While the first women in the Bulletin sold cigarettes in colorfully drawn advertisements in the 1930s, an occasional article would broach the subject of women (or "girls") in business. A woman banker, for instance, who authored "A New World for Women" in 1936, concluded, "It is inevitable that more and more women will occupy places of responsibility in our country's banks." Indeed, the Bulletin provides a window on the transition from an era when the idea of women earning business degrees was unheard of to a time when women shape decision-making at the highest corporate levels.

With the arrival of women students in the 1950s, when the School partnered with the Radcliffe Management Training Program, Associate Professor Elizabeth Abbott Burnham penned a 1953 piece on the nascent collaboration, noting that there is a "proven demand for women in business." A year later, Bulletin readers learned that HBS would "provide most of the faculty and instructional material and will be responsible for the [Radcliffe] Program's educational policy." (As the program evolved, the name was changed to the Harvard-Radcliffe Program in Business Administration.)

Despite contrary indicators such as a 1954 cartoon "On Having a Wife in Business" that listed this situation's pros ("Wife has trouble finding time to spend money") and cons ("Busy wife produces no cakes, pies"), the tide was slowly turning by the end of the 1950s. A 1959 article informed readers that women would be allowed to attend the School as second-year MBA students and doctoral candidates. "It is conceivable that a few young women would see good reason for continuing their business education," noted the Bulletin, "and it does not seem wise to bar them from doing so in view of the expanding possibilities for girls in industry."

Coeducation became a reality in 1963, as reported in a straightforward, low-key manner in the pages of the Bulletin. Less than a year later, Cecilia Bessell (MBA '65) explained that she had entered the MBA Program "with the hope of obtaining the same goals, satisfactions, and rewards as the men." A 1966 article by Judith S. Chadwick (MBA '65) addressed some of the difficulties those first women students encountered, including recruitment, overcoming stereotypes, and the lack of campus facilities. In a 1969 announcement of the first woman to be named a Baker Scholar, a School official commented, "I must confess that to a mere man she's almost frighteningly intelligent and perceptive."

In the 1970s, as the number of alumnae grew, women became a more regular part of the Bulletin. A note in 1972 mentioned that "Harvard has the largest number of women students in any of the major business schools." By 1975, the magazine reported that two hundred women were enrolled at the School and that the Women Students Association was holding an annual Career Day, aiding the Admissions Office in recruiting women, and lobbying for updating the School's literature "to reflect the fact that MBAs are not all men."

By the 1980s women were a fully integrated part of the School, and the pages of the Bulletin reflected this new era. As the number of women in the MBA Program approaches 50 percent, Bulletin reportage today centers on accomplishment rather than gender.

- Susan Young