“I would like to humanize the space age by giving a perspective from a non-astronaut, because I think the students will look at that and say, ‘This is an ordinary person. This ordinary person is contributing to history.’”
—Christa McAuliffe (September 2, 1948–January 28, 1986)
By Jawad Iqbal
A quick web search for the world’s most famous scientists lists, among others, Galileo, Einstein, Newton, Darwin, Stephen Hawking and Alexander Fleming.
One of the few women to receive a mention is Marie Curie, a physicist and chemist who basically discovered radiation and helped apply it in the field of X-rays.
She won two Nobel Prizes, in physics and chemistry. Yet even so, she was turned down for membership of the prestigious French Academie des Sciences in 1911, the very year she went on to win her second Nobel Prize.
The Nobel laureate Sir Tim Hunt was heavily criticised for his disparaging remarks about women in science last week, which for some raised the issue of where women stood in the scientific community.
The larger truth is that women have made big and important discoveries in science - think of Dorothy Hodgkin, the brilliant crystallographer who mapped the structure of penicillin and went on to be awarded a Nobel Prize in 1964.
Hodgkin was the first woman to win the prestigious Copley Medal, and she remains the only British woman to have won a Nobel in the sciences. Yet at the time, the newspapers carried headlines such as “Oxford housewife wins Nobel”.
But many female scientists in the past were not given the credit they deserved for their achievements. As a result, their names have all but disappeared from public consciousness.
Here are just a few.
Five storied female NASA pioneers will soon grace toy-store shelves, in Lego form.
The Danish company announced on Tuesday that it would produce the Women of NASA set, submitted by science writer Maia Weinstock.
“Women have played critical roles throughout the history of the U.S. space program,” Weinstock wrote in her project proposal. “Yet in many cases, their contributions are unknown or under-appreciated – especially as women have historically struggled to gain acceptance in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.”
She said the set is meant to shed light on the rich history of women in STEM professions.
Photos: Maia Weinstock
Female scientists have contributed to some of science’s biggest breakthroughs, from unraveling the structure of DNA, to discovering fission, to mapping the ocean floor. So why don’t we know their names? In this archival episode of Science Friday, we’re celebrating science’s unsung heroines. We’ll hear about Maria Sibylla Merian, the 17th century “mother of entomology,” whose watercolors documented insect metamorphosis. We’ll also learn about Marie Tharp, whose maps of the ocean floor paved the way for continental drift theory. Plus, meet the women programmers of the ENIAC, the first all-electronic, multipurpose computer. Learn about more unsung women of science here.
As we celebrate Women’s History Month in March, we salute Frances Perkins. She was one of our nation’s strongest voices in support of America’s workers and programs like Social Security designed to provide economic security for American families.
Read more about Frances Perkins here or click the graphic above.
Congresswoman Marion Martin was the first woman to head the Department of Labor & Industry. She was elected to the House of Representatives (ME) in 1930 and went on to the Senate in 1934. Martin worked towards improving minimum wage, industrial safety, and child labor laws. She was born on this day in 1900. #HappyBirthday
Did you know?
More Social Security history here.
Today is the first day of African American History Month. We wanted to share these three facts on why Social Security is vital to African Americans.
