Getting the information the women needed was not without struggle. When they asked for information on space awarded to women, MIT insisted they got the same space as men. But when the group checked the numbers, the women realized that was only because the institute had counted office and lab space for women, but only office space for men. Individually, some women said they had sensed discrimination but feared that they would be dismissed as troublemakers or that their work would suffer from the distraction of trying to prove their point. But the hurdles in getting research money, space, or support were already costing them time.
Time is everything in science.
Six months can cost you the Nobel Prize. Complaints won a 'total convert' Within a few months, the women presented a report to Robert Birgineau, dean of the School of Science. All 15 women crowded into his office to present the report. But meeting this whole group of women together, it was very much the whole was more than the sum of the parts. You could not rationalize their situations as based on the idiosyncrasies of individuals.