MIT's response to Hopkins's complaint suggests that honesty and a willingness to change are, by themselves, powerful ameliorative answers. "When I look back upon the first 20 years of my work, I considered them a failure, and I counted the days until I could retire," Hopkins says. "Now I love my life, inside the lab and out." While she is concerned that she may now be better remembered as a crusader for women than as a scientist, Hopkins takes some solace from a letter that she received recently from a 10-year-old girl. "I just want to tell you that what you are doing now IS PART OF BEING A GREAT SCIENTIST!!!" the child wrote. "You are opening the door of opportunity even wider for girls like me who want to go as far as possible in science. Thank you for your courage."
Tony Schwartz (tschwartz@fastcompany.com) is a contributing editor to Fast Company. He is also the author of "What Really Matters: Searching for Wisdom in America" (Bantam 1996).
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