"I'm sure the things they find at MIT are probably not very different from here," Franklin said.
Harvard's main obstacle to full equality is the lack of women Faculty members, Franklin said.
"I think [hiring more women Faculty members] would fix all the problems," she said.
According to Elizabeth Doherty, assistant dean for academic planning, in the natural sciences only nine of 164 tenured Faculty members, or 5.5 percent, are women. Of the entire Faculty, 58 out of 433 tenured Faculty members, or 13.4 percent, are women.
Thompson said that although she believes this gender imbalance is undesirable, it is not the result of discrimination in the University.
Hopkins said the general consensus among women in the academic community is that Harvard is "quite backward" in terms of recognizing the subtle ways it discriminates against women.
"I know Harvard pretty well and I love it," she said, "but in this area I think it's behind just about every other place-they're in denial."