Sexual discrimination was a precursor of the spy scandal at Los Alamos (Cheryl Fillekes). Children are more interesting than fleas (Miriam Rothschild). These are among the most striking statements that emerged during Nature's six-week online discussion of the problems facing women in science, which ended last week (see http://helix.nature.com/debates/women). (To do her justice, Rothschild was making the more serious point that significant science can be done at home.)

But there was much else besides: how being a mother can lead to enhanced research productivity; the policy of telecommunications giant Ericsson of encouraging men to spend time at home with their children on the principle that this makes them better managers; a woman in a pharmaceutical company describing the “grooming of the male establishment-in-waiting”, thanks to chauvinism and cronyism; and disagreement about men being recruited to promote women's interests. Amid complaints that men are unwilling to share family burdens, there were examples of constructive initiatives within particular institutions and at a national level in several countries.

One productive way forward (Samuel Gorovitz) would be to build on codes of practice such as the National Academy of Sciences' “On being a scientist”. A better code would also cover a range of issues that arise in laboratories and universities — including hierarchy, mentoring and the freedom to question, as well as sexual discrimination. Such a code, effectively backed, might leave no hiding place for those who discriminate unjustly. It should be high on the agenda of any laboratory that lacks it.