Opinion
open letter
MIT can address this elephant in the room: Bad periods!
We are writing to share a “secret” about our lives as women faculty members at MIT. First, the not-so-secret part. As members of the informal “Happy Women at MIT” club, with a collective 50 years absorbing, contributing to, and reveling in the “Mens et Manus” mindset, the infusion of new students each fall reminds us that we have the best jobs in the world. Like so many of our colleagues at MIT, we grew up in working-class families, attended neighborhood high schools, and blissfully absorbed the power of math, science, and analytical thinking. We somehow ended up in top-tier graduate programs, a dream, and then as faculty at MIT, the quintessential home for nerdy (and outspoken) problem solvers.