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Original poster

School houses - scientists

38 replies

Gamache · 17/05/2015 00:42

My two oldest are at primary school, boys 6 and 9, dd starts in September.

Chatting with dc last night about the famous scientists who make up their school houses - Darwin, Faraday, Newton, Einstein.

It suddenly hit me, they are all men! Why are they all flippin men?

We just this term got a new head, I'm thinking I'll email him and suggest they change at least one or two houses to be female scientists.

Any suggestions for what to say? Any references to articles on the importance of female role models, especially in STEM?
Any examples of scientists?

Are all schools like this?

OP posts:
Nolim · 17/05/2015 08:20

Second noether and lovelace

MaraThonbar · 17/05/2015 08:14

Ada Lovelace - arguably the first computer programmer.

stoopstoconker · 17/05/2015 08:09

Elizabeth Garrett Anderson & Elizabeth Blackwell

Bolshybookworm · 17/05/2015 08:04

Barbara McClintock- www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/barbara-mcclintock-and-the-discovery-of-jumping-34083

Anne Mclaren
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_McLaren

Will say these examples are rare though because at least in the biosciences, women are treated fairly abysmally. I worked as a research scientist for over a decade and saw plenty of sexual harassment (particularly of female phd students), bullying, and women being made redundant/sidelined if they got pregnant or had children. My cohort of fellow students were the high achievers at uni- all got 1sts, prizes etc, all did well at phd level. Yet we're all dropping out of research now we've had kids, it's extremely depressing. Such a waste of talent.

Encourage girls into STEM subjects (a STEM degree is valuable in the job market), but don't, for the love of god, encourage them to go into research.

18yearstooold · 17/05/2015 08:02

Dd's school have burnell and franklin as 2 of their houses

Obviously more progressive than I realised!

BuffyNeverBreaks · 17/05/2015 07:35

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

messyisthenewtidy · 17/05/2015 07:14

Lise Meitner and Emmy Noether

This kind of thing really annoys me too. If they're going to focus only on male scientists they should at least teach why there were no female ones instead of leaving girls thinking it's simply that they're not up to it.

OneDayWhenIGrowUp · 17/05/2015 02:23

Ada Lovelace is a good one as well

Original poster
Gamache · 17/05/2015 01:57

This kind of thing just makes me so annoyed. Trying to bring children up to see men and women as equally capable of anything while all they're fed at school tends to be unthinkingly male focused.
Thanks for the scientist suggestions.

OP posts:
NotAnotherPackedLunchBox · 17/05/2015 01:34

Dorothy Hodgkin - Nobel prize in Chemistry for x-ray crystallography that lead to the discovery of the structure of molecules such as insulin and vitamin B12

She's probably my favourite as I met her at my first big conference a very long time ago and was completely star struck Blush

NotAnotherPackedLunchBox · 17/05/2015 01:21

Jocelyn Bell Burnell - astrophysicist who discovered radio pulsars. Her supervisor and another collegue (both male) later got a Nobel Prize for this work...

ShadowFire · 17/05/2015 01:14

I think that mentioning the importance of female role models in encouraging girls to study STEM subjects is definitely worthwhile.

STEM subjects and careers still tend to be male dominated (with some exceptions, notably medicine). Sciencey toys tend to be put in the boys section in toy shops which split up toys along gender lines. So including some female scientists would be a useful reminder that science isn't just for boys.

ShadowFire · 17/05/2015 01:04

The only famous female scientists that spring to mind are Marie Curie and Rosalind Franklin.