ABSTRACT
It was in the fall of 1949 that I entered the Department of Social Relations of Harvard University to begin my graduate studies for a PhD in sociology. Women were not yet eligible to be granted a doctorate from Harvard even though they followed the identical curriculum as the men; so the diploma that I would receive upon the completion of my studies would be issued by Radcliffe College, signed by its dean, and countersigned by the president of Harvard. It was not until 1963 that women were permitted to register as Harvard, rather than Radcliffe, students, and were accorded a Harvard degree. What is more, during my first years as a graduate student, no woman occupied a full professorship on the Harvard faculty, or even a tenured associate professor position. In addition, women were required to enter the Harvard Faculty Club through a different entrance than men, and there was only one dining room in the club where women were permitted to eat. Neither I nor the relatively few other women who were my fellow students at that time were unaware of this asymmetrical situation, or totally indifferent to it. But we were not acutely concerned or overtly indignant about the inequity that it involved; and I have no recollection of our ever discussing it with anyone—not even with each another.
