In 1984, Harvard Graduate School of Education lecturer Catherine G. Krupnick published "Women and Men in the Classroom: Inequality and Its Remedies," a study that revealed that under male teachers, men speak nearly two and a half times as long as women. The examination of 24 Harvard professors across disciplines also showed that under female teachers, women speak for nearly three times longer than in classes with male faculty members.

In the decade since Krupnick's study, individual professors and departments, as well as the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) administration, have undertaken a concerted effort to make teachers more sensitive to discrimination against female students both inside and outside the classroom.

But female undergraduates say they continue to feel intimidated and silenced at Harvard today.

One female biochemistry concentrator says she has never faced any problems in a classroom because of her gender--until she came to Harvard.

"I always thought of myself as different, not confined by societal chains of gender," she says. "But then I came here. My male peers shouted over my comments; my male professor looked through me."

And another junior, a female economics concentrator, says she was overwhelmed--and afraid to talk--when confronted with a section last week where she was the only woman.

Students, faculty members and national education experts agree that social inequalities in the classroom represent a significant problem today.

Many say that women tend to participate less in classroom discussion, although participation varies with the subject matter and gender ratios.

And others say that women are sometimes shafted in student-teacher interactions outside class time.

Improving women's position in the classroom is necessary, Krupnick argues, because success in school is an excellent indicator of future achievement in the work force.

Club House--No Girls Allowed!

Harvard, clearly, is not immune to the problem. Universally, though, faculty members say women face greater challenges in some departments than others.

"This [problem] is found in all disciplines but is exacerbated in the hard sciences," says Mallinckrodt Professor of Physics Howard Georgi. "It is much more acute in the mathematical sciences."

Dean for Undergraduate Education Lawrence Buell says he recognizes that some differences in classroom participation do exist. But he maintains that it's not always the case.

"It is commonly said that women are supposed to be the more silent class members than men. My own experience, however, doesn't square with that," says Buell, who is an English professor. "In a field like literature that is more gynocentric to begin with, I don't sense an appreciable difference."

And Professor of Physics Melissa Franklin says she may actually have more contact with her female students than her male students.