Hidden No More On- and Offline Rewritings of the History of Women in Science
Christine Müller (University of Bremen)
hile names like Charles Darwin, femininity and science still seem concepts WAlbert Einstein, or Stephen at odds with one another. The belief that Hawking have a familiar ring to us, only men can be and always have been most conversations about women in scientists, and that science requires a set the history of science begin and end of masculine characteristics, constitutes with Marie Curie. In 2014, a survey one of the most persistent barriers to conducted by the British grassroots girls’ and women’s entry to, and careers movement ScienceGrrrl showed that, in ‘STEM’, i.e. science, technology, indeed, the general public’s awareness engineering, and mathematics. of women’s contributions to science is Rediscovering the history of women in limited. Over half of the UK population, science is one way of fighting against the study revealed, suffers from the so- this gender bias. While feminist scholars called ‘Curie Syndrome’, the inability began to rewrite science history from a to name more than one female scientist female perspective some fifty years ago, (Onwurah 2014). Undoubtedly, Marie their academic efforts have more recently Curie (1867-1934), winner of two Nobel been accompanied by various cultural Prizes, who was born in Poland but lived interventions, which, in different media in France, deserves to be celebrated as but with similar aims, seek to change the one of the greatest scientists in history. still common perception of the history Still, the popular impression that she was of science as a parade of great men. the only notable woman in the history of science is not only problematic because Women and STEM in the UK it paints a false picture of history, but espite decades of affirmative because it preserves a masculine image of action, women continue to be science. Indeed, even in the 21st century, D underrepresented in STEM education,
Page 12 Hard Times 102 (2/2018) Christine Müller training, and employment in almost every Stereotypes and the Gender Gap in region of the world (Unesco Institute for STEM Statistics 2018). The United Kingdom is no exception, as figures from WISE, dentifying the reasons for STEM’s a campaign in the UK that promotes Igender gap and developing strategies women in STEM, prove. While equal to attract and retain girls and women numbers of boys and girls take STEM have been the focus of much research subjects at the General Certificate of and activism in recent decades. Cultural Secondary Education (GCSE), female concepts of gender roles are often cited participation begins to decline thereafter, as one of the biggest roadblocks to most dramatically at the age of 16, with girls’ and women’s interest in STEM. only 18% continuing to take a STEM While in 2018, the BBC reported that subject at A-Level (WISE Campaign more children than ever before now 2017a). In 2017, only 24% of STEM draw a woman when asked to draw graduates (WISE Campaign 2017b) and a scientist (Halton), the stereotypical only 8% of STEM apprentices (WISE image of the brainy male researcher – Campaign 2018) in the UK were female. presumably with beard, glasses, and a In the same year, women made up only white lab coat – is still very much alive 23% of those in core STEM occupations and kicking and continues to influence and 24% of those working in core the public understanding of STEM. STEM industries (WISE Campaign Though today girls are told that they 2017c). There is only one British woman can be whatever they want, gender among the nineteen female scientists stereotypes influence not only their self- who have hitherto won the Nobel Prize: concepts but also their treatment within Dorothy C. Hodgkin (1910-1994), who schools and the workplace. British became Nobel Laureate in 1964 for her Nobel-winning biochemist Tim Hunt’s development of protein crystallography chauvinist remarks about women only and the discovery of the structures of distracting men in the lab, which led vitamin B12 and penicillin. And even to a public outcry in 2015 (Ratcliffe), in 2018, over seventy years after first is a prominent example of how gender opening its doors to women, the world’s stereotypes still lead to sexism in science. oldest scientific society, the Royal Society Opposing Gender Stereotypes by in London, is still far from gender Rewriting the History of Science equal with only one in twelve fellows being female. (Fyfe and Mørk Røstvik) ewriting the history of science from Ra female perspective to counter the age-old belief that women simply cannot
Page 13 Hard Times 102 (2/2018) Hidden No More and never could compete with men in Writing the History of Women in science is one way of going against gender Science Online - One Wikipedia-Entry bias in STEM. With the revival of the a Day feminist movement in the second half of the twentieth century, the history of roviding girls and women with women in science has become a thriving Ppositive role models by spreading field of study in academia. For more the word about their outstanding than fifty years now, feminist scholars contributions to STEM is the goal of have been drawing attention to the Dr Jessica Wade, a British physicist at accomplishments, barriers, and conflicts Imperial College London and a prize- of women in science throughout the winning advocate for women in science. centuries. As Dr Claire Jones, historian rustrated with measures to increase of science at the University of Kent, female interest and participation points out: “Although we must be F in STEM, such as the European careful not to overestimate how women Commission’s much criticized pseudo- were historically active in science, it is pop video Science: It’s a girl thing!, in important to remember those women which three supermodels in lab coats, scientists who did contribute and the high heels, and safety goggles study the barriers they overcame to participate. This is one strand in tackling the continuing tension between femininity and science, providing female role models, and increasing women’s participation across all scientific disciplines” (Jones). Yet, revising the male-dominated and male-authored history of science is a project no longer solely undertaken within academia. In recent years, online activists and creative artists have been joining in, adding the little-known or forgotten stories of female scientists to our historical memory. While this is indeed a transnational phenomenon, Dr Jessica Wade British women are essential, both © Dr Jessica Wade, Imperial College as creators and protagonists, to chemical composition of lipstick and nail these on- and offline rewritings of polish, Wade started her own initiatives the history of women in science. to win girls and women for STEM.
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(Devlin) Writing one biographical entry as an important space of activism. In per day about a notable woman scientist 2016, the American editor and medical on the free online-encyclopaedia student Emily Temple-Wood received Wikipedia is her latest project. Since the the Wikipedian of the Year Award for her beginning of 2018, Wade has researched, WikiProject Women in Science, which written, uploaded, and tweeted (@ aims at increasing the quantity and jesswade) feminist Wiki-entries of quality of historical women scientists’ hundreds of women, both contemporary biographies on Wikipedia: “By writing and historical, focusing on her subjects’ these and other women back into online professional accomplishments and accounts of science history, we hope to not their personal relationships: “[…] combat systemic biases that lead to the despite their best intentions, many underrepresentation of women scientists campaigns to highlight women scientists on Wikipedia, in public discourse and can be reductionist, cynical and boring - in science itself”, Temple-Wood points celebrating a woman’s gender rather than out. Wade and Temple-Wood reach out her achievements. Discovering a fantastic to a whole new generation of women woman scientist as you were reading up and men whom they provide with on a new experimental technique or easily accessible and well-researched research area on Wikipedia is much more biographies of women in STEM in order compelling than finding her separated to revise the masculine image of science. from her expertise in a page of ‘the Top 50 women you should know’” (Wade Offline Rewritings of the History of and Zaringhalam). By getting the stories Science: Female Scientists on the Page, of female scientists online, Wade fights Stage, and Screen not only for the recognition of women’s he fight for the recognition of scientific contributions and a change in women’s scientific contributions the still persistently masculine colouring T also continues offline. The innumerable of STEM, but also against gender biographies, history books, and academic imbalance within the encyclopaedia papers that have been published by itself, where only 17% of biographies feminist scholars have most recently are those of women and only 16% of been joined by a surge of literary and editors female. (Wade and Zaringhalam) filmic rewritings of the history of dding the stories of women women in science. The Oscar-nominated Ain STEM to Wikipedia, Wade Hollywood production Hidden Figures follows other fourth-wave feminists (2016) about three African-American for whom the internet has emerged women employees at NASA – Mary Jackson (1921-2005), Katherine Johnson
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(1918- ), and Dorothy Vaughan (1910- 2008) – whose scientific expertise helped John Glenn in 1962 to be the first man in space to circle the Earth, is probably the best-known example of popularising the issue. Despite problematic ‘white saviour’-moments, which clearly undermine the film’s feminist potential, the biopic’s celebration of strong, ambitious, and intelligent women, who against the odds of gender, race, and class become outstanding mathematicians and engineers, has raised awareness of the masculine bias in both science and historiography. Yet, Tracy Chevalier the US-focus of the film should not © Tracy Chevalier distract from the fact that British artists and British women scientists also figure prominently in recent rewriting projects.
n her 2009-novel Remarkable ICreatures bestselling US American author Tracy Chevalier, who has been living in the UK for over thirty years, combines biographical fact with fictional imagination to recount the early life of the English palaeontologist Mary Anning (1799-1847), who was recently numbered by The Royal Society among the “most influential women in British science history”. In spite of being female, working-class, and without any Book Cover Remarkable Creatures (2009) formal education, Anning impressed the © The Borough Press scientific community of her time with her fictional revisiting of Anning’s her ‘eye’ for fossils, discovering – among spectacular fossil findings, which other rarities - the first complete skeletons fuelled 19th century debates about the of the ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs. For prehistory of the Earth and the origins
Page 16 Hard Times 102 (2/2018) Christine Müller of life, Chevalier chose to focus on her ambitious, and talented women in the collaboration with Elizabeth Philpot history of science. Thus Chevalier steps (1780-1857), another British fossilist. into the trap Wade in her Wikipedia Despite differences in age and class, entries explicitly tries to avoid: Philpot functions as Anning’s mentor and highlighting the romantic encounters advocate in this female bildungsroman. in the narration of women’s lives rather As first-person narrators, the two than their scientific achievements. protagonists take turns in recounting Anning’s life story, in which she moves nother British female scientist from a minor fossil hunter and dealer Ahas captured the interest of a to “the greatest fossilist the world ever bestselling author: American writer knew” (Torrens 1995), to quote historian Jennifer Chiaverini has found one of Hugh Torrens. The biographical novel her latest protagonists in the English highlights women’s scientific abilities mathematician and pioneer of computer and achievements without omitting the science Ada Lovelace (1815-1852), who obstacles put in the way of early 19th is best known for her work on Charles century women, who overstepped social Babbage’s Analytical Engine. Enchantress boundaries, by a misogynist, patriarchal of Numbers (2017), a title bestowed upon society and scientific community. The Lovelace by Babbage himself, is written novel’s feminist agenda is not only as a fictional autobiography, in which the visible in the centrality it attributes to scientist recounts key moments in her women’s concerns, experiences, and emotional and intellectual development. perspectives, but in its celebration of sisterhood as an important way of female survival in the male-dominated world of science. Chevalier weakens the feminist potential of her novel, however, when she uses her poetic license for the inclusion of an entirely fictional romantic subplot. While an unfulfilled love interest is made to figure as an important step in the fictional Anning’s development, the rift that the romance causes in the empowering friendship between the two female protagonists Mary Anning with her dog Tray and the Golden seems rather counterproductive to this Cap outcrop in the background, Natural History Museum, London, painted before 1842, credited otherwise feminist portrait of strong, to ‘Mr Grey’
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Providing its readership with a meticulous to expose the difficulties and restrictions portrait of 19th century British society a Victorian upper-class woman like and gender roles, this Neo-Victorian Lovelace had to deal with when novel chronicles Ada’s rising passion for venturing into the male-dominated science, which is carefully cultivated world of science. The fictional memoirs’ by a mother eager to suppress her emphasis on discourses that frame daughter’s artistic heritage – Ada was, femininity and math as a contradiction after all, the only legitimate child of one make Lovelace’s struggle against of Britain’s greatest poets, Lord Byron. traditional gender roles and masculinist concepts of science undoubtedly relevant for a 21st century readership.
Double-dealing around the double helix
ritish women scientists are also Bnow entering the theatre stage. American dramatist Anna Ziegler’s critically-acclaimed and prize-winning one-act play Photograph 51 tells the Jennifer Chiaverini story of the race for the discovery of the © Michael Chiaverini structure of DNA, focussing on British crystallographer Rosalind Franklin’s While Enchantress of Numbers does not (1920-1958) often forgotten role in it. exclude the historical figure’s experiences First staged in the US, the play attracted of marriage and motherhood, it is not enormous attention when it premiered the love for her husband or children in London’s West End in 2015, with but her passion for mathematics that Hollywood actress Nicole Kidman dominates the protagonist’s life story. in the leading role. While the drama Indeed, it is not an eligible young indeed puts Franklin’s story centre stage, gentleman that makes the heroine it is not the female scientist but a chorus swoon at a dinner party, but the leading consisting of her male colleagues that British mathematician of the day, Mary leads the audience through her story. The Somerville (1780-1872), Lovelace’s fictionalised characters of Francis Crick, role model and mentor. Portraying her James Watson, and Maurice Wilkins, enormous talent for mathematics and who in real life received the Nobel her eventual collaboration with inventor Prize for discovering the DNA double Charles Babbage, the novel does not fail helix structure in 1962 (four years after
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which prevented her final triumph in the discovery of ‘the secret of life’, and contributed to the men’s scientific betrayal when they appropriated her photo 51, which proved the DNA double helix structure. Yet, sympathy clearly lies with Franklin, who in the end leaves the stage not only professionally defeated but terminally ill: Ziegler indeed stretches historical fact to have Crick’s and Watson’s scientific breakthrough coincide with her protagonist’s cancer diagnosis, a rather melodramatic touch that ennobles this depiction of gender discrimination in the lab by framing it as a tragedy. Photograph
Book Cover Enchantress of Numbers (2017) 51 is a timely piece that highlights ©Dutton a woman’s scientific achievements while raising awareness for academic Franklin’s untimely death), are given the sexism and gender bias in recognising chance to retrospectively set the record female contributions to science. straight and to ‘publicly’ acknowledge Franklin’s role in their fame and fortune. he attention that creative artists Tand online activists are beginning iven the historical facts, however, to pay to the lives and accomplishments Gthe play is more a critique of of female scientists is undoubtedly sexism in academia than an empowering a positive development, supporting portrayal of a woman’s success story. activities to raise the numbers of women While the biographical drama does not in STEM. Stories of women’s scientific fail to portray Franklin as a brilliant achievements which allow movie- and and passionate scientist, it concentrates theatregoers, historical fiction readers, on revealing her male colleagues’ and Wikipedia users to empathise with misogynist attitudes and behaviours, strong female role models are vital in which generate endless experiences of challenging the public perception of discrimination, exclusion, and disregard science as a masculine pursuit. While for Franklin. Indeed, the play suggests this alone is certainly not sufficient to fix that it was Franklin’s personality, above STEM’s gender gap, it does justify hopes all her unwillingness to cooperate, that these on- and offline rewritings of
Page 19 Hard Times 102 (2/2018) Hidden No More the history of women in science may help html?guccounter=1>. to improve our chances to eventually overcome the ‘Curie Syndrome’. Ratcliffe, Rebecca (2015). “Nobel Scientist Tim Hunt: Female Scientists Works Cited Cause Trouble for Men in Labs.” The Guardian, 10 June.
Jones, Claire (2018). “Women Have Torrens, Hugh. (1995). “Presidential Been Written out of Science History Address: Mary Anning (1799-1847) of – Time to Put Them Back.”The Lyme; ‘The Greatest Fossilist the World Conversation.
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(2018). “Why We’re Editing Women Scientists onto Wikipedia.” Nature, 14. Aug.
WISE Campaign (2017a). “The STEM Education Pipeline 2017.” WISE Campaign.
WISE Campaign (2017b). “Core STEM Graduates 2017.” WISE Campaign.
WISE Campaign (2017c). “Women in STEM Workforce 2017.” WISE Campaign.
WISE Campaign (2018). “Women on STEM Apprenticeships 2016/17.” WISE Campaign.
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