Perhaps Hopkins was ill-used, whether it was sexism or simply academic politics. Clearly, at worst, she was nudged out of a course she had helped develop, not robbed of a course she had single-handedly designed as the early coverage implied. Yet Hopkins' tale of woe became a symbol of the indignities suffered by women scientists. Kleinfeld, Hausman and Steiger are careful to note that they are not claiming that women at MIT didn't suffer discrimination, only that there's no proof that they did. Reliable information on the treatment of women in science is hard to come by, partly because private institutions do zealously guard their data on salaries and benefits.
State universities are more open.
Of the nearly 30 women professors or doctoral candidates at top research universities whom I have interviewed, about three-quarters believed they had not encountered any bias worth mentioning. Several younger women said that, if anything, being female was a plus, and a couple worried about receiving unfair advantages. Yet she unapologetically dismissed such minor insults as quaint things of their era, insisting that, overall, she had seen nothing but fairness and respect from male professors. Ironically, as proof that all these intangibles have real effects, some women cited the MIT study. I tend to believe hard facts when they're produced correctly, and I'm more skeptical of these nebulous things.