Underrecognized Women of Science and Mathematics
There is a lengthy list of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics who have made great contributions to their fields but lacked the recognition they deserved in their time. I’m going to introduce you to some or all of them, and to present to you their achievements in STEM and the significance of those achievements for society.
The Matilda Effect is a collective term that describes female invisibility in the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) fields. It is understood as the work that women have done throughout history that never reached public acclaim during their time or was attributed to their male colleagues. While contemporary recognition is a noble pursuit and may make us feel better about ourselves, it cannot make most those women feel better about themselves as they are mostly all dead by now, and contemporary acclaim in no way compensates for the lack of acclaim of these women in their time.
This phenomenon was first described by suffragist and abolitionist Matilda Joslyn Gage (1826–1898) in her essay, “Woman as Inventor”. The term “Matilda Effect” was coined in 1993 by science historian Margaret W. Rossiter. Visit www.thematildaproject.com for more information.
The rise of interest in STEM education today, especially for young women, is a meritorious pursuit that I fully support. However, I do have my reservations about the motivations of some who are promoting this movement. Some of the TV Talking Heads I have heard discussing this matter point to their concern for more STEM educated workers to continue to develop the goods and services that will maintain our prosperity into the future as their motivation. I find in this declared motivation a faint echo of an ugly past that we have not yet put entirely behind us.
My motivation for STEM education of the young is to introduce them to “The Pleasure of Finding Things Out.” The parentheses above capture the title of a book authored by my scientific hero, Richard P. Feynman. To me he was the greatest scientist born, raised, and educated in America in the twentieth century. His point in this book was that the study of STEM yields deep satisfaction from the understanding of the nature of reality. It is a lifetime’s journey that may not bring riches but will bring a rewarding career and deep satisfaction. I would like the young to develop a passion for science, technology, engineering, or mathematics, and to pursue that passion wherever it takes them in the rest of their lives, whether they enrich others or not.
Women now comprise about 60% of university enrollment in the USA while men comprise 40%. While this statistic may seem to show a great advance for women, they still comprise the minority of university professors (43% women, 57% men). It was not always so. At the end of the 19th century, women were almost universally denied higher education and were certainly not welcomed to membership of a university faculty. While some of the women I will talk about overcame these barriers, the story of female disenfranchisement in the 19th and early 20th century is a common one.
Another factor that will reveal itself as I present the stories of female achievements that lacked recognition at their time, is one of religion. Many of the underrecognized women I will introduce to you were Jewish or from a Jewish background. This at a time in our history when Jewish persecution was more abundant and more extreme than it is today. While antisemitism is not yet dead, as illustrated by recent events both here and abroad, I don’t detect that it is in play today to deny recognition of the achievements of women in STEM. As a society we might not yet be even handed between the sexes as we hand out plaudits for achievements in STEM, I believe we are hundreds of times better than we once were, and certainly thousands of times better than some of the ladies I will talk about experienced.
To begin I wish to list the women I have chosen to introduce you to. In future blogs I will present a summary of the history and achievements of these women in turn with links to where you can find out more about them.
- Hedy Lamarr – covert radio communications, the foundation of WiFi and Bluetooth
- Rosalind Franklin – the structure of DNA
- Emmy Noether – abstract algebra and Noether’s Theorem
- Marie-Sophie Germain – number theory, Sophie Germain Theorem
- Elizabeth Smith Friedman – cryptology
- Edith Clarke – electrical engineering, graphical calculator
- Ada Lovelace – first computer coder
- Dorothy Jean Johnson Vaughan – human computer and computer programmer
- Katherine Johnson — human computer, mathematician and orbital mechanics
- Mary Jackson – aerospace engineer
- Erna Schneider Hoover – mathematician, communications technology
- Henrietta Swan Leavitt – astronomer and Leavitt’s Law
- Cecilia Payne – astrophysics, discoverer of the composition of stars
- Jocelyn Bell Burnell – astrophysics, discoverer of pulsars
- Vera Cooper Rubin – galactic dark matter discoverer
- Andrea Ghez – astronomer, discoverer of the Milky Way black hole
- Leise Meitner – discoverer of nuclear fission
- Marietta Blau – nuclear physics, nuclear photography
- Chien-Shiung Wu – conservation of parity
- Maria Goeppert Mayer – nuclear physicist, nuclear shell model
- Mary Anderson – the windshield wiper
- Mary Anning – paleontologist, discoverer of many fossils
- Alice Ball – early treatment of leprosy
- Marthe Gautier – discoverer of the cause of downs syndrome
- Nettie Maria Stevens – geneticist and discoverer of the origin of sexual selection
- Lizzie Magie – game designer, inventor of Monopoly
