Women in science

The presence of women in science spans the earliest times of the history of science wherein they have made significant contributions. Historians with an interest in gender and science have researched the scientific endeavors and accomplishments of women, the barriers they have faced, and the strategies implemented to have their work peer-reviewed and accepted in major scientific journals and other publications. The historical, critical, and sociological study of these issues has become an academic discipline in its own right.

The involvement of women in medicine occurred in several early western civilizations, and the study of natural philosophy in ancient Greece was open to women. Women contributed to the proto-science of alchemy in the first or second centuries C.E. During the Middle Ages, religious convents were an important place of education for women, and some of these communities provided opportunities for women to contribute to scholarly research. The 11th century saw the emergence of the first universities; women were, for the most part, excluded from university education.Whaley, Leigh Ann. ''Women's History as Scientists''. Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO, INC. 2003. Outside academia, botany was the science that benefitted most from contributions of women in early modern times. The attitude toward educating women in medical fields appears to have been more liberal in Italy than in other places. The first known woman to earn a university chair in a scientific field of studies was eighteenth-century Italian scientist Laura Bassi.

Gender roles were largely deterministic in the eighteenth century and women made substantial advances in science. During the nineteenth century, women were excluded from most formal scientific education, but they began to be admitted into learned societies during this period. In the later nineteenth century, the rise of the women's college provided jobs for women scientists and opportunities for education.

Born in Warsaw, Poland, Marie Curie, paved the way for scientists to study radioactive decay and discovered the elements radium and polonium.Rutherford. “Marie Curie.” ''The Slavonic and East European Review'', vol. 13, no. 39, 1935, pp. 673–676. ''JSTOR'', www.jstor.org/stable/4203041. Accessed 18 Dec. 2020. Working as a physicist and chemist, she conducted pioneering research on radioactive decay and was the first woman to receive a Nobel Prize in Physics and became the first person to receive a second Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Forty women have been awarded the Nobel Prize between 1901 and 2010. Seventeen women have been awarded the Nobel Prize in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine.

Cross-cultural perspectives

In the 1970s and 1980s, many books and articles about women scientists were appearing; virtually all of the published sources ignored women of color and women outside of Europe and North America. The formation of the Kovalevskaia Fund in 1985 and the Organization for Women in Science for the Developing World in 1993 gave more visibility to previously marginalized women scientists, but even today there is a dearth of information about current and historical women in science in developing countries. According to academic Ann Hibner Koblitz:

Koblitz has said that these generalizations about women in science often do not hold up cross-culturally:

Historical examples

Ancient history

The involvement of women in the field of medicine has been recorded in several early civilizations. An ancient Egyptian physician, Peseshet (), described in an inscription as "lady overseer of the female physicians", is the earliest known female physician named in the history of science. Agamede was cited by Homer as a healer in ancient Greece before the Trojan War (c. 1194–1184 BCE). According to one late antique legend, Agnodice was the first female physician to practice legally in fourth century BCE Athens.

The study of natural philosophy in ancient Greece was open to women. Recorded examples include Aglaonike, who predicted eclipses; and Theano, mathematician and physician, who was a pupil (possibly also wife) of Pythagoras, and one of a school in Crotone founded by Pythagoras, which included many other women. A passage in Pollux speaks about those who invented the process of coining money mentioning Pheidon and Demodike from Cyme, wife of the Phrygian king, Midas, and daughter of King Agamemnon of Cyme. A daughter of a certain Agamemnon, king of Aeolian Cyme, married a Phrygian king called Midas.Jenny Strauss Clay, Irad Malkin, Yannis Z. Tzifopoulos eds., ''Panhellenes at Methone: Graphê in Late Geometric and Protoarchaic Methone'', Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG, 2017, p. 154 This link may have facilitated the Greeks "borrowing" their alphabet from the Phrygians because the Phrygian letter shapes are closest to the inscriptions from Aeolis.

During the period of the Babylonian civilization, around 1200 BCE, two perfumeresses named Tapputi-Belatekallim and -ninu (first half of her name unknown) were able to obtain the essences from plants by using extraction and distillation procedures. During the Egyptian dynasty, women were involved in applied chemistry, such as the making of beer and the preparation of medicinal compounds. Women have been recorded to have made major contributions to alchemy. Many of which lived in Alexandria around the 1st or 2nd centuries C.E., where the gnostic tradition led to female contributions being valued. The most famous of the women alchemist, Mary the Jewess, is credited with inventing several chemical instruments, including the double boiler (''bain-marie''); the improvement or creation of distillation equipment of that time. Such distillation equipment were called ''kerotakis'' (simple still) and the ''tribikos'' (a complex distillation device).

Hypatia of Alexandria (c. 350–415 CE), daughter of Theon of Alexandria, was a philosopher, mathematician, and astronomer. She is the earliest female mathematician about whom detailed information has survived. Hypatia is credited with writing several important commentaries on geometry, algebra and astronomy. Hypatia was the head of a philosophical school and taught many students. In 415 CE, she became entangled in a political dispute between Cyril, the bishop of Alexandria, and Orestes, the Roman governor, which resulted in a mob of Cyril's supporters stripping her, dismembering her, and burning the pieces of her body.

Medieval Europe

The early parts of the European Middle Ages, also known as the Dark Ages, were marked by the decline of the Roman Empire. The Latin West was left with great difficulties that affected the continent's intellectual production dramatically. Although nature was still seen as a system that could be comprehended in the light of reason, there was little innovative scientific inquiry.The End of the Classical World, (Lecture 12), in Lawrence M. Principe (2002) History of Science: Antiquity to 1700. Teaching Company, Course No. 1200 The Arabic world deserves credit for preserving scientific advancements. Arabic scholars produced original scholarly work and generated copies of manuscripts from Classical periods. During this period, Christianity underwent a period of resurgence, and Western civilization was bolstered as a result. This phenomenon was, in part, due to monasteries and nunneries that nurtured the skills of reading and writing, and the monks and nuns who collected and copied important writings produced by scholars of the past.

As it mentioned before, convents were an important place of education for women during this period, for the monasteries and nunneries encourage the skills of reading and writing, and some of these communities provided opportunities for women to contribute to scholarly research. An example is the German abbess Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179 A.D), a famous philosopher and botanist, whose prolific writings include treatments of various scientific subjects, including medicine, botany and natural history (c. 1151–58). Another famous German abbess was Hroswitha of Gandersheim (935–1000 A.D.) that also helped encourage women to be intellectual. However, with the growth in number and power of nunneries, the all-male clerical hierarchy was not welcomed toward it, and thus it stirred up conflict by having backlash against women's advancement. That impacted many religious orders closed on women and disbanded their nunneries, and overall excluding women from the ability to learn to read and write. With that, the world of science became closed off to women, limiting women's influence in science.

Entering the 11th century, the first universities emerged. Women were, for the most part, excluded from university education. However, there were some exceptions. The Italian University of Bologna allowed women to attend lectures from its inception, in 1088.

The attitude to educating women in medical fields in Italy appears to have been more liberal than in other places. The physician, Trotula di Ruggiero, is supposed to have held a chair at the Medical School of Salerno in the 11th century, where she taught many noble Italian women, a group sometimes referred to as the " ladies of Salerno". Several influential texts on women's medicine, dealing with obstetrics and gynecology, among other topics, are also often attributed to Trotula.

Dorotea Bucca was another distinguished Italian physician. She held a chair of philosophy and medicine at the University of Bologna for over forty years from 1390.Howard S
The Hidden Giants
p. 35, (Lulu.com; 2006) (Retrieved 22 August 2007)Brooklyn Museum: Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art: The Dinner Party: Heritage Floor: Dorotea Bucca
(Retrieved 22 August 2007)Jex-Blake S (1873
The medical education of women
republished in ''The Education Papers: Women's Quest for Equality, 1850–1912'' (Spender D, ed) p. 270] (Retrieved 22 August 2007) Other Italian women whose contributions in medicine have been recorded include Abella, Jacobina Félicie, Alessandra Giliani, Rebecca de Guarna, Margarita, Mercuriade (14th century), Constance Calenda, Calrice di Durisio (15th century), Constanza, Maria Incarnata and Thomasia de Mattio.

Despite the success of some women, cultural biases affecting their education and participation in science were prominent in the Middle Ages. For example, Saint Thomas Aquinas, a Christian scholar, wrote, referring to women, "She is mentally incapable of holding a position of authority."

Scientific Revolutions of 1600s and 1700s

Margaret Cavendish, a seventeenth-century aristocrat, took part in some of the most important scientific debates of that time. She was, however, not inducted into the English Royal Society, although she was once allowed to attend a meeting. She wrote a number of works on scientific matters, including ''Observations upon Experimental Philosophy'' (1666) and ''Grounds of Natural Philosophy''. In these works she was especially critical of the growing belief that humans, through science, were the masters of nature. The 1666 work attempted to heighten female interest in science. The observations provided a critique of the experimental science of Bacon and criticized microscopes as imperfect machines.

Isabella Cortese, an Italian alchemist, is most known for her book ''I secreti della signora Isabella Cortese'' or ''The Secrets of Isabella Cortese.'' Cortese was able to manipulate nature in order to create several medicinal, alchemy and cosmetic "secrets" or experiments. Isabella's book of secrets belongs to a larger book of secrets that became extremely popular among the elite during the 16th century. Despite the low percentage of literate women during Cortese's era, the majority of alchemical and cosmetic "secrets" in the book of secrets were geared towards women. This included but was not limited to pregnancy, fertility, and childbirth.

Sophia Brahe, sister of Tycho Brahe, was a Danish Horticulturalist. Brahe was trained by her older brother in chemistry and horticulture but taught herself astronomy by studying books in German. Sophia visited her brother in the Uranienborg on numerous occasions and assisted on his project the ''De nova stella.'' Her observations lead to the discovery of the Supernova SN 1572 which helped refute the geocentric model of the universe.

Tycho Wrote the Urania Titani about his sister Sophia and her husband Erik. The Urania presented Sophia and the Titan represented Erik. Tycho used this poem in order to show his appreciation for his sister and all of her work.

In Germany, the tradition of female participation in craft production enabled some women to become involved in observational science, especially astronomy. Between 1650 and 1710, women were 14% of German astronomers. The most famous female astronomer in Germany was Maria Winkelmann. She was educated by her father and uncle and received training in astronomy from a nearby self-taught astronomer. Her chance to be a practising astronomer came when she married Gottfried Kirch, Prussia's foremost astronomer. She became his assistant at the astronomical observatory operated in Berlin by the Academy of Science. She made original contributions, including the discovery of a comet. When her husband died, Winkelmann applied for a position as assistant astronomer at the Berlin Academy – for which she had experience. As a woman – with no university degree – she was denied the post. Members of the Berlin Academy feared that they would establish a bad example by hiring a woman. "Mouths would gape", they said.

Winkelmann's problems with the Berlin Academy reflect the obstacles women faced in being accepted in scientific work, which was considered to be chiefly for men. No woman was invited to either the Royal Society of London nor the French Academy of Sciences until the twentieth century. Most people in the seventeenth century viewed a life devoted to any kind of scholarship as being at odds with the domestic duties women were expected to perform.

A founder of modern botany and zoology, the German Maria Sibylla Merian (1647–1717), spent her life investigating nature. When she was thirteen, Sibylla began growing caterpillars and studying their metamorphosis into butterflies. She kept a "Study Book" which recorded her investigations into natural philosophy. In her first publication, ''The New Book of Flowers'', she used imagery to catalog the lives of plants and insects. After her husband died, and her brief stint of living in Siewert, she and her daughter journeyed to Paramaribo for two years to observe insects, birds, reptiles, and amphibians. She returned to Amsterdam and published ''The Metamorphosis of the Insects of Suriname'', which "revealed to Europeans for the first time the astonishing diversity of the rain forest." She was a botanist and entomologist who was known for her artistic illustrations of plants and insects. Uncommon for that era, she traveled to South America and Surinam, where, assisted by her daughters, she illustrated the plant and animal life of those regions.

Overall, the Scientific Revolution did little to change people's ideas about the nature of women – more specifically – their capacity to contribute to science just as men do. According to Jackson Spielvogel, 'Male scientists used the new science to spread the view that women were by nature inferior and subordinate to men and suited to play a domestic role as nurturing mothers. The widespread distribution of books ensured the continuation of these ideas'."book" in Spielvogel, Jackson (2014) Western Civilisation. Toward a New Heaven and a New Earth: The Scientific Revolution. Cengage Learning. Chapter 16, p492.

Eighteenth century

Although women excelled in many scientific areas during the eighteenth century, they were discouraged from learning about plant reproduction. Carl Linnaeus' system of plant classification based on sexual characteristics drew attention to botanical licentiousness, and people feared that women would learn immoral lessons from nature's example. Women were often depicted as both innately emotional and incapable of objective reasoning, or as natural mothers reproducing a natural, moral society.

The eighteenth century was characterized by three divergent views towards woman: that women were mentally and socially inferior to men, that they were equal but different, and that women were potentially equal in both mental ability and contribution to society. While individuals such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau believed women's roles were confined to motherhood and service to their male partners, the Enlightenment was a period in which women experienced expanded roles in the sciences.

The rise of salon culture in Europe brought philosophers and their conversation to an intimate setting where men and women met to discuss contemporary political, social, and scientific topics. While Jean-Jacques Rousseau attacked women-dominated salons as producing 'effeminate men' that stifled serious discourse, salons were characterized in this era by the mixing of the sexes.

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu defied convention by introducing smallpox inoculation through variolation to Western medicine after witnessing it during her travels in the Ottoman Empire.Lady Mary Wortley Montagu: Selected Letters. Ed. Isobel Grundy. Penguin Books, 1997. Print. In 1718 Wortley Montague had her son inoculated and when in 1721 a smallpox epidemic struck England, she had her daughter inoculated.Grundy, Isobel.''Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley'' Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004. This was the first such operation done in Britain. She persuaded Caroline of Ansbach to test the treatment on prisoners. Princess Caroline subsequently inoculated her two daughters in 1722. Under a pseudonym, Wortley Montague published an article describing and advocating in favor of inoculation in September 1722.

After publicly defending forty nine theses in the Palazzo Pubblico, Laura Bassi was awarded a doctorate of Philosophy in 1732 at the University of Bologna. Thus, Bassi became the second woman in the world to earn a philosophy doctorate after Elena Cornaro Piscopia in 1678, 54 years prior. She subsequently defended twelve additional theses at the Archiginnasio, the main building of the University of Bologna which allowed her to petition for a teaching position at the university. In 1732 the university granted Bassi's professorship in philosophy, making her a member of the Academy of the Sciences and the first woman to earn a professorship in physics at a university in Europe But the university held the value that women were to lead a private life and from 1746 to 1777 she gave only one formal dissertation per year ranging in topic from the problem of gravity to electricity. Because she could not lecture publicly at the university regularly, she began conducting private lessons and experiments from home in the year of 1749. However, due to her increase in responsibilities and public appearances on behalf of the university, Bassi was able to petition for regular pay increases, which in turn was used to pay for her advanced equipment. Bassi earned the highest salary paid by the University of Bologna of 1,200 lire. In 1776, at the age of 65, she was appointed to the chair in experimental physics by the Bologna Institute of Sciences with her husband as a teaching assistant.

According to Britannica, Maria Gaetana Agnesi is "considered to be the first woman in the Western world to have achieved a reputation in mathematics." She is credited as the first woman to write a mathematics handbook, the ''Instituzioni analitiche ad uso della gioventù italiana'', (Analytical Institutions for the Use of Italian Youth). Published in 1748 it "was regarded as the best introduction extant to the works of Euler."WOMEN'S HISTORY CATEGORIES
About Education The goal of this work was, according to Agnesi herself, to give a systematic illustration of the different results and theorems of infinitesimal calculus. In 1750 she became the second woman to be granted a professorship at a European university. Also appointed to the University of Bologna she never taught there.

The German Dorothea Erxleben was instructed in medicine by her father from an early ageSutherland, M. (1985): ''Women Who Teach in Universities'' (Trentham Books) pg. 118 and Bassi's university professorship inspired Erxleben to fight for her right to practise medicine. In 1742 she published a tract arguing that women should be allowed to attend university.Offen, K. (2000): ''European Feminisms, 1700–1950: A Political History'' (Stanford University Press), pg. 43 After being admitted to study by a dispensation of Frederick the Great, Erxleben received her M.D. from the University of Halle in 1754. She went on to analyse the obstacles preventing women from studying, among them housekeeping and children. She became the first female medical doctor in Germany.

In 1741–42 Charlotta Frölich became the first woman to be published by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences with three books in agricultural science. In 1748 Eva Ekeblad became the first woman inducted into that academy. In 1746 Ekeblad had written to the academy about her discoveries of how to make flour and alcohol out of potatoes. Potatoes had been introduced into Sweden in 1658 but had been cultivated only in the greenhouses of the aristocracy. Ekeblad's work turned potatoes into a staple food in Sweden, and increased the supply of wheat, rye and barley available for making bread, since potatoes could be used instead to make alcohol. This greatly improved the country's eating habits and reduced the frequency of famines. Ekeblad also discovered a method of bleaching cotton textile and yarn with soap in 1751,Riksarkivet
Band 12 (1949), p.637 and of replacing the dangerous ingredients in cosmetics of the time by using potato flour in 1752.

Émilie du Châtelet, a close friend of Voltaire, was the first scientist to appreciate the significance of kinetic energy, as opposed to momentum. She repeated and described the importance of an experiment originally devised by Willem 's Gravesande showing the impact of falling objects is proportional not to their velocity, but to the velocity squared. This understanding is considered to have made a profound contribution to Newtonian mechanics. In 1749 she completed the French translation of Newton's ''Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica'' (the ''Principia''), including her derivation of the notion of conservation of energy from its principles of mechanics. Published ten years after her death, her translation and commentary of the ''Principia'' contributed to the completion of the scientific revolution in France and to its acceptance in Europe.

Marie-Anne Pierrette Paulze and her husband Antoine Lavoisier

HOME


Content is Copyleft
Website design, code, and AI is Copyrighted (c) 2014-2017 by Stephen Payne


Consider donating to Wikimedia



As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases