I agree with Bostonian in general, and think he makes good points. But then, I'm a guy, and I haven't experienced the sorts of sex discrimination that are related here. I think sex discrimination, to the extent it still exists today, is more likely to exist in small companies and to be a much reduced problem overall, not to be completely nonexistent.
I worked with a slew of MIT and Harvard grads once. Grouping by gender and whether a particular worker went to an Ivy League college, the women from Harvard (and one from Vassar) were the most assertive by far, in my opinion. I would be shocked to learn of widespread gender-based discrimination at schools in general, but I have no first-hand knowledge and don't discount the stories I've heard here. And I think there's reason for hope that discrimination today at upper-tier universities is heavily on the wane, when a Harvard president resigns under intense pressure after daring to suggest that innate gender-based differences might explain differences in performance.
