Thank you Boston University for the extraordinary privilege
and pleasure of being here today. Good morning everyone.
Most of all, congratulations to those we celebrate
and honor this morning, the class of 2014.
I'm going to describe my participation in the Scientific Revolution in the
field of biology,
and a social revolution that began the year
I graduated from college, but that you,
class of 2014, will have to complete.
I graduated from college
50 years ago in 1964.
My mother expected me to acquire a husband in college,
and job skills in case Plan A failed.
Just four years later, society expected young women
to graduate and get on the fast track to high-powered careers.
When I entered college, women couldn't be hired into most high-powered jobs,
but the 1964 Civil Rights Act change that. People assumed women would soon be
half the CEOs in the Fortune 500,
half the scientists and engineers, fifty percent of Congress.
They expected it to take about 30 years.
Change has been dramatic.
In some cases, too
dramatic. For example, more women than men
enter college now. Nonetheless,
after 50 years women are 4.6 percent of the CEOs of Fortune 500 companies,
19 percent of the science faculty at MIT,
and just 19 percent of Congress. Why
so slow? 50 years ago, people thought all you had to do was
open the doors let women in and wait. Time would take care of the rest.
They were wrong. Behind the obvious barrier of
not being able to get a job were series of invisible barriers.
Each had to be identified and dismantled.
I hope my personal story of this 50 year revolution illustrates why social change
is slow
but how barriers do get removed I went to radcliff college
women's division a common in my ear and as you heard
junior year I signed up for an introductory biology class taught by
James D Watson
I walked into watson's classes looking for the meaning of life
and founded this secretive life was DNA
after class I race to Watson's office and asked if I could work in his lap and
he said yes
the science was incredibly exciting I thought it highly likely I'd make a
Nobel prize-winning discovery
everybody else seemed to but I had no thought
getting a PhD are being a professor after a week
in jim's lab it was obvious to me why there weren't any women professes
these molecular biologist work 70 hours a week
their wives stayed home and took care of the family how could
anyone do both full-time jobs my goal was to win a Nobel Prize before I was 30
which science and be a wife and mother
didn't happen jim watson decided I should get a PhD
my husband and I have lost and in 1973 MIT offered me a faculty job so there I
was
age thirty no Nobel Prize no husband
a PhD in a job offer time for Plan B
thank you mother I decided not to be mad not to have children to accept the MIT
job
if anyone had told me in 1973 there was anything discriminatory about this
situation
I wouldn't have known what they were talking about it didn't occur to me that
a profession
in which half the population cannot participate equally and also have
children
is not equal opportunity occupation
of I meant to be a junior faculty member at MIT to work on the genetic basis a
cancer
I certainly didn't expect to encounter gender discrimination
because science is supposed to be merit-based the cancer research
this thrilling in a short time many the genes that cause human cancers were
discovered
but it turned out I was wrong
Bradley I came to see the gender discrimination did exist
after all even for women who chose not to have children
what I saw was that when a man and a woman
made a discovery up equal scientific importance
the man and his discovery were valued more highly
and the woman and her discovery this seems so implausible
that I had to witness many examples before I believe dead
there were so few women in science then that it took a long time
but after twenty years I knew it was true
it dawned on me the this discovery was a profound insight into the human mind
it was revolutionary in fact
it deserves a Nobel Prize
un fortunately as I learned later my discovery had already been made
it was psychologists who documented the irrationality Bob Raines
and not inability to make accurate judgement said even simple numerical fax
if the conclusions contradict our unconscious biases
you can demonstrate gender by SBA simply
by making copies a research article
putting a man's name on have two copies a woman's on the other happen sending
the two versions out to review
review is judge the identical work to be better
if they believe it was done by a man surprisingly
it doesn't matter if the reviewers a man all-women
eat incidently my noble prize was awarded to the psychologist Daniel
Kahneman for his work on unconscious biases
for a long time
I was afraid to tell me when my discovery because in a meritocracy if
you complain
unequal treatment people will say you're mining my you think
all they think you're just not good enough but in 1994
after measuring all the labs in my building that the tape measure to prove
that women really did have less lab space than men
I got up the courage to ask another woman professor whether she had ever
observed this strange by
yes she had and so had 14 at the other 15 candid women scientists we learned
it was in polling them that we discovered that thirty years after the
Civil Rights Act
only 8 percent of the MIT science faculty were women
at Harvard 5 percent I a suspect professor Deborah bell but elle est
Boston University's numbers were similar
together the women faculty had the courage to ask em IQ to help us collect
data to analyze the problem for them
we learned that the unconscious undervaluation and women's work can
cause women
people accomplishment not to be hired and cause women who are hired to receive
fewer resources
but their research marginalize no wonder
there was still so few twenty years ago more amazing was that the ones where
there was so successful
our results became public in 1999 as you heard me what
in and aided by email from professional women all over the country an impact
around the world
who wrote to say they had experienced the exact same problems
how do you fix problems this difficult in 2001
MIT's president and provost set out to do just that
up pro first then was Bob Brown now you're president
I recall sitting in Bob's office at MIT's saying bob
how on earth can you fix these problems Nancy he replied
their engineers engineers solve problems
over the next several years I watched bob brown the engineer
change MIT enhance society in 2001
women faculty was too afraid to take family leave to have a baby
five years later problems ninety percent solved
Bob oversaw the writing at new family leave policies and made them routine
said today the stigma
women taking family leave to have a baby while also being a top knot scientist
has largely disappeared in 2001
a new computer science building was in the planning stage Bob had the plans
redrawn
to include a large visible day care center today
essentially all junior women faculty at MIT have children
not as hard a problem to address as we had
imagined other inequities were also quickly remedied by committees with
review data and propose solutions
and what about the unconscious bias itself just two years ago a study from
Yale
documented that science professors in American universities
still favor John over Jennifer and they pay a higher salary
even though the CV's are identical however
good news other research shows that unconscious biases lesson
overtime not because time passes
that because people work for change suddenly we look around and say
you mean women used to hide the fact they were pregnant
you must be joking if you asked me to name the greatest discoveries in the
past 50 years
alongside things like the internet and the Higgs particle
I would include the discovery unconscious biases
and the extent to which stereotypes about gender
race sexual orientation socioeconomic status
and age deprive people have equal opportunity in the workplace
an equal justice in society this is where you come in passive 2014
I hope you're listening fifty years ago
we didn't know enough to create a society in which women and men could
participate
equally at work and at home and we didn't have the research that shows why
it's so important
that they do despite enormous progress this revolution is no per
their entire industries venture capital Silicon Valley
even the biotech startups right here in Boston whose leaders seem not to have
heard the Civil Rights Act
I realized 2014 urs that your top priority is to find work you love and
figure out how to get someone to pay you to do it
how can you also complete this sum social revolution
and San because you're fifty years smarter than we were
you know this member lucien won't be completed by women alone
but by men and women working together
you'll insist on police that obvious to you but that my generation had to learn
so slowly and painfully
if you look around and see that the people you work %uh study with all look
like you
you'll know there's something wrong and change it
if you see that one group of people isn't succeeding as rapidly as another
you won't hypothesize that it's because they're genetically inferior
you look at the barriers that explain why
if an inflexible workplace makes it impossible for you to be full partners
at home
while achieving our ambitions at work like sixteen women faculty at MIT
you'll get together and change institutions
completing this member lucien won't happen by the passage of time
but because you make it happen I look fallen
to the world you will create thank you