starts a program radcliffe fellows open mostly to white women but it draws and sexton and Madeleine Kim maxine human it attracts women who are stuck at home with children and unable to find time to do their work. So shes trying to find a niche for these women who would be exceptional if they had that opportunity, they could escape the climate of expectation. So in then i think you all might remember 2005 when Larry Summers is giving a talk at harvard about women in science. And he says that women lack the intrinsic aptitude for science Nancy Hopkins too is in the room. She very slowly up closed her dossier picked up her purse, walked out and he was he on defense ever after that. So both of your women both of your subjects are living in areas where people do not expect them to and they are confront acted by patterns of. Dont want to blame the gentleman in the room who were nice to come. So im not blaming i am blaming patriarchy, but not individual. But the power of patriarchy and the power of sex role socialization, the lessons that men and women and everybody on spectrum of gender are taught and, have been taught forever, ever and ever about what is appropriate behavior for what is appropriate behavior for women. And whenever women push that out, its a challenge. So how do we counter that kind of sexual socialization . What tools, in addition to being exceptional, can women use those to break that . Because part of those that stereotyping that sexual stereotyping is if you make trouble if youre Nancy Hopkins and you think, oh, i need to dont want to stir this up too, because people will think i am angry, nagging a harridan the same thing called the salem witches. And that word rhymes with. Women try to avoid that even today right . Did anybody call Elsie Robinson a . No, i think so. Interesting about the names that Elsie Robinson was called. They took umbrage. The reason why the book is called listen world end is because that was the name of her column. So we just borrow the name of her column. Readers, men took issue with that. She named her column listen world. Meaning who are you to . Tell me what to listen to, what to think, what to ruminate over, what to consider. So even the name of her column was kind of taken apart. I think what i was so moved continually in Elsie Robinson story as were writing lists in a world, was her moxie. We found talk about patriarchy in terms archival research. As a biographer so much of what we found out Elsie Robinson was not because someone out there had put together an Elsie Robinson archive that was waiting for me to uncover the boxes and, find her life story front of us. Oh, no, no, no. Her papers were never curated. We had to reverse engineer her life through the men who employed her. And so we found evidence of her attitude in advocating for her self in the william rand hearst papers in the bancroft in the bay area of california. So in the William Randolph hearst papers there was, correspondence between him and Elsie Robinson directly. And then we of course, we found other course bonds with her other editors at, the San Francisco chronicle, which was a hearst paper it still is or correspondence her and her bosses up at Syracuse University where brisbanes papers are. So lo and behold, she did not mince. She accused them of working her as a columnist. Im no longer a writer. Im a factory worker. She complained about not being a raise in more than nine years. She wanted more time off not to go. You know, twiddle her thumbs, but to have a little bit of just a, you know. We talk about Work Life Balance now that was not a term back the day but she that she was worth more and she demanded to be paid what she was worth. And heres just one great story in. 1940, after she uncovered these letters where she William Randolph hearst, you have to know who William Randolph hearst was, by the way, he just wasnt like a little boss. He was the most powerful publisher in the world. And so for her to take him on directly, she showed incredible gumption, but also incredible belief in your own company and see that she knew she was a unicorn. She knew that she was valuable. She knew she was so she stood on that competency and demanded what she was worth, which i think is actually one of the great lessons of Elsie Robinson for me, which is to evaluate what you are to the table and, then to demand to be compensated because you know, when however you measure your success in her world, it was eyeballs on the page was bringing readers into a hearst media empire and. She knew her power the Mika Brzezinski know your power, you know your worth, you know your work value. But think of this contrast. Got Elsie Robinson at a time where women are generally powerless or just just beginning to accrue power. And even after they get the vote, they dont use it. And then you have a woman who is nowhere as bold for many years, doesnt get bold until she has. And thats a century later, right . Yeah. So is it being a is it this faith in merit that i am so clearly brilliant, which she was modestly but brilliant and nationally acknowledged but still timid about taking these steps and even out to other women in the department. Whats the. Yeah so, nancy, but you know, i say shes not a bold person. Shes so nancy i think part of it is that she as i said, she was raised in new york city, grew up in morningside heights, was scholarship student at spence and spence at the time, you know, elite girls school, girls when they arrived in the morning, had to curtsy to the doorman and it was considered good training and. This is in late 48. And im sorry late fifties was considered good training. You might be presented at court to the queen day. So you know, you were told to keep your mouth shut, to be nice, to not chew gum on the bus. And so there was this one great moment where nancy is with this this guy, mark patani, who she does her the first big gene expression experiment with and he gets in sort of into conflict with another guy. And shes complaining about this and she my my spence friends wouldnt act this way. And he says, your spence friends dont do anything. Its easy to be nice when you dont do anything, which is a little harsh, but entirely untrue. So yeah. So i think she goes into partly that shes just raised, you know, shes nice. But that said shes thinks that science is a meritocracy. All of these women do. And they and she also thinks its sort of a refuge. Its a rational world. Its a refuge from anything emotional. So she goes into science. Shes going to be judged purely on her science, not on her personality or, you know, sort of her emotions all going to be. Shes going to be able to rely on the data in the numbers, the very rational thinking. And she very quickly recognizes that science is a competitive world and that shes not going that she is this spence at heart. Shes not brought up way and that its going to be very hard for her. But again, she so so she trusts the meritocracy. And i think this is important as we consider you know, the supreme courts about to address this big affirmative action case all of these women thought that science was pure meritocracy. It really should be. But what we found out in this book is that there is no such thing as a pure meritocracy. It really doesnt exist, because its all about, you know, how you relate to other in your personality and their personality and circumstances. So of these women think like, well, this is me. Its not that im being aggressive enough. And nancy actually goes to the extent of first she thinks, well, shes on this fifth floor, which is this legendary of the Cancer Center at mit. And the legendary animosity is that the lights never go out in the fifth floor because theyre all literally rushing to cure cancer. So she leaves the fifth floor and goes to the third floor and gets her own lab. Theyre thinking thats, you know, ill be protected, wont be a problem. Then she realizes that theres some guy from outside of mit who is stealing her work around, taking credit for her for something she discovered. And so shes, like, well, maybe i need to get out of Cancer Research now. She leaves the field of cancer, and thats when goes into zebrafish and discovers that, in fact, she has to fight again for more space. But what the women describe is this is what they call it. I think its such a brilliant phrase because its so evocative. Is this tightrope of behavior, the tightrope of behavioral expectation for women . You have to be ambitious enough to participate in the field because if you dont, you know, then you dont have the you dont have what it takes to be a scientist. But if youre too aggressive, youre too aggressive. You know, if youre too ambitious, youre too aggressive. Or as nancy, you know, the other hear other women described as that is that thats the the boogie woman, if you would that they all they all wrestle with is they dont want to be the difficult woman. And i think thats what thats what sort of keeps this progress from circling back to sexual socialization. Right ambition, aggression, competitive ness. Yeah. Versus good manners, be nice. Get along. All those things is a tension and in womens that i think we are only slowly getting over and depending on the environments in which we work and the and really the sex and balance in those in those situations if youre working with a lot of men who have been socialized differently, didnt have feminist mothers, then you have a more challenging time. I would just like to add just one thing, which i think is really which is a counterpoint with our subjects is that elsie was really about elsie. In addition to her readers. And what i mean by that in a very like 2023 sense, she was all about brand how is she presenting herself in a public facing way to attract more energy and this goes back by the way to 1980 when she got her first job at the oakland tribune. It wasnt a mistake that. Eventually it became and elsie is magazine. Right. And she became she started out as a childrens and it wasnt enough for her to just stay in this lane first. It was a column. Then it became page and it became two pages and it became four. Then it became eight page section in the oakland tribune, which she blazoned with an now she wanted to own. And by the way, this brand was so powerful that she died in 1956. And elsie, as a brand lasted into the seventies at the oakland tribune. It was. And elsie meant to be approachable. Well, she meant to be a non person, but that was for for kids. So of course it was. But heres the kicker, which i love. When she started making transition to writing for their parents, writing for adults, she again had a choice. There were lots of women who are writing under. So her first column, one of her first was called cry on geraldines shoulder, and she was geraldine when she finally made the transition to the San Francisco chronicle, she basically said, enough of i am writing under my own name with my own byline and. She even said in her debut 1923 for the San Francisco, she says, im not coming to you under a pretend name or, pseudonym. Im giving you as myself take it or leave it. And then within one year she was hired by William Randolph hearst. In 1924 and spent the rest of her career until her death in 1956, writing for hearst. Ill just add one last thing. She was so prolific her. Articles kept running after died because she had so much in the hopper. She was a workaholic. So keep in mind that this is the bad whod been a coal miner. Gold miner . And not only was she underground 600 feet, but she walked four miles back and forth to work every day after the shifts and to work. So this is very gutsy woman who this sense of self but but still starts in disguise and in that pseudonym she uses how she approaches herself. This is a very common strategy women to sort of sneak in under the radar. Elizabeth cady stanton, one of the most radical thinkers about in the 19th century, look like everybodys grandmother and was very funny until she got the podium and then she just was scathing in a nicely snarky way. Frances perkins says that when she started doing lobbying in the New York Legislature shes a very attractive woman. She dressed years older because said the male legislators dont want to hear from me, but theyll respect someone who looks like their mother. And so she edged way in. So women have had to find ways to edge and Nancy Hopkins way was to sort of find first the merit, of course, be so good, but then to find allies because i dont i know ive already blamed all the men patriarchs, but they both of these women had male and female allies. Could you talk a little bit about the allyship . Yeah. So i just want to say one more thing on on a personal question, like whats really striking when you go back to the Larry Summers thing is the way people talked about nancy and the way people rushed to Larry Summers defense. The first thing he said lacked the intrinsic aptitude through high level and science. But the first thing you said that really me off that her start to kind of push away from the table was that women dont want to work 80 hour weeks. And heres nancy whos been working 80 hour weeks for, you know, 30 years at this point. So yes. I think like we are still talking about women in different ways. But the allies were incredibly important. And as i said, the 16 women come together, mary. So, nancy, mary lou and stier realize there are 615 women in the school of science. They drag in two more from engineering of cross appointments. They survey them all within a week. All the women but one have signed on and they write this. They spend six weeks writing this letter to the of science. They decide theyre not going to go straight to the president. They write to the dean of science, and they schedule a meeting with him. And theyre so worried that, like, theyre going to show up and theres going to be lawyers there and, you know, oh, my god, the whole must be on alert because these, you know, aggressive, revolutionary women and they show up to the meeting and hes not even read the letter. Hes like, what are you here again . These are things like, oh, this must be more than nancy complaining about the course. Again thats been stolen from her. But then what happens that hes got six of these women seated around his table and in that moment, he describes it like a scientific epiphany, because one after the other, the women around and they tell their stories. And he begins to see what all scientists look for, which is the pattern. And he sees one of things he sees, in fact, is that none of the women in front of him because half of these 16 women did not have children, he had four kids, had a wife who helped raise them and who was doing the bulk of the raising of them. And he just it to him like it had never he had never had to think can i have children or can i not have children . How is it going to affect my career. He just had four kids, you know, and the wife took care of them. So he was their first big ally. But the other person, of course, whos whos huge is is charles best. Best who was the president mit at the time, there had been many, many on. Well, okay, so one more person, ill tell you, because its kind of interesting. The women go to the dean of science and they ask for a committee to look at resources from men and women. The dean gives in the committee. And i sort of thought, you know, especially having done this story in 1909 when i went back to do the book, thought, oh, you know, committees, they turn out reports like thats what they do. And thats why there was a report in this case. It turns out thats not in fact, the case. And the book is you know, its really amazing when you read the whole book, think like, oh, my god, theres so many turning points when this might never have happened. It might never have gone public. The reason it becomes a report is because is they put on the committee today the, women get this committee and some the women think we just need all women on this committee. Nancy thinks we need one woman in every department to keep keep an eye on this. And dean and some of the other women say, no, no, you need to work with men and you need to work with the most powerful men here. So he puts on the committee nobel prize heads of departments. And its one of these guys, jerry friedman, who won the nobel prize for discovering the quark, whos the one who says, oh, my god, i cant believe this is happening . Like people need to know about this and the dean needs to fix this. You need to put in writing so the dean can fix these problems. So that becomes the report that is ultimately released, supposed to be released, the rest of the faculty, and then i get wind of it. It gets released to the world. But that was an ally. The reason that this report you know when when the report broke first its on the front page of the boston the dean of science shows up to his office the next morning. Theres a cbs news crew outside. Nancy, up to her office, picks up the phone which is ringing. Its been ringing all day, will continue to ring for two weeks. And its you know, youre on the air in australia like this was a huge deal. Two days later, the New York Times puts the story on the front page. And with that email from across the country and really across the world from other women saying is my story, too. And i thought i was the only the reason that this report got so much press and really resonated in this worldwide way is the president might put stamp on it and it he it was like, you know, three sentences maybe. But it was a very crucial at the beginning of this report where he said, i have always believed that gender discrimination in Higher Education or in universities is part perception, part reality. True. But now understand that reality is by far the greater part of the balance and. Just him saying that this is true, this is not in their heads this is not, you know, nobodys real at the gaslight, these women. This is actually happening to them. That was huge. So harvard had done reports. Johns hopkins had done reports mit does report the ally in the president was the critical step there. I once heard Nancy Hopkins talk a meeting of academics about how to change womens roles in institutions. The two points she made were the allies among the faculty and then that you need to instill to analyze, you need to put the committee in place. So even if the president changes us the committee will still be there. The work you have to embedded in the institution or nothing changes. I wanted to talk about Work Life Balance. These women had none. Children well long tragic story. But i do want to allow for moments of question and answer if you have them, because i know were out of time scheme tonight and i want you all to able to purchase the books and get these authors to sign them. So two final short questions. Biographers are not supposed to be hagiography. First, they are not writing the of saints. Its supposed to be warts and all. So the first question is, did you discover warts about your character . Yeah. The dean says to nancy one point and its like, so nancy has this incredibly restless mind. But and shes like, look at her mind. Its like looking for something to fixate on, which is great quality in scientists. Not always the best quality. Someone like who you want to be polite university politicking. So as much as she is a nice person, its a little hard. So the dean recognizes this and he says, nancy, can i just suggest that you live by the 24 hour rule, which is like, dont pop your head off. Wait 24 hours before you pop your head off. And she just kind of cant stop popping her head off. So she gets i would say her her restless mind can turn on obsessiveness a little bit. And i think, you know, she just will go to the wall and beyond. I think Elsie Robinson obsessive, too. And i think that she is a cautious tail for for not paying attention to the personal relationships that give you strength and, respect. I think that she lacked for friendships. Her romantic life was a series of failed marriage. I she even joked that marrying a columnist is like holocaust because. Everything is copy you know famous nora ephron i think said that everything is copy and. I think that she was so. You know, it was six columns a week day thats more than some bloggers today the amount of work was i think painful and ultimately destructive to her Mental Health and to certainly physical health. So at one point in my book this the epilog not enough because women have made enormous progress in the last 200 years and it is not enough if you look at it statistically in so many ways, at so many levels. But at one point when im writing about women scientists, i quote a fact i knew was factually correct, but i didnt transfer it into percentages. So in the in the 1990s, there were more women professors at m. I. T. Than there were women. The United States senate. But of course, by percentage there were could have worked out either way didnt run the numbers today are 25 women in the United States senate is 25 . I can easily do it. How we doing at women in science . Different fields, women in journalism, different fields in the United States, 98 of kindergarten teachers, women, 3 of plumbers are women. Percent of pilots. And theres a whole range in between. But women in the sciences follow and there are issues of Sexual Harassment driving them out of some of those fields. Women in journalism. How are they doing . I theyre doing exceptionally well. I think its a great time to be a woman in journalism. I just did a documentary, a 20 part series, where hosted and i interviewed women, covered 911 for the 20th anniversary of the attacks. And as of that project that i did, i talked to them about in this last generation, how has the terrain changed for women and not everyone . Clearly there are bumps the road but in a broader stretch women have a in newsrooms across the country in ways that i dont think were possible even a generation ago. And so i find that to be i find that to be excite. And it makes me look forward to even whats to come in the next 20 years. Do you think theyre above 38 of journalists in all fields . Do you think women are more than 38 . Thats an interesting i dont know that data. I so i appreciate you asking the question but i think its important to me if i were to do that research, what i would look for are not just the women in front of the camera because, the Decision Making power of people in management in newsrooms to me is, much more of a defining and important statistic to care about. So personally. If i were doing that research and i was writing a book, lets say about that, i would really want know about the women in management positions who are in control of editorial decisions, what gets on television or the newspaper people who are in charge of employing Decision Makers and fact checkers. To me, that would be a much more important statistic than who are the actual important. Who are the actual anchors important . But i would want to know who are the decisionmakers, the newsroom. You have put your finger on it. I use that percentage because the ballot the highest the political body with the largest number of women serving is the lowest level at school boards, city councils. You have more women there than any other place in the country, but your point is germane. The corporations that have women and africanamericans and diverse representation on their boards. Only 20 in the country have equal 5050 representation of men and women. But those are the corporations are hiring women and Diverse People in their csuites and that changes everything. Those are also according to fortune magazine, some of the most product and prosperous and profitable corporations in the country, because that diverse leadership has impact. So whats happening with women in science today . So first of all, the thing to know about mit now is that mit is by women. So the head of the board, the president , the chancellor, the provost the dean of science, the director of research, who is also, by the way, one of three women advising who are president bidens science advisers, a woman named maria zuber in the school of engineering, very male bastion departments. Five are led by women, which is like what have been unheard of and unheard of yeah because in 1989 there had never been a woman as the head of any department or center at mit. So that is huge. The number, the percentage of faculty is still at about i think its 22 now. Right. Was 8 in 1994. So whats happened is theyve lost a little by attrition, right. So you know not but but to your point, the csuite level essentially University Level or equivalent of that, where you see the difference and this is i this is the point that i really want to make is that, yes, it matters who is in the leadership position, but its also and this was the big revelation for me about this story and what these women showed us. Its not enough to just put women in leadership. Its not enough to just open the doors its how you talk about them. Its how you view them, how you treat them. Right. All the way up. So what happens is if you look at the ph. D. Level at mit. And of course, maybe, you know, more half of the undergraduates in College Campuses in this country are women. But if you look at sea level and you look at whos out the attrition rate, its much higher among young women. And what those young women will say is that they are constantly up against this expectation or this the Larry Summers expectation basically that women dont have what it takes to do science and so i think that is still what really holds people back there was a great in that 2018 the National Academies of science engineering and medicine did a study they found that 50 of faculty said female faculty said they had been sexually harassed, but was not what these women thought. Sexual was when they first started, which was that had to include sex. So its not sexual. Its not, you know, men hitting on them. It really this intellectual discrimination, right . Its this this this belief that youre not enough, that you dont belong here. Thats really the hurdle. So for me, what i always look at, what i think is like you know this is a beautiful ceiling, the highest heart of Glass Ceiling science is it tells us something about other fields, too, is when we look at the language around intellect, right . When we talk about genius, we are much more likely to associate genius with men, right . Women. When we talk about that, were much likely to talk about how hard they work right. Also, when you at the way we talk about math and physics, particularly pure math or theoretical, we tend to assume men, women alike, assume that you need some kind of brilliance or genius to do those fields. So the effect of this is that even women think, oh, those fields arent for me because i dont have the genius it takes. I dont have the raw brilliance, not me. I work really hard, but theres just so so i that thats thats the real hurdle is. The way we talk about people, the way we talk women and the way we see them. I have to say every time Larry Summers is on msnbc saying something, i hiss at the television. Yeah we are under a little bit of deadline because of when dinner is being served the book signing. But i dont want to cut off any questions. If theres one in the audience, please stand up. We have a mic so that youll recorded. Oh, good. Anyone guest, please. Front row right here. Hi. My name is Rose Horowitz to be here. What do you think was the motivating factor . What made women take that risk . Well, for nancy it was certainly that. And for all of these women, really, it was for nancy in particular, because she was the ringleader here. It was that she had reached a point. She could no longer do her science like she needed fish to to do this genetic experiment, needed three generations. And she couldnt do it and she could see others around her and. It just it became so frustrating. At one point she was competing a guy in the lab next to her, and he was they were competing over space. Its so stupid. And he would pile these boxes outside her office and she tripped and hurt her back and she ended up staying home because shed heard her baby just stupid stuff. And its like its getting in the way of progress, right . Like its all all of this adds up and subtracts from the actual science, its happening. So thats what pushed her. What about elsie . Poverty . Yeah. Oh, i think she was motivated out of feeling absolutely suffocated. She felt completely drained from lack of ability to maneuver into a place that gave her fulfillment the writing and the illustrating began as a way of entertaining son. You know, he was born in 1904. And how do you entertain a child in that era it was to draw him pictures and to write him stories and so think to overcome boredom to make sure that she can entertain her son who was sick his entire life i think gave her this freedom of expression, which ultimately came her ticket to supporting herself when she couldnt take anymore. And she left her husband. As i said before, in 1912, which was just unheard of. Please let me commend to you these very, really excellent biographies. They balanced both the character element you are learning about these peoples and tegra and their intelligence and their grit. And you are learning about the eras in which they lived. These are good books. Enjoy them. Thank you very. Many