“1963 was too early for a widespread sense of empowerment. I wish there had been more of a sense of empowerment, I wish we had talked more and prepared more for what would happen after we graduated,” she said, citing the hardships that women still faced in the workplace.
Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique, a book that propelled the feminist movement for equality, was published in 1963. However, it took longer than that to reach Harvard’s campus on a larger scale. It did not have a visible presence on campus, and neither did the roots of the feminist wave it sparked.
“We didn’t have a language to express our discontent,” Dollenmayer said.
BLAZING THE TRAIL
By the early 60s, both the Medical School and the Law School had been accepting women for over a decade. The Business School, however, did not accept women into its full two-year program until 1963.
Before the Harvard Business School was open to women, Radcliffe students were allowed to participate in the Harvard-Radcliffe Program in Business Administration, with the same professors and case studies as their male counterparts across the Charles.
Beginning in 1959, women from the program could apply to attend the Business School for their second year and receive a MBA from Harvard. In 1963, the first eight women were accepted into the full MBA program.
Business School graduates of the Class of 1964 credited this achievement to their hard work and dedication during their time in the program.
“My HRPBA class absolutely closed down the HRPBA program and put women on the campus,” Lack said.
Allen agreed that her own class greatly influenced the situation. “Because we did well, they allowed women to be admitted into the first two-year class for the HBS,” Allen said, referencing their academic and social achievements.
In 1960, three women received Harvard MBAs with the new ability to complete the first-year at Radcliffe and their second-year across the Charles. In 1965, the number had increased to 11. Many women said they felt that they were paving the way for future generations of female students.
“I felt a great responsibility to do very well, to show the administration that we were absolutely as good as the guys,” Allen said. “But it wasn’t a big thing across my chest...you always wanted to do your best.”
Though some women believed that men felt “threatened” by their presence, they never let themselves feel subordinate to their male peer and professors.
“I don’t have the type of personality that was going to let them make me feel inferior,” said Caryl R. MacLaughlin, a 1985 graduate of the Business School. “I don’t know about the other women, but I was interviewed in person. I’m pretty sure that for them to go ahead and start this experiment, I would assume that they were very careful about who they accepted.”
EMPOWERED FOR THE FUTURE
