In science, men have always dominated. Until the end of the 19th century, women who wanted to pursue science were largely relegated to the home. Usually they worked with their husband, father or brother. In the middle of the 19th century, some organizations with the aim of disseminating scientific discoveries realized that women could be interested in science. They were welcome to sit in the audience but not study. The differences have survived. The Nobel Prize in Physics, Chemistry and Medicine has gone 596 times to men and 23 times to women.
When women wanted to be admitted to higher research, it came to a standstill. Neither the Royal Society in London nor the Academy of Sciences in Paris allowed women to become members until well into the 20th century. Scientists and university teachers could refer to the fact that universities were once founded in the monastic system where women and men were separated. Several universities in the United Kingdom did not accept female students until the end of the 19th century.
The first women to gain access to higher education often had to fight against ingrained prejudices that teachers and male students had against female students. In 1636, Anna Maria van Schurman became the first woman in the Netherlands to start at a university. But it was an exception. Women were actually banned from universities and Anna Maria van Schurman was allowed to sit behind a screen so that the male students would not see her.
Many universities did not award degrees to women even though they had studied at the university and completed their studies.
The woman would take care of the home
The woman’s place was considered to be in the home; she would be wife and mother. Electron’s discoverer JJ Thompson married one of her female students in 1890. The agreement included that she would abandon her research to devote herself to their home instead.
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Even in cases where the wife continued to cooperate with her husband, she was often considered a helper. “She did not get the slightest recognition for it. Just because if a man and a woman work together, no one thinks the woman is really doing anything.”
This is how the researcher Hertha Ayrton (1854-1923) wrote about a friend’s work in astronomy . Hertha Ayrton was the first woman to be nominated for election to the Royal Society. But she was refused membership on the grounds that the society’s statutes did not allow married women to be elected.
Prejudices survived
The great breakthrough for women’s opportunities to study came with the end of the First World War in 1918. But prejudices survived, and even today women are underrepresented in science. In 1906, Hertha Ayrton received the prestigious Hughes Medal for her studies of electricity. Since 1902, the medal has been awarded annually by the Royal Society. By 2020, only one more woman had received the award – space scientist Michele Dougherty. She received the award in 2008 – 102 years after Ayrton.
Women are especially underrepresented when it comes to science subjects. Until the beginning of the end of 2020, only 23 women had received any of the Nobel Prize in Science in Chemistry, Physics and Medicine, which with certain exceptions has been awarded every year since 1901. Several of these women have been married to Nobel laureates. Prices are often shared by several people.
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Four women and 211 men have received the Nobel Prize in Physics. The corresponding figures for the chemistry price are 178 men and seven women and for the medicine price the figures are 207 men and twelve women. In total, it gives an overweight for men with 596 prices against 23 (less than 4%).
Marie Curie Won Nobel Prize
Marie Curie has received the prize twice, in 1903 in physics with her husband Pierre and in 1911 in chemistry as the sole winner. In 1935, the couple Curies’ daughter Irène received the prize in chemistry together with her husband Frédéric.
Lise Meitner
Lise Meitner (1878-1968) received her doctorate in Vienna in 1906 and then began studying radioactivity with Otto Hahn in Germany . During thirty years of work, they both discovered the element protactinium and the decay caused by radioactive radiation.
In the 1930s, Meitner and Hahn began investigating what happened when uranium was bombarded with neutrons. But Meitner did not have time to complete the work. She was of Jewish descent and therefore had to flee Germany in 1938 from the Nazis. She settled in Sweden . Here she received the message that Hahn had discovered that the element barium was formed in the uranium bombarded with neutrons.
For a few days at New Year’s in Kungälv just north of Gothenburg , Meitner and his nephew Otto Frisch were able to find out what had happened.
Atoms had split and new elements had emerged. She suggested that the newly discovered process be named fission. Meitner’s and Hahn’s discovery was a cornerstone of the research that would soon lead to the first atomic bomb .
Lise Meitner never received a Nobel Prize. Hahn received it alone in 1944. Lise Meitner is perhaps the most prominent female researcher who has never received the Nobel Prize. She is the only woman to have an element, no. 109 meitnerium, named after her. The element no. 96, curium, is named after both Pierre and Marie Curie.
Lise Meitner has also had a long line of streets named after her in Germany and Austria and in 2014 a sculpture of her was erected in front of Humboldt University in Berlin . Even a crater on the moon and an asteroid bear her name.
Dorothy Hodgkin First Nobel Prize Winner Lady in Chemistry
Dorothy Hodgkin (1910-1994) received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1964, among other things for her research into vitamin B12. She began studying X-ray photography of molecules in Oxford in 1929. In 1934, she was able to take the first X-ray image of the protein pepsin.
Between 1942 and 1949, Dorothy Hodgkin worked to investigate and map the structure of penicillin. In 1948, she and her colleagues were able to take the first X-ray plate of vitamin B12. Gradually, they were able to describe exactly how the atoms in the vitamin were arranged.
Sofia Kovalevskaya
Sofia Kovalevskaya, also known by the nickname “Sonja”, (1850-1891) could not study at the university in her native Russia . The universities did not allow female students. She got married – primarily to be able to come to Germany and study. But even there she had to take private lessons, because women were not allowed to attend higher education there either. Finally, she managed to take a doctorate in philosophy in Göttingen for a work on differential equations.
In 1884, Sofia Kovalevskaya became professor of mathematics at Stockholm University. She was the first female professor in Stockholm and the world’s second woman with that title.
Sophie Germain First Female Mathematician
When Sophie Germain (1776-1831) grew up, the French Revolution collapsed . The Germain family was wealthy but unknown enough to escape persecution. During the revolutionary years, Sophie had to stay indoors for a long time and then discovered her father’s library. But the fact that a young girl wanted to do research and science aroused the parents’ anxiety and reluctance. Sophie would ruin her health, lose her mind and in any case never get properly married.
Sophie refused to give up, even though she did not get light or heat in her bedroom, because she could not study. Wrapped in a woolen blanket, she read mathematics in the glow of tallow candles she had kindly avoided. Finally, the parents have to give way.
In 1794, the French Institute of Technology opened. But women did not have access. Sophie Germain got some samples and sent in the solutions along with comments. For safety, she used the pseudonym M. le Blanc. The teacher who received her answer realized the talent of the letter writer, and it was not long before he found out that it was a woman who had sent in the excellent answers. Sophie Germain received support and praise from the teacher. Her talent blossomed in earnest.
Sophie Germain exchanged letters with the great mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss and made several important contributions to various mathematical works. Gauss only found out after a long time, due to a mistake, that it was a woman he had corresponded with.
Despite the custom of the time to look down on women who wanted to do research, Gauss understood how to appreciate his pen pal even after he turned out to be a woman. Gauss even tried to give her an honorary doctorate at Göttingen University, where he worked. But even Gauss had a hard time penetrating the wall of misogyny that surrounded the universities.
Sophie Germain died in 1831 – before her honorary doctorate was established. She is the first female mathematician to independently work out important mathematical proofs. Admittedly, several women before her have made great mathematical contributions. But these women have mainly commented on and further developed the work done by men.
In 2003, the French Academy of Sciences has awarded the Sophie Germain Prize to French mathematicians who have made valuable contributions.
Ada Lovelace First Computer Programmer
Ada Lovelace (1816-1852) was the daughter of the famous British author Lord Byron. She collaborated with Charles Babbage, who designed a calculator. But as Babbage worked, he came up with the idea for a completely new machine that could be programmed – simply a mechanical computer.
But Babbage did not have access to today’s electronics, but his computer had to be mechanical. It would work with a variety of gears and with great precision. The engineering of that time was not sufficiently developed to construct Babbage’s machine. It therefore stayed on the drawing board.
Lady Ada Lovelace translated an article about Babbage’s work into French but came up with her own additions which showed that she clearly understood how such a machine should be programmed. The additions were longer than the article itself and many scientists, among them Michael Faraday , explained that they appreciated her work.
Ada Lovelace is seen as the first to understand what strengths were available in computers and how they could be programmed.
The programming language Ada is named after Ada Lovelace to honor her memory.
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Questions to the text:
- How many have received the Nobel Prize in physics, chemistry and medicine by 2020? How many of these Nobel Laureates were women?
- Why are there almost no women among history’s most famous scientists?
- Who was Marie Curie and what is she best known for discovering?
- Why is Lise Meitner perhaps the most prominent female researcher to ever receive the Nobel Prize?
- Give some examples of some of the obstacles that Sophie Germain had to overcome in order to engage in research.
- Why has Ada Lovelace been so important to the development of the computer?
Find out:
- How many of those who most recently received the Nobel Prize in physics, chemistry and medicine were men and women respectively?