On Sept. 11, VU Women in Tech hosted its fall speaker event with New York Times Reporter Kate Zernike in the Court Theatre. The event focused on the discrimination that women have faced within the scientific fields through the lens of Zernike’s book, The Exceptions: Nancy Hopkins, MIT, and the Fight for Women in Science.
VU Women in Tech is a platform that brings together faculty, staff and students interested in this field to build community with one another, share experiences and provide a variety of opportunities and insights into a technology-based career.
Zernike has been a renowned journalist at the New York Times for 24 years and an author. She wrote her book, Exceptions, to give light to Hopkins, a researcher at MIT, and her fight against discrimination in the workplace.
“Nancy never understood her own life until she read my book,” Zernike said.
She continued to describe how Hopkins thought that she was merely the ‘exception’ in her workplace and that any discrimination she faced was solely her own fault.
“Discrimination happened once the door was opened,” Zernike said.
Throughout her talk, she described Hopkins’s awakening to the discrimination she faced. Hopkins started to notice how she would get paid less than her male coworkers or how her lab spaces were smaller than the male researchers in her field.
“Women were tolerated but not included,” Zernike said.
They were left to fend for themselves while the men went on to be included in grants and strategic decisions. Zernike shared how Hopkins was outraged about this and gathered other women who felt strongly about this and wrote a letter to the president of MIT, who later admitted to the discrimination.
Zernike shared that the Dean of MIT hired more women, added a daycare so that women could work longer hours and progressively shifted their leadership. Today, MIT’s president is a woman.
The book is named Exceptions because women thought they succeeded because they were the exception. Zernike describes that when there are more women in classrooms, labs and workplaces, it is normalized for women to be in STEM fields.
“It is not, ‘Oh, she is a woman,’ but, ‘Oh, she is a scientist,’” Zernike said.
Women should be hired for their expertise, not to check a box off in a demographic chart. Zernike shared how women should support one another, and not be in competition.
Zernike ended her talk with a question for the audience.
“Do you think she [(referring to a woman in the workplace)] is exceptional or do you think that there are many women that can fill her shoes?” she asked.
The event concluded with a Q&A, where staff and students asked about Zernike’s writing process, and a book signing in the lobby where people could chat with her more.
When asked what advice she would give to Villanova students she responded with a message that she learned after hearing Hopkins’s story.
“They found the power of a group,” Zerinke said.
There are always going to be people who feel strongly about making their voices heard and so it is important to come together and rely on each other to lift one another up and build community, which is the goal of VU Women in Tech.
VU Women in Tech is hosting a variety of events in the semester. Save the date for VU Women in Tech’s 10th annual conference, on Saturday, Jan. 25, 2025. The theme for this event is Building on the Past to Empower Today and Shape the Future.
If one wants any more information about VU Women in Tech or any more of the events the organization will be hosting, please visit its website, https://www.vuwomenintech.org/.
