Women in Science

For years, the world of science has been disproportionately led and influenced by men. Most famous scientific discoveries have been credited to great men. But where are the important women whose work laid the foundations of discoveries?

Some remain anonymous, or their work is credited to someone else. In some cases, others had their original ideas stolen and were not given proper recognition just because they were a woman. Historically, women did not have as many opportunities as men in the scientific field. History tells us 'his' story! This article aims to tell the stories of some great women, who, with their achievements, laid the foundations of important discoveries. Thereby, essentially changing history to bring out 'her' story. 

Only by shedding light on these forgotten women can we move forward in the future, and create more opportunities for women today. This article explores the reasons why women were not, and are often still not, recognised for their achievements, why this happens, and how we can move forward in the future.

Science: A World Dominated by Men

Historically, science has always been a ‘man’s world’. Society sets out these principles and they are carried out. Throughout history, and even now, a man and a woman work on a project and the man often gets the prize. Only 28% of those in STEM fields are women, while 72% are men [1]. Efforts are increasing to let more women in, but the fact remains that they are still largely underrepresented in STEM, and thus the world of science firmly remains a male domain.

Why Have Women Been Considered Less Scientifically-Minded?

According to common stereotypes, women are better at languages and history, while men are better at chemistry and maths. Women are said to have less intelligence and cognitive ability. These, however, are not based on fact, and are built on traditional societal norms we have and what is expected of a person.

One common misconception about women was that they were different from men in behavior and intelligence due to differences in their brains. That idea began with the field of phrenology, the study of head size, which reached peak popularity in the 19th century. For years, scientists argued that women's smaller heads were a sign of their inferior intelligence. Later, scientists realised that women had larger heads in proportion to their bodies. So, they proceeded to argue that because women's proportions are more similar to those of children (who also have larger heads in proportion to their bodies), women must be intellectually similar to children.[2] 

Stereotypes Against Women: Causes and Outcomes

According to an article from NCBI (National Centre for Biological Information), results from their study show that more women were depicted as teachers, and more men were depicted as scientists in a school learning environment [3]. Due to this stereotype, it is said that children get a depiction in their minds when they think about science or STEM-related activities. 

For example, in the same study, the kids were told to take a math test. The girls were told that boys were better at math than they were. The test results showed that the girls did worse than the boys in the math test. The result: they did not fail because they were worse, but because they were conditioned to think so. The evidence to back up the validity of this statement is that the control group comprising girls and boys who took the test got similar scores, however, the girls in the experimental groups did worse than the boys. These issues don’t start in the workplace, they start from a young age, often influenced by children’s exposure to stereotypes in the home and classroom.

To fully explain this, we also have to take a look at the cultural factors that hinder women from STEM fields. Women are less likely to participate in science and engineering where they are outnumbered by men according to a study by Stanford University’s psychologist, Mary Murphy [4]. The same study revealed that through ‘socialisation’, girls are taught directly and indirectly to stay away from jobs depicted to be 'jobs for men'. Even today, family welfare still falls unfairly on women’s laps and thereby hinders them from fully pursuing careers in these fields.

Another article states that over the centuries, female researchers often have to work as 'volunteer' faculty members, seen credit for significant discoveries they have made assigned to male colleagues, and have been written out of textbooks [5]. These scenes have been played out throughout history and are just a few examples of the injustices women face. The typical outcomes lead to fewer women in the field.

Additionally, many women have been victims of the ‘Matilda effect’. This refers to a bias where the achievements of female scientists have not been acknowledged but attributed to their male counterparts [6]. The evaluation of work from a male and a female is often judged differently, which is unfair and should not continue.

The History: Women in Science

There are many women in our past who have done so much and contributed a lot to make science the vast subject it is today. Here we will be recognising some of the female scientists who had a lot of input in many scientific advancements but did not get recognised in their time, or who are still not well known to this day.

First is Jocelyn Bell Burnell, born in Northern Ireland in 1943. In 1976, she discovered pulsars, a celestial object that releases electromagnetic radiation at a rate of up to one thousand pulses per second. Pulsars are the remnants of massive stars that became supernovas. The finding resulted in a Nobel Prize, however, not for Jocelyn; her supervisor, Anthony Hewish, and Martin Ryle, a radio astronomer at Cambridge University, received the Nobel Prize in Physics instead. However, Jocelyn Bell Burnell’s work was not for naught, she received the $3 million Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics on September 6th, 2018 when she was 75 years old.

The work of microbiologist Esther Lenderberg, born in 1922, laid the foundation for genetic inheritance. In fact, her research has significantly contributed to the usefulness of the antibiotics we have today. Esther Lederberg, along with Joshua Lederberg, developed a way to easily transfer bacterial colonies from one petri dish to another. This is called replica plating, and it created a stepping stone to making the study of antibiotic resistance a possibility. The Lederberg method is still in use today. Joshua Lederberg’s work on replica plating helped him earn the 1958 Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine, which he shared with George Beadle and Edward Tatum. Esther Lenderburg never received an award for her accomplishments [6].

Mary Anning was born in the southern shores of Great Britain in 1799. She was credited with finding the first ichthyosaur fossil and the first specimen of an Ichtyasouraus when she was just 10-12 years old! Mary later discovered the first plesiosaur. A famous french male anatomist, George Cuvier, had to inspect it and say that it was a genuine find. Only then did she become a respected fossilist among the community. Even after that, her important discoveries were hidden, because of the “lack of proper documentation of her special skills”. Many people are still unaware of her important fossil discoveries [7].

Rosalind Franklin was born in London in 1920. In college, she studied physics and chemistry. That knowledge helped her with her discoveries in the field of biology. She discovered that the true form of DNA, using her X-ray diffraction skills, was a double helix figure. She had not published her work, but Watson and Crick had seen some of it, and later claimed it to be theirs. After this happened, she had no choice but to continue her work. Her research continued to build on the structure of DNA; she also studied the structure of coal and different viruses. Her data was critical to Watson and Crick’s work. It turns out that Franklin would not have been eligible for the Nobel Prize because she had died four years before Watson, Crick, and Wilkins received the prize. The Nobel Prize is never awarded posthumously. Based on the indignities women faced during that time, we assume that even if she had been alive, she may still have been overlooked. Like many women scientists, Franklin was robbed of recognition throughout her career. Her 100th birthday was on July 25th 2020, and we aim to make the public aware of her contributions to the scientific community [8].

Lise Meitner was born in Vienna, Austria in 1878. The story starts again with a Nobel prize that was awarded to only the male scientists involved in the research study. In 1945, the Royal Swedish Academy of Science awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Otto Hahn for the discovery of nuclear fission, overlooking the physicist Lise Meitner, who collaborated with him in the discovery. Meitner gave the first theoretical explanation of the fission process. She had worked secretly with Hahn and Strassman to test a uranium product they thought was radium. Instead, they found that it was barium. Once again, her name and contribution were lost and misunderstood. Later on, the mistake was fixed and in 1966, she received the U.S. Fermi Prize with Hahn and Strassmann [9].

Nettie Maria Stevens [10] was born in 1871. She was an American geneticist who has been credited with the discovery of sex chromosomes. After she rediscovered Mendel's paper on genetics in 1900, she saw that male mealworms produced two kinds of sperm, one with a large chromosome and one with a small chromosome. Although Stevens and Edmund Beecher Wilson both worked on chromosomal sex determination independently, many authors have credited Wilson alone for the discovery. Wilson did not realise how significant the small (Y) chromosomes were for sex determination until Stevens had completed and published her research. Before Wilson read her papers, however, he had believed that environmental factors played a role in sex determination. This shows that male scientists are not the only ones who made discoveries that define evolution today. They should all be credited for the work they have done!

Women in Science Today: More Needs to be Done

Considerable progress has been made over the last few decades as we have seen more and more women entering fields that were reserved for men in the past. But there is still much more room for improvement. For example, there are many girls-only programs for STEM activities in school now, however, it is important to get rid of the male scientific stereotype throughout all the generations. Hopefully, after reading this, you learned about women who have impacted the scientific field, and you pass the message on: women are just as smart as men!

References

[1] V. Silva ( 2019, Mar. 4) 8 Statistics and Facts about Women in STEM [Online] Available: https://www.builtbyme.com/statistics-facts-women-in-stem/

[2] M. Wertheim "Pythagoras's Trousers: God, Physics and the Gender War" (W. W. Norton & Company, 1997).

[3] A. H. Kerkhoven, P. Russo,A. M. Land-Zandstra, A. Saxena,  F J. Rodenburg. Gender Stereotypes in Science Education Resources: A Visual Content Analysis (Online) Available: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5112807/ 

[4] J.Bryner (2007, Oct. 9) Why men dominate math science fields (Online) Available: https://www.livescience.com/1927-men-dominate-math-science-fields.html

Authors

Tashinga Mutemachani and Pratyusha Mandal