Biographies of Women in Science
Hi friends of women in science,
I took a good look at the top 100 books in science on May 2, when Spiral Ceiling was at 5th on that bestseller list for Amazon. And what I saw surprised me, even though I know we've talked before about the low number of biographies/memoirs of women in science. Out of the top 100 books in the Amazon category "Biographies/memoirs, Professionals and Academics, Scientists", the subjects consisted of 52 men (many with multiple books on them) and 5 women. The men included Einstein, Feynman, Tesla, Euler, Ben Franklin, some astronauts, scattered others. I was one of the women, of course, and Marie Curie, and Jane Goodall. One was a woman who had a stroke and wrote a book about surviving it. And then there was Galileo's Daughter by Dava Sobel.
Well, how many of those are about today's women of American science who perhaps had a family or at least a partner? Marie Curie was married and had daughters, of course, but she's been long gone and was Polish/French rather than American. Jane Goodall is British and has been married twice and had one child. But her book is not about her relationships with people, but with primates of another sort altogether. So my book is the "choice" available for an American woman trying to decide if it's possible to be a scientist and have a family.
I suppose that's good for me, to be the representative of a role model type that is really needed. But I deplore it. I wish there were twenty such memoirs and biographies for my hypothetical woman reader to choose between. She could pick someone with the same scientific interests as she has, or someone who went to a school she's considering, or someone who grew up in the same part of the country she did. She could choose, not just be stuck with one choice. But I'm glad that one choice is available to her. I worked hard to make it available and now, I'm at work on a dual biography of two other women who married and had kids, but who were, unlike me, professors at top R1 universities, members of the National Academy of Sciences, and highly celebrated scientists. If possible, I want to start to fill in this appalling gap in the availability of lives of women scientists.
Donna and Christi,
Thanks! I do think we need more women's biographies in science and I hope publishers will see this as a market they need to jump into. In this case, more is certainly better. A girl astronomer needs to read a different bio than a girl chemist, I think.
And Susan, you're right and I am working on one more bio of women in science. I hope others are writing too.
cheers,
Laura
Dear Marian for Math,
I completely agree. And it doesn't take much time and can be a lot of fun to visit schools and help the teachers liven up science. So many teacher were afraid of science and math when they were trained, and they can be very pleased to find out it can be fun.
cheers,
Laura
Wouldn't it be a wonderful world if youngsters in grade school had both female and male role models in all fields? There are so few professional women who are role models, outside the fields of nursing and teaching.
I challenge women in science to try to become more obvious in their communities, become known to all as a scientist. We are all busy raising families and trying to get ahead in our jobs, but try to take some time out to be a public figure.
Yes, I just heard about A Lab of My Own myself in a Goucher group on LinkedIn. Dr. Neena Schwartz went to Goucher back in the day, just as I did, but she graduated in the 40's. As we've discussed, women's colleges have produced proportionately more women in science than co-ed schools and still do. Dr. Schwartz is retired now but during her long career, she was an R1 university professor and a very famous physiologist. You can order her book on Amazon if you're interested in learning more.
best,
Laura
Hi Laura,
Have you heard about the memoir called A Lab of My Own by Neena Schwartz? She not only had the issues of women in science to deal with but also she came out as a lesbian and had to deal with homophobia too. I believe it came out a year ago.
Wow, Laura. Thanks for sharing those numbers. It looks like your book is much-needed.
I agree, Laura. Thanks for the rant! Very thought provoking, indeed... I think that we all (as scientists, teachers, mothers, sisters, aunties, etc.) need to keep in mind the importance of interesting, engaging biographies of women in science for inspiring our younger generation. And, for those of us in the older generation, too! Besides being fun reading, they help broaden our own perspective on science careers for women so we can discuss the topic fluently whenever, where ever it arises.
As an aside: I participated in Science Fair judging today, and am delighted to see how many young women are excited about and involved in science.
Why get angry about it all, Laura? What I like about your blog is that you usually don't rant. Cool down, pick up your pen, and start writing! Or I suppose you do it on the computer nowadays. Maybe there just haven't been people interested in writing these biographies. But we can all help by buying them so they won't fall off the edge of the earth. Why should Tesla and Euler be in the top 100 and not Blackburn, McClintock, and Hoopes? Well of course Hoopes IS right now!
I think you mean Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin for the x- ray crystallographer. The Nobel Laureate women do sometimes have bios but they aren't best selling, don't know why. There's a bio of Rosalyn Yalow, one of Rita Levi Montalcini, one of Elizabeth Blackburn, several of Rosalyn Franklin, one on Barbara McClintock. I haven't found a biography on Nobel laureates Gerty Cori, Gertrude Elion or Carol Grieder of book length. There are a few other omissions too. If even the Nobel Laureates are missing, there must be a pretty scanty coverage of women of science in the form of biographies.
cheers,
Laura
Wow - so it's definitely worth trying to write one's autobiography; I figured women in science were common enough now. I guess most of the women scientists' bios aren't in the top 100 scientific bios, tho, which will continue to be a problem, because women will read men's bios more than men will read women's bios.
Women bios include Barbara McClintock and Rosalyn Franklin and some other Brit crystallographer whose name I forget. That's still an awfully puny list.
'biography woman scientist' brings up some interesting books on amazon.
You go girl, rant on! You don't rant much at all, so it's fun to see you go ballistic, and you're still a little reserved compared to me ranting. Or say, Isis. But I love it! Passion! Write those biographies of women and I'll line up to buy them and recommend to my friends and neighbors!
To be fair, in the long run, yes 52. But to take recognition of the lag where we're trying to fill in missing women in the physical sciences, I would go with 10-20 for now. We can go gradually as long as we don't stall out and stop progressing towards full equality.
