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The Only Woman in the Room: Why Science Is Still a Boys’ Club
by Eileen Pollack
Beacon, 2015 (($26.95))
Author Pollack long wanted to become a theoretical physicist, but discrimination, she says, drove her to abandon that dream after college. One of the first two women to earn a bachelor's of science in physics from Yale University, Pollack graduated summa cum laude. But years of ostracism from her male peers and professors, she asserts, hammered in the message: you are not welcome here. Pollack candidly traces the disadvantages she faced as a woman in a world of men. She recounts lonely nights spent struggling through problem sets while male students worked together, and she describes her fights with bulimia, depression and physical tics she says were brought on by her stress at school.
Pollack's book gives painful scrutiny to the relentless opposition that still confronts female scientists and leads many to walk away from the field.
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