The silver anniversary of the first multi-author collection of essays on the history of women in science, Uneasy Careers & Intimate Lives, Women in Science, 1789–1979, raises questions stemming from the logic of anniversaries, i.e., the interplay between the present and the “actual past.” But this anniversary also raises questions on progress in gender equality within both science and science studies; the history of science that produced this collection and awarded it a prize; and allied fields in philosophy of science, sociology and anthropology of science, and science policy, among others. This session aims to recapture the intellectual and professional context of the mid-1980s, the time period that framed our collection, as it responded to input from a wide spectrum of scientists and scholars interested in “women in science” at that time, in the past, and in the future. Which lessons did we learn from the spectrum of historical case studies included in this pioneering volume, which covers two centuries, both Europe and North America, many scientific disciplines, and various forms of personal lives? Did our collective findings change how scientists’ lives are studied? How best can women scientists, policy-makers, and scholars of science studies collaborate in speeding up progress in gender equality, so as to successfully address, four decades after affirmative action, the still persisting problem of underrepresentation of women in science?