…and this is a 
Once again into the assumed silence of the homogametic sex
Category: Academics
Posted on: September 20, 2007 6:10 PM, by PZ Myers
Prompted by the skewed gender representation of a recent survey of science blogs, Zuska asks why there are no great women science bloggers. That's an ironic question, of course: there are great women science bloggers, but there is a strange blindness to their contributions, just as they are neglected in the greater blogosphere, and in science, and in politics, and in everything other than raising babies and making attractive centerpieces for the family dinner table, etc. It's a curious phenomenon that we have to try consciously to rise above, an effort hampered by the fact that there seem to be a lot of people who want to argue that you aren't allowed to make a special effort to avoid gender bias — it's apparently "unfair" to try to overcome a history of unfairness.
Anyway, something that came up independently: here I am teaching this new freshman biology course, and the last few weeks have been a survey of the history and philosophy of science — basically, Aristotle to Bacon, with the latest lectures on 19th century geology and natural history as a prelude to Darwin. It's a bit depressing when you look back at it that there are a few thousand years of history there where women don't seem to be present except for the important business of laundering the togas. I'm conscious of it and a bit uncomfortable about the absence of women in the story so far (there will be a lecture dedicated to women in science this term), and when I was composing the first exam the other day, I had a long section where I was grilling them on a bunch of Dead White Guys, so I tossed in these two questions:
14. Hey! Have you noticed the lack of women scientists so far? Briefly speculate about why they're missing.
15 (2 pts extra credit). Name a female scientist of any era.
The answers to question 14 so far have been consistent: because women weren't given opportunities. Because they were told to make babies and cook meals. Because men didn't give them any respect. (There were several that said that despite past oppression, everything was changing for the better now; I'm going to have to engage in a little disillusionment sometime.)
Question 15 was supposed to be a gimme, a really easy question that they should have answered easily, especially since we'd just had the freshman biology major mixer the night before, where they were introduced to 3 women biology faculty. I have a bunch of students who left question 15 blank, or said they couldn't think of any! Now that was depressing.
Just to compensate, though, and this is something that might cheer Zuska up a little bit, there were a handful of women students who gave the best answer ever: they named themselves. I'd give them a big gold star, but that kind of self-confidence is its own best reward.
Comments
Now things just have to reach the stage where the males in the class would simply glance round and get themselves a similar freebie for Q15 by writing down the name of one of their female peers. Were a female colleague of yours to set the test, would even they managed to get named by some students?
Posted by: SEF | September 20, 2007 6:19 PM
Nice post and kudos to the women who answered with their own names. I'm afraid I would have answered number 15 with Mdm Currie only because while I can think of several others I can't remember their names! Maybe I need some Complexin to regrow some neurons.
Posted by: Natasha Yar-Routh | September 20, 2007 6:20 PM
Heh. The #1 most common answer to that question: Marie Curie. Nothing against her, but that's another sign that we have a problem: that most people think of just one name.
Posted by: PZ Myers | September 20, 2007 6:28 PM
Has anybody done actual statistics on this? I mean, I've seen an awful lot of comments thrown around, and explanations proposed for this and that, but I don't know what the actual ratios are, let alone whether they differ across fields of science or if they're changing over time.
I doubt the figures are good, but I'd like to know what they are.
Posted by: Blake Stacey | September 20, 2007 6:29 PM
The answer is more complex than the simple "PC" answer typically given, though the "PC" answer does encompass much of it; though filtered through our view of history rather than theirs. And, yes, things have gotten a lot better since even the turn of the prior century. This is not to confuse it with "perfect."
My wife. Deena. Her PI. Half, if not more, of her Post-Doc lab mates. Rachel Carson. Marie Curie. Jane Goodall. Joan Feynman. Sophia Brahe (Tycho's wife). Florence Nightingale. Hypatia.
Do I get an "A?" :)
Posted by: Moses | September 20, 2007 6:36 PM
I would have probably gone with Annie Cannon. Or, having just finished "Fermat's Enigma", Hypatia or Sophie Germain. I think Annie might still have won out, being involved with astronomy and all.
Posted by: Bryn | September 20, 2007 6:37 PM
I recently applied for a postdoctoral travel award to attend the Society for Neuroscience conference in San Diego in November. Still don't know if I've got it, but I don't think it's likely - wouldn't they have told me by now? Anyway.
One of the things I had to do was write a short essay (~500 words) about a woman in science who had inspired me. I'm ashamed to say I thought of Marie Curie instantly, but then I thought: hang on, that's the only female scientist I can think of? And besides, she never inspired me.
Happily I work in a field with lots of famous women. Well, famous in the field, anyway: Sarah-Jane Blakemore, Antonia Hamilton, Susan Greenfield to name but a few. In the end I picked Susan Blackmore because I remember reading The Meme Machine when still an undergraduate physics student and thinking: wow, this is really interesting, the brain is quite cool, maybe I'll see if I can do some psychology for my postgrad... and the rest is history.
Endnote: It is interesting though rather sad how many female graduate students I went through my PhD with, and how few continued in academic science.
Posted by: Despard | September 20, 2007 6:37 PM
Shame on me: Curie was the only one I can think of. But there was that gal who helped Watson & Crick discover DNA, but I can't remember her danged name even though it was in an issue of Y: The Last Man. ARGH.
I guess I personally could also go with the wildlife biologist about twenty feet over from me right now.
Posted by: Rey Fox | September 20, 2007 6:38 PM
"Jane Goodall."
And Diane Fosse! Do I get extra credit now?
Posted by: Rey Fox | September 20, 2007 6:40 PM
Answer: No, since I didn't pre-Google and spell her name correctly.
Posted by: Rey Fox | September 20, 2007 6:42 PM
If I were one of these girls, I would not have dared name myself - nor would I have named one of them if I were a male classmate.
Why not? Because if they are freshmen, they are by definition not yet (fully trained) scientists, and IMO not entitled to call themselves such.
I would also have answered Mme Curie for #15, because she probably IS the most famous woman scientist, and that's (a) how most people misread the question and (b) the first name that comes to mind under perceived time pressure.
OTOH, Janet Stemwedel and Tara C. Smith are both in my "Favourites folder" - but I have already subclassified them as "chemist" and "epidemiologist", and so my mind does not immediately make the leap to "scientist". Possibly it's because I've been reading about Curie since I was a boy, and she got the label "scientist" long before I knew what a "physicist" was.
Posted by: Justin Moretti | September 20, 2007 6:47 PM
Would Ada Lovelace qualify? She was more of a computer scientist than a physical scientist, but I'm not sure how wide a net we're casting here...
Posted by: factlike | September 20, 2007 6:47 PM
Rey Fox: You mean Rosalind Franklin.
(She's who I would have answered--my high school biology/genetics teacher mentioned her, I got interested, and now am working in fungal genetics to get my Ph.D.!)
Posted by: Johanna | September 20, 2007 6:51 PM
Posted by: Token | September 20, 2007 6:54 PM
The gender bias in science is extreme. Consider how many graduate students are women compared to how few faculty members are women. If women choose to have a life/family (which I know the academy frowns upon), when exactly should this happen? Many aspects of an academic's life are postponed relative to others of their same age, but biology puts limits on when women can have children. There are known health benefits associated with having children sooner rather than later. Even if you wait until the last possible minute to have kids, you probably don't have tenure yet. There really is no good time, is there?
It is a great shame that women cannot often return to tenure-track careers after taking time off to start a family. These women are highly trained and have great potential for contributing to their respective fields and the teaching and research mission of universities, but because there is so little flexibility in the successful academic CV, science loses the female perspective.
Hopefully, when the guard changes, this will too. It will if I have anything to say about it.
Posted by: scott | September 20, 2007 6:56 PM
Lynn Margulis is a justifiably famous female scientist, even if she's sort of gone off the rails lately.
Posted by: Ebonmuse | September 20, 2007 6:56 PM
Marie Stopes. Paleobotanist and women's reproductive rights crusader. My hero.
Posted by: Carlie | September 20, 2007 7:04 PM
Barbara McClintock, of course.
Yes, male moths are pretty quiet, aren't they?
Posted by: Ian B Gibson | September 20, 2007 7:06 PM
With my students I make sure to hit Rosalind Franklin's story pretty hard, and follow it with a bit of discussion about why science isn't just for white males. No idea if it helps or not - but it does throw the girls into outrage that there aren't more famous women scientists. I encourage the outrage and tell them to go forth and make a difference...
Side question: Didn't I hear somewhere that for the last couple of years now, the first-year med students nationwide have been predominantly female? I could be mistaken, though.
Posted by: Ms. S | September 20, 2007 7:12 PM
Where's Eugenie Scott when you need her?
Posted by: John Danley | September 20, 2007 7:13 PM
"Yes, male moths are pretty quiet, aren't they?"
Male birds, too.
Posted by: Rey Fox | September 20, 2007 7:21 PM
But you added to that problem, by leaving Rosalind Franklin off your course notes when pretending Watson and Crick did the DNA work.
Posted by: SEF | September 20, 2007 7:21 PM
I'd have gone with Tara, Blakemore, or one of my mates at Oxford (although I suppose if I were sitting the test they wouldn't have been my mates).
Posted by: Ginger Yellow | September 20, 2007 7:23 PM
Foul! Blatant misrepresentation.
Making a special effort to avoid gender bias != making a special effort to create gender bias that you approve of.
We want a level playing field, not one handicapped in favor of those discriminated against in the past.
Posted by: Caledonian | September 20, 2007 7:25 PM
I would have written Beatrix Potter. She was one of the first to suggest that lichens were a symbiotic relationship between fungi and algae but she was ignored as a scientist because of her gender.
Posted by: Euan | September 20, 2007 7:27 PM
I'd probably have put Jocelyn Bell Burnell, possibly with a rant about biases in the awarding of Nobel prizes.
Posted by: andy | September 20, 2007 7:31 PM
You must have interesting parties if you use women as attractive centerpieces for the family dinner table.
I also came up with Barbara McClintock but I live near Cold Spring Harbor.
Posted by: John Pieret | September 20, 2007 7:32 PM
Lise Meitner is the first name that springs to mind.
Posted by: MartinM | September 20, 2007 7:37 PM
Vera Rubin, Jocelyn Bell Burnell, Lisa Randall,
Melissa Franklin, Jill Tarter, Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, Henrietta Leavitt.
Posted by: Fred Mim | September 20, 2007 7:40 PM
Let's see, right off the top of my head there's Grrl Scientist, and Bitch, PhD and of course the one who ripped Dembski a new one recently, ERV.
Posted by: melior | September 20, 2007 7:41 PM
I personally think Mary Leakey was fantastic. I also think her husband was a coat-riding troll.
There is a significant lack of female bloggers. Of the science blogs I commonly read only 2/5 are written by women (ERV, Aetiology). Although to be fair I am assuming (perhaps wrongly, that Afarensis and Angry Toxicologist are male).
I'm not counting Intersection (though half-female team is a guilty pleasure and not very sciencey). Or Scientia Natura, Pandagon, Skepchick, Possummomma, for being more atheism/skepticism blogs.
What conclusion were we suppose to draw. I forgot.
Posted by: Tatarize | September 20, 2007 7:48 PM
"Consider how many graduate students are women compared to how few faculty members are women."
When I first read this, the use of the term "many" seemed a little odd to me. In my department, about 16% of the PhD students are women compared to 6% of the faculty. While 16% > 6%, neither of those ratios are particularly large.
Posted by: Kristen Stubbs | September 20, 2007 7:51 PM
Wow, that students left question 15 blank is just incredibly disturbing. I'm curious as to what the male/female ratio was of the students who left question 15 blank and how this compares to the class male/female ratio.
Posted by: Joshua Zelinsky | September 20, 2007 7:54 PM
Silence of the homogametic sex? Are you kidding? I don't know where you live but these damned roosters won't shut the hell up!
Posted by: Tatarize | September 20, 2007 7:57 PM
Tomoko Ohta. Deborah Charlesworth. Sarah Blaffer Hrdy. Kristen Hawkes. Virpi Lummaa.
(Are we spoiling PZ's students with this thread?)
Posted by: windy | September 20, 2007 7:58 PM
I would have went with Marie Curie or Ada Lovelace. I find this topic interesting since I'd never heard of Rosalind Franklin until she was mentioned here.
Posted by: Jared | September 20, 2007 8:09 PM
WRT #15 and especially #24, I am reminded of the rather simple step taken by the NFL when the dearth of African-American head coaches became became politically uncomfortable. An edict went out from the league that at least one African-American candidate had to be interviewed for any head-coach opening. Nothing more, just interview them! As a result, two African-American head coaches faced each other last superbowl, if I've got my sports statistics right.
So, PZ, I suggest that you agitate to get a version of your test adopted each time there's an opening for a scientist: Questions #14 and #15 are asked of each potential interviewer, except that #15 becomes "name at least one female scientist who you think should be interviewed for this opening," and there's a 15-second time limit for the answer.
Anyone, male or female, who fails to name an eligible female candidate within the alotted time is forthwith granted the title "Emeritus," is dismissed from the selection committee, and is docked sufficient pay to cover the tuition of a fresh(wo)man science student.
Posted by: PoxyHowzes | September 20, 2007 8:28 PM
I helped found a Women in Science House on my campus last year and we talked about this all the time. Even now, there is a problem with getting more women into higher positions especially in physics and engineering. Add into that the fact that when women bloggers get hate emails it tends to be more violent. Man, thats depressing...
I'm naming my first daughter Rosalind after Franklin, there is no talking me out now.
Posted by: Beth | September 20, 2007 8:35 PM
Someone asked for statistics. I did a talk about a year ago, and before I started the research, I thought the numbers weren't very tight. Now I know better:
see the Social Psychology Network for general background on prejudices of all stripes, and > for a variety of test designed to determine if the taker associates one particular group with "good" and its counterpart with "bad."
There are also peer-reviewed journals in the field of Women's Studies which include detailed statistics. See, for example:
S. V. Rosser. "Twenty-Five years of NWSA: Have We Built the Two-Way Streets Between Women's Studies and Women in Science and Technology." _NWSA_Journal_ Vol. 14, No. 1 (Spring 2002).
S. L. Hanson. "African American Women in Science: Experiences from High School through the Post-Secondary Years and Beyond." _NWSA_Journal_ Vol. 16, No. 1 (Spring 2004).
C. L. Colbeck et al. "Learning Professional Confidence: Linking Teaching Practices, Students' Self-Perceptions, and Gender." _The_Review_of_Higher_Education_ Vol. 24, No. 2, pp. 173-191 (Winter 2001).
Posted by: Sarah Messer | September 20, 2007 8:38 PM
Janna Levin!
Posted by: Bachalon | September 20, 2007 8:49 PM
What about Tsuneko Okazaki? She & her husband found the Okazaki fragments together (as far as I know) but in classes I've heard instructers refer to Okazaki as "he" only.
Posted by: Sea Creature | September 20, 2007 8:52 PM
I once thought it'd be a fun 'experiment' to ask people to name a female scientist other than Marie Curie. I got too depressed to keep going with it.
I figured as long as we're listing names to show how hip we are I'd put in Maria Mitchell. I used to read a series of about the childhoods of famous people and she was 'the other' female scientist. I loved that series (my Dad checked out from the library for me every female in the series, and most of the scientists. god bless him.)
And we oughtn't to forget IRENE Curie.
I personally could also come up with Barbara Mcclintock, Rosalind Franklin, Linda Buck, Christiane Nusslein-Volhard (though I wouldn't have been able to spell her name, so I might not have written that down on an exam). Also, Martha Chase. If I'm honest, I would have probably forgotten Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin, though I find her story especially inspiring.
I can also name lots of female faculty members at my institution, and could even have named some as an undergrad.
All of you who couldn't think of multiple women- go read "Nobel Prize Women in Science", "The Dark Lady of DNA" and "Marie Curie: A Life" (by Eve Curie).
Oh, and I would have named Nancy Hopkins. I figure if you bother to remember "larry summers" you should remember Nancy Hopkinks.
Also, can anyone name a non-white female scientist? Double points for one who is also non-asian.
I actually couldn't- not even allowing myself to count faculty at my university.
*gives self F*
Posted by: Becca | September 20, 2007 8:53 PM
Anne McLaren, developmental biologist and fellow of the Royal Society since the 1970s. She died last month.
Margaret Mead, anthropologist and author.
Posted by: Monado | September 20, 2007 8:55 PM
Liz Lacey (SKI) wrote the textbook on on using mouse models. Kathryn Andersen is also at SKI, chairperson of the developmental biology department, academic of the sciences. Of course there's always someone like Katherine Hajjar who is the chair of Cell and Dev Bio at Cornell, but her husband is the Dean so there are questions whether she's a scientist.
I would name my wife, but that's not right... (you can guess where I hail from, but it would be wrong, I met her when she was on "the Farm.")
Brigit Hogan is another academic of the sciences that pops to mind.
Shame that biologists don't know Franklin.
Posted by: Onkel Bob | September 20, 2007 9:04 PM
And my step daughter, Elizabeth A. Nelson, who has already matched the output of the Intelligent Design movement before finishing her Ph.D. (including one paper given in high school to an astronomy convention).
Posted by: Monado | September 20, 2007 9:09 PM
Emmy Nother...she was so important the Einstein wrote her obit in the ny times.
Posted by: joshua | September 20, 2007 9:14 PM
Rear Admiral Grace Hopper, pioneer computer scientist. I had the great pleasure of hearing her speak about the early days of computing.
Posted by: alison | September 20, 2007 9:15 PM
At our school we have three autoclaves in the genetics unit. Two have been named with little tags: "Watson" and "Crick".
Is it any surprise some of us female grad students are quietly planning to name the third one "Franklin"?
Posted by: katie | September 20, 2007 9:19 PM
My dad would disown me if I failed to mention Dame Honor Fell; I remember him telling me about Fell, and about Rosalind Franklin, when I was in high school.
But as a mouse geneticist and developmental biologist, I'd also list Liane Russell, Mary Lyon, Hilde Mangold, and Rita Levi-Montalcini. I'm sorry to hear that Anne McLaren died.
i don't think there's much emphasis on, or time devoted to, reading "classic" papers in biology from the late 19th or early 20th centuries these days, in either undergraduate or graduate education. The contributions of both female and male scientists are ignored as a consequence.
Hey, maybe everybody's blogging instead! *lightbulb click*
Posted by: Barn Owl | September 20, 2007 9:19 PM
How about Hedy Lamarr?
Posted by: Iain Coleman | September 20, 2007 9:20 PM
"But you added to that problem, by leaving Rosalind Franklin off your course notes when pretending Watson and Crick did the DNA work."
I agree that PZ added to the problem by leaving her off, but I disagree with your statement "pretending Watson and Crick did the DNA work." Watson and Crick did discover the double helix, but they could not have done it without her work. The reason she did not get a Nobel prize, if my memory is correct, is not that she was a woman, but that she was dead by the time they were handing them out for that work. However, her being a woman certainly meant she did get at that time a lot less credit than she deserved. If PZ would add her into his course he could begin to correct that now...
Posted by: sailor | September 20, 2007 9:22 PM
Maria Goeppert-Mayer, and her "magic numbers" (of nucleons), the other woman to win a Nobel prize in physics, of course.
Posted by: Sam Paris | September 20, 2007 9:24 PM
And now for something even more depressing... check out how many female Nobel laureates there are: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_Nobel_Prize_laureates.
There actually have been none for Chemistry and Physics for the last 20 years...
Posted by: katie | September 20, 2007 9:26 PM
Is it any surprise some of us female grad students are quietly planning to name the third one "Franklin"?
yes, but only the "quietly" part.
would it really create waves for you just by naming an autoclave?
Posted by: Ichthyic | September 20, 2007 9:29 PM
Yep, Hypatia of Alexandria comes to mind as the most ancient example (3rd century, A.D.) although she ended up being tortured and slaughtered by Christians. Another good example was Sister Juana Inés de la Cruz, a Mexican, a poet and something of a polymath (the wikipedia article doesn't make her justice) in the 17th century. She also ran into trouble with the Church and was forced to stop writing. More recently, Lise Meitner, the co-discoverer of nuclear fission with Otto Hahn. In contrast with him, she didn't receive the Nobel prize for that. Maybe being a woman and a Jew was too much for the Nobel commitee in 1944.
Posted by: Ribozyme | September 20, 2007 9:29 PM
PoxyHowses, it would be better to give at least a minute or two for the potential interviewer to think of a really good candidate instead of the first name that comes to mind.
As I recall, Beatrix Potter did botany illustrations for her father's research, so she should have gotten some credit.
Darn, who had to have their paper read for them because women didn't speak at meetings?
Caroline Lucretia Herschel (1750-1848), who I think was the real discoverer of Uranus and is acknowledged as an astronomer assisting her brother William.
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu - not offically a scientist but the person who observed innoculation against smallpox in the Turkey, brought back samples I believe, and was responsible for a spate of innoculations in the 1700s. Smallpox killed 30 - 40% of those who caught it. The practice of using a weak strain of smallpox was never widespread in England because it was still dangerous, killing up to 10%. However, William Jenner was innoculated as a child and developed the better way of using a related virus, cowpox, which prevented smallpox. (That's why milkmaids were known for their beauty - they weren't covered with smallpox scars.)
Posted by: Monado | September 20, 2007 9:29 PM
You are aware that a one line summary of a week worth of lectures does not constitute the whole of what I'm going to say, right? That's 3 hours of talking. Rosalind Franklin will be prominently mentioned, don't worry.
Posted by: PZ Myers | September 20, 2007 9:31 PM
As a young female scientist, I know that not everyone suffers from this form of blindness. Fellow women are often very much aware of the contributions of their own gender (I know this to be true for science and medicine--I can only speculate about other fields). It is clear that the contributions of women are routinely neglected, but it is important to continue that sentence with the following modifer: "mainly, by men" (of course, not all men).
Stating (and lamenting) that the contributions of women scientists are neglected, period, appears to require taking the viewpoint that those whose opinions and attentions are most important are male.
Posted by: Reason | September 20, 2007 9:32 PM
"That's 3 hours of talking. Rosalind Franklin will be prominently mentioned, don't worry."
Delighted to hear it PZ, I will happily go off now and eat some humble pie...
Posted by: Sailor | September 20, 2007 9:34 PM
IIRC the first woman in Asimov's Biographical Dictionary of Science is Hypatia, a librarian of Alexandria just before the library was burnt down by the Christians. (As distinct from when it was burned down by the Romans.)
First woman mathematician I can recall is Julia? Bernoulli, sister and cousin to the Bernoulli brothers. Not long after was the woman (whose name I forget, but should be easy to find on Google) who translated Newton's Principia into French and the translation was used for the next couple of centuries.
First woman astronomer I can recall is Caroline Hershel, sister to William. Later ones include Celia Payne, Priscilla Bok, Er um... (Sorry if I'm getting the spelling wrong, these are people from my distant past.) Oh yes, Ann Savage, whom I have actually met.
Marie Curie was a chemist, her daughter was a physicist and they were the first mother-daughter pair to get Nobel Prizes.
Then there's Dorothy Hodgkin, Rosemary Franklin (who should have got a Nobel, but didn't; swizz) and here my memory gives out. I'm sure I know of many more women scientists, but I'm having a `senior moment'.
Posted by: Keith Harwood | September 20, 2007 9:40 PM
Keith Harwood:
I googled: Emilie du Châtelet.
Posted by: Jared | September 20, 2007 9:46 PM
Erm, only extinct ones.
Posted by: Ian B Gibson | September 20, 2007 9:47 PM
Émilie du Châtelet (1706-1749), Mathematician. A recent book about Emilie and her partner: Passionate Minds by David Bodanis, 2006. Several sites on the web including Wikipedia. A crater on Venus was named for her. Died of complications of childbirth days after delivering her most important work to her publisher.
Posted by: Mary Aloyse Firestone | September 20, 2007 9:47 PM
PZ, I sincerely hope you would have accepted Emmy Noether for #15.
(Yes, mathematicians do count as scientists.)
Posted by: James Cook | September 20, 2007 9:48 PM
"Yes, male moths are pretty quiet, aren't they?"
they might be quiet, but they sure hear well enough:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/12/061218122629.htm
Posted by: Ichthyic | September 20, 2007 9:52 PM
I'd want to answer my organic chemsitry professor at Iowa State. Can't for the life of me remember her name, but she was so damned entertaining and knowledgeable that going to Org was fun!
When I was majoring in chemical engineering, the department was proud of itself because it had the highest concentration of women of any of the engineering departments at around 10%.
Now, as I'm teaching sociology (Sex and Gender, alongside Race and Ethnicity, this semester) I have young women majoring in bio, pre-med, engineering, you name it. I don't know if that much has changed in the past 15 or so years (I hope so), but don't try to tell these young women that they don't have what it takes to succeed in the sciences.
What's even better, though, is that these young women are far more aware of the social issues involved with their entry into these fields than the young men accompanying them (unless they're taking my class..shameless self-plug) but they're able to articulate what's going on in both fields. The unfortunate thing is that the class is about 80% female (because, of course, gender only refers to women--we males apparently don't have one).
Reminds me also of a chat I had on a flight last spring. I was talking with a woman who does research at one of the Harvard institutes (who can remember which one). She was telling me about her own research, and how it was challenging some paradigms (I could keep up, but barely), but she was also telling me about the not-so-subtle things she had to put up with. Things like male colleagues commenting on the changes in the style of her dress from year to year. Things like going to conferences and having researchers shocked to find out that the person presenting the paper they were so impressed with was a woman.
Hope and frustration simultaneously.
Posted by: MAJeff | September 20, 2007 9:53 PM
That was my first thought, along with Henrietta Leavitt and Jodie Fos... er, I mean Jill Tarter.
I guess I was in an astronomical frame of mind.
But though Marie Curie being the most common answer is admittedly a problem in the way PZ suggests, it's surely an even bigger problem that "a bunch" of students couldn't think even of that stereotypical answer.
PS: I've never heard anyone suggest before that Caroline Herschel was the true discoverer of Uranus, but she did indisputably discover numerous comets, entirely on her own.
Posted by: Bill Dauphin | September 20, 2007 9:56 PM
I'm not sure why my link didn't work; let's try again.
Posted by: James Cook | September 20, 2007 9:58 PM
Don't forget the scientist who changed genders. He had people commenting after the switch how much better his research was than his "sister's".
Posted by: Carlie | September 20, 2007 9:59 PM
I can only speculate about other fields
Well, I have to say that physics has an annoying lack of women in the history of the subject. Going into my third year I can count the number of women mentioned as prominent figures on my thumbs. Strange seeing as we have had three very memorable female lecturers (all research physicists, one a senior lecturer in the department who is heavily involved in outreach) for no fewer than five different modules over the last two years. I would gladly list at least one of them among any list of women scientists.
Janna Levin needs some love as well. Read her book when I was working on university applications. Happened to be in Cambridge at the time and sought out one of the parks she mentioned to do some serious reading under a tree. Most definitely a memorable book.
Posted by: Paul Schofield | September 20, 2007 10:02 PM
What if I mentioned Zo Bell instead of Curie?
Anyone witness her analyses of hydrocarbons in recent sediments and depths? The name is just right to make the grader hesitate and look up a roster of rock bands.
If you don't like it can I enter Dr. Susan Block for fun?
Posted by: Skeptic8 | September 20, 2007 10:03 PM
I would try to discourage your students from embracing identities they have no control over (race/gender/sexual orientation, etc.) and instead talk to them as people. It's pretty much impossible to draw attention to the scarcity of female scientists without simultaneously reinforcing silly ideas about gender. In my experience, the less people worry about their own race/gender the better. Its also completely obvious when a professor suddenly switches into apologetic liberal white male mode and so its usually less than convincing anyway.
Posted by: Amanda | September 20, 2007 10:12 PM
Rosalind Franklin would be top of the list, but how about Mary Anning if you want to get the righteous fury going? Kathleen Drew-Baker discovered the secret of the nori life cycle in the 30s. Or for someone more contemporary, you can't get better than Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard. Mind you, they're all white women . I read an interesting article a while back in Nature about Japanese biophysicist Michiko Go. Now, how about a list of left-handed scientists?
Posted by: AlanWCan | September 20, 2007 10:12 PM
I just installed the 2008 Britannica software, so I brought up their 'Great Minds' feature. It shows a list of scientific fields. A click on each of them brings up a list of scientists from that field. Clicking on a scientist brings up the intro to their bio and an image if one is available.
They're mostly men, but there are a few women. I imagine it depends on the field.
It would be nice if, in addition to the by-field groupings, there were groupings by gender or race or ethnicity. If those were available, some would surely be pretty empty, and that would probably compel the company to add more people to fill things out.
Posted by: Jon Hendry | September 20, 2007 10:28 PM
I'd encourage any of you (especially physicists, biologists, and chemists!) who are currently employed to sign up as an e-mentor at Mentornet.net
This is a national program to increase diversity in science,
and I always have a shortage of mentors in those fields.
It's easy, only about a half-hour (max!) every 2 weeks.
Bug, apparently NOT a "great" female blogger. Ahem.
(granted, I do have rather a narrow field of scope and readership. But still--OW!)
Posted by: bug_girl | September 20, 2007 10:35 PM
In question to this why not post all the women bloggers addy's. Simple to get. And simple to promote.
Posted by: JamesR | September 20, 2007 10:53 PM
I think Zuska is making the same point that a bunch of women in entomology have been making for >25 years:
If you are organizing a conference, and you realize that your conference speakers, every single one, is a white dude, it is a good time to examine whether you have missed someone.
You can, BTW, get a really wonderful series of posters on women in health from the NIH
http://science.education.nih.gov/women/scientists/index.html
Posted by: bug_girl | September 20, 2007 11:00 PM
oops-should be
http://science.education.nih.gov/women/index.html
clearly past my bedtime :)
Posted by: bug_girl | September 20, 2007 11:03 PM
Spoken like a privileged, straight white person.
Fuck that. I'm proud of being gay. I'm proud of being part of a collectivity that has not only survived but thrived and created new cultural values, that developed institutions of care when the state told us to die.
Posted by: MAJeff | September 20, 2007 11:05 PM
Have NONE of them heard of Marie Curie?!? Yeesh! It doesn't specify biology:-p
By the way. My kitten is named Marie Curie>.>
I also have a cat named Schrodinger, and two finches named Darwin and Hawkins. I have a theme going here^.^
Posted by: sil-chan | September 20, 2007 11:19 PM
not just in entomology, bug_girl--an embryologist I know (and PZ, you know her too, but I won't mention names, since I didn't yet ask first before telling her anecdote) tells the story of more than one conference she's organized, and that male colleagues only propose male speakers for.
when this happens, she sends their suggestions back and asks them to include some suggestions for female speakers as well.
invariably, the following kabuki plays out:
Dr. Embryologist: Please include some women speakers as well.
Male Colleague: I can't think of anyone to include; there isn't anyone.
Dr. Embryologist: How about Dr. A?
Male Colleague: Oh, yeah, she's really good, ok.
Dr. Embryologist: And how about Dr. B?
Male Colleague: Oh, yeah, she's good, too.
Dr. Embryologist: And how about Dr. C?
...
So apparently it isn't just students who have trouble coming up with names of female scientists.
Posted by: thalarctos | September 20, 2007 11:29 PM
I'm sure it doesn't help that a lot of scientists have been German, French, etc. I, for instance, would have named "Emilie de... Emilie de Bretu... Emilie de Bretiu...BLOODY HELL. The French woman who translated Newton.
Posted by: Azkyroth | September 21, 2007 12:02 AM
While I agree there is a lack of women in the history of sciences (and a distressing lack of them in the physics and astrophysics majors, let me assure you), there is never a circumstance where you can use preferential selection to write a past wrong.
After all, select for someone based on sex, race, religion, sexual orientation, what have you ... and you've just rejected someone else based on the same criteria.
Past misdeeds may be horrible,b ut it means that you should fix it by moving to a straight meritocracy, not perpetuating selection criteria.
Posted by: tigerhawkvok | September 21, 2007 12:03 AM
It's also worth noting that things have gotten a lot better--women are no longer legally forbidden from receiving an education or working outside the home, nor legally obliged to be obedient to their husbands, at least in the Western world. Perhaps more important, public opinion has shifted in such a way that while de facto discrimination is still alive and well, its practitioners are now frequently reluctant to admit to it, and even go to great lengths to hide it.
Posted by: Azkyroth | September 21, 2007 12:06 AM
Oh. Chatelet, with the weird French letters. *wonders why the last source that reminded me of her used Breteuil or something like it* x.x
Hmm. Mary Leakey? Or do I misremember again? x.x
Posted by: Azkyroth | September 21, 2007 12:10 AM