Listening to this podcast brought up a couple of different points, but one in particular caught my attention. It discussed how we look at history through the lens of diversity. People are often taught that women do not regularly appear in history because they were not present in prominent roles; the podcast used the example of women in science to refute this claim. People attribute the lack of female Nobel prize winners to the lack of women in science. I know that this is what I was taught, and I accepted it because based on my knowledge of older time periods, I knew that women had less opportunities. After that one sentence remark, the class would move on and continue to talk about the prominent white males that made landmark discoveries. I thought it was interesting how the podcast highlighted that the lack of women in prominent roles is, yes, partially symptomatic of the lack of women in science, but we must go one step deeper. Why are women not in scientific fields? Also, it is doubtful that there were quite literally no women in science, so for those who were, who were they? What did they do and how did they contribute? These are the crucial questions we fail to ask.
After listening to this portion, I had an “a-ha I’m enlightened” feeling, which was basically crushed a few minutes later. They began to move away from women in general and speak about minorities and minority women. Why were they not recognized in scientific fields? I thought to myself, again, that these groups of people just weren’t in scientific fields. Immediately, my “a-ha I’m enlightened” feeling dissolved. Just because one becomes aware of their bias/ignorance does not mean that they are instantly cured of it. This ties into the way we study history. We answer the first question (“why are women not in scientific fields?”), accept that answer, and simply move on with our day. To fully understand history, you have to keep digging for the next question, which leads to the next question, which leads to the next, etc. Fixing this flaw is not a one-and-done, but the beginning step is being able to recognize it.
I also found the idea of women just “not” doing work in science as a really interesting point. Paired with the fact that women would publish under male names or disguise themselves as men in their field makes the question even more pressing. It makes me wonder, no matter how much we keep digging, how many women in history will go unknown because they had to hide their identity.
I’m currently in Bio 200 and we’ve been talking a lot about DNA and Watson-Crick base pairing. That topic and this post reminded me of Rosalind Franklin, the English chemist and X-Ray crystallographer, whose work imaging DNA is what allowed Watson and Crick to win a Nobel Prize for their work, while her name is not mentioned.
It is very interesting that no women are mentioned in the science field especially now because the sciences are mainly studied by women.
I really liked the inclusion of your own personal experiences. Growing up and learning about history in such a biased way can leave one being biased or uninformed even if they are not aware!
The point you brought up when you said “I knew that women had fewer opportunities. After that one sentence remark, the class would move on and continue to talk about the prominent white males that made landmark discoveries,” is so interesting to me. I feel this lack of acknowledgment and the misrepresentative picture of history begins in such small ways and can also be prevented early on by realizing this problem and fixing it!