“The more you know, the less your ego is. The less you know, the greater your ego,” said Albert Einstein. While I would never dare go against anything said by the god of all physics, I must admit, as a woman in this field, there are times I have found faking self importance as the only way to survive points of weakness.
In my first year as an aspiring physicist, the occasional mansplainer would reinforce the symptoms of my imposter syndrome that I was desperate to hide. I searched for a survival strategy that the older women in the field seemed to have mastered.
In the refined cohort of upper-level physics courses, the few remaining women—seasoned by their earlier academic hurdles—display an apparent boldness. On the first day of these classes, I have seen these women ask more questions than the strikingly large majority of men. Whether this is a genuine confidence or a learned ability remains unclear. I survived by pretending I belonged—until I truly did.
This phenomenon may stem from necessity rather than an innate capacity, but its practice is a testament to a genuine truth: by projecting confidence, these women have transformed this performance into an act of resilience and assertiveness that, at least on the exterior, exceeds that of our male classmates.
This summer, three female undergraduates and I went to the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) on the border of France and Switzerland to conduct particle physics research. Without prior education in particle physics, the four of us attempted to complete a crash course during the first three days of work.
At the local Charlie Chaplin-themed bar in our small town, Saint Genis Pouilly, we spewed out what we had learned and mastered as physics concentrators to make sense of the deluge of information from the past few days. The Uncertainty Principle, Wave-Particle Duality, Special Relativity, and Lenz’s Law were mentioned and separated by several moments of silence as we sat in contemplation (or cluelessness).
Eventually, after hours of reviewing and preparing for our summer ahead, the soon-to-be-physicist to my right blurted out a question we all had been thinking: “Are we going to talk about the fact that CERN is primarily men?”
I am constantly asked by older adults how I manage to sustain as a woman in STEM, so much so that I have my response on command. I often naively argue I should be considered a person in STEM. The opportunity to directly discuss this experience with other female physicists is rare. I could not help but ask, “Is that good or bad?”
Once again, we hit a mutual silence as we pondered the problem at hand.
I immediately flashed back to my first few late nights in the Physics Library where I sat adjacent to a table of men working on the same Physics 15A problem set as me. If I ever dared to ask them a question, they would likely either entirely disregard me or act like my need for help represented some inferiority. If they did take pity on me to explain a concept they surely did not entirely understand, it was rarely without mansplaining.
While I should not challenge Einstein, I believe it takes a certain level of displayed confidence and assurance to get past patronization. Like unseasoned women in this field, I found a facade of fortitude helped to get through before endurance formed and challenged a man’s preconceived expectations of my abilities. Somewhere in the transition from feigned to genuine confidence, I learned how to combat a mansplainer.
Between mouthfuls of Swiss cheese, the fellow Harvard women at CERN and I concluded the male-to-female ratio primarily creates a lonely and toxic environment for women. However, we are all attracted to the challenge it presents and assert that we now have the strength to handle it. We owe it to the future of our gender to keep swimming amongst the sea of men as our female professors have emulated before us.
Most of these survival instincts manifest in the Jefferson Laboratory, hours past a time I would ever dare look at a clock. On the fourth floor of the building, unnoticed by most, sits the Physics Library, a grandiose room carefully designed to inflict the spiral of the humility and knowledge Einstein recommends for his successors.
Aspiring physicists sprinkle through the room, most likely stuck somewhere between one and twelve hours into each problem set question. Partially solved proofs are presented on movable whiteboards throughout the space, ending where the last line was intuitive enough to not be written or where the student found a disheartening dead end.
Harvard’s Physics Department has carefully chosen to have most (if not all) physics problems sets due on Thursday morning, naturally turning our library on Wednesdays into a collaboration hub of both survival and friendship-making, which us concentrators know as Physics Night. The administrators try to corral the spirits through the occasional evening visits from Professor Howard Georgi’s pair of corgis and a fresh supply of sweet treats.
Despite a few serial mansplainers who have antagonized men in STEM fields, the majority of the physics community does give me respect as a default. The men subconsciously or consciously acknowledge the strength it takes to prosper in this environment, and the women have some unspoken alliance.
The Physics Department continues to support and encourage women in this field. The Women in Physics organization offers a community of undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral women a place to connect through mentoring and events. These resources and support systems have greatly compensated for the 2 a.m. onset of imposter syndrome I endured many Wednesday nights.
Just as it can be isolating to seek help in a male-dominated subject matter, it is somewhat lonely to study a field that does not fend well as a casual dinner party conversation. My pre-med friends can attest to the glow in my eyes when I had the stage to help them understand electromagnetism, my favorite physics concepts thus far. This glow came from a desire to share my spoken language with those outside of the Jefferson community.
I am convinced it is this language that sparks love between so many physicists. What is more romantic than having secret communication that spans both love of each other and love of the subject?
I have developed a theory: many physics concentrators are dating each other. This is probably due to the endless Wednesday evenings where men and women alike pour their hearts and brains into completing problem sets before the morning deadline. Perhaps, it is out of mutual respect for us women who have remained amongst a sea of men and the men who humbly listened to our questions on the first day of class.
Eliza Kimball ’25 (elizakimball@college.harvard.edu) is the President of the Independent and wrote this article in the control room for CERN’s ATLAS Detector.