My former best friend one day out of the blue told me he thought that women are on average smarter than men but are not capable of rising to the very top level of human intellect. His “proof” of this was the fact that nearly all major scientific discoveries have been made by men. Needless to say, he thought of himself as being at the highest level of human intellect - despite having made no major scientific discoveries himself (or even minor ones for that matter). This was the beginning of the end of our friendship, and I’m only embarrassed that it wasn’t instantly the end of our friendship.
At least Lise Meitner is not forgotten, I currently work in a building on Lise-Meitner Street!
See also Rosalind Franklin who first discovered DNA’s double helix structure (three men later received the Nobel Prize for this finding).
And more examples here.
Franklin might have won the prize, had she not died 4 years before the prize was awarded. Rules forbid the Nobel being awarded to the deceased.
True. But it’s still three men named in the list of Nobel Prize winners, when a woman first made the actual discoveries. So even if there was no foulplay, it’s important to shine a light on women like Franklin.
Fuck Watson and Crick, all my homies hate Watson and Crick
Considering how this graph… Hmm… Shall we say… Takes a number of creative liberties with actual history surrounding these great women, doesn’t this graph undermine its own message?
Lise Meitner went on to be forgotten? In my city, a big street bears her name, including the tram station there. Fittingly, it’s the tram to the University that stops there. Essentially, her name is hammered into all students’ heads here.
Not to mention she’s been immortalized as Meitnerium
My reaction exactly. I studied there as well. Lise Meitner may be underappreciated but at least someone made sure she’s not forgotten.
Also she herself said that Otto Hahn deserved the Nobel prize. She and Otto Frisch (far kess known than she is!) did the theoretical work regarding the physics behind it.
But Pauli got the physics prize that year, and he sure deserves it. Maybe one of the later prices could have been awarded to her.
Otto Frisch is better known these days because he went on to work on the Manhatten Project. He appeared as a character in Oppenheimer.
Right? In germany there is a lot named after her. e.g. The Institute for Nuclear Research in Berlin is the “Hahn-Meitner-Institut” (after her and Otto Hahn). There are severals Schools and streets named after her all over the country.
Some of the best evidence we discovered for tectonic plates was discovered by a woman. Marie Tharp discovered the Mid-Atlantic ridge and had her work stolen by her colleague.
Don’t forget Mary Anning!
Anning searched for fossils in the area’s Blue Lias and Charmouth Mudstone cliffs, particularly during the winter months when landslides exposed new fossils that had to be collected quickly before they were lost to the sea. Her discoveries included the first correctly identified ichthyosaur skeleton when she was twelve years old; the first two nearly complete plesiosaur skeletons; the first pterosaur skeleton located outside Germany; and fish fossils. Her observations played a key role in the discovery that coprolites, known as bezoar stones at the time, were fossilised faeces, and she also discovered that belemnite fossils contained fossilised ink sacs like those of modern cephalopods.
Anning struggled financially for much of her life. As a woman, she was not eligible to join the Geological Society of London, and she did not always receive full credit for her scientific contributions. However, her friend, geologist Henry De la Beche, who painted Duria Antiquior, the first widely circulated pictorial representation of a scene from prehistoric life derived from fossil reconstructions, based it largely on fossils Anning had found and sold prints of it for her benefit.
I always take posts like this with a big grain of salt. Yes, women were oppressed and in many places still are, but posts like these tend to stretch and exaggerate the truth because they WANT to find oppression of women. They WANT the fight, and they want the fight to still be here and burning brightly today to justify actions many would find questionable at best.
EDIT: Fun fact for you, in the USA in 1970 8% of stem workers were female. Today, its 27%.
Where is my fucking lady Rosalind Franklin at?
TBF the male researchers involved in Franklin’s case are/were straight-up assholes across the board, not just sexist appropriators.
First thing I thought too!!
Missing the mention of Einstein’s first wife?
And of course Headie Lamar gets snubbed with this graphic… The woman who is the reason most of us are online, and able to listen to our podcasts
I believe her contributions are farily well known nowadays. The idea was probably to highlight those that most people never heard of.
Who is downvoting this?
Half this list is nobel prizes going to supervisors when the woman in question was either a student or dead, neither of which qualify for a nobel prize.
It’s good to stand against discrimination, but there is no need to embellish the truth.
If we’re still honest here, didn’t these men just shield them from the burdens of fame and criticism?
So they could focus on their families
I think people missed your sarcasm lol
I’d love to meet whoever made this graphic. Shake his hand. Seems like a good dude.
Lol… what?
My attempt at a joke about casual sexism. I was a little high, and I’m not sure if it landed
I wamted to post Ada Lovelace and Maria Curie, but then I read image.
Marie Skłodowska Curie
For our polish friends
Bobr says yes.
Could also add Marie Curie in there. I didn’t realise until recently that there is a lot of controversy over France “claiming her achievements” since she was born and educated in Poland.
I think you missed the point of the list. See the third line? “Too bad a man was given all the credit.” The France/Poland thing isn’t related.
I thought her husband took a lot of the credit at the time. Might be mistaken about that though.
At first the committee had intended to honour only Pierre Curie and Henri Becquerel, but a committee member and advocate for women scientists, Swedish mathematician Magnus Gösta Mittag-Leffler, alerted Pierre to the situation, and after his complaint, Marie’s name was added to the nomination. Marie Curie was the first woman to be awarded a Nobel Prize.
