An Eye for Pattern

[noddingoff]

Anybody listen to this series on Radio 4 about Dorothy Hodgkin? I thought it was excellent. You can find it on i player. It wasn't from a feminist angle, really (or else it really was, in that it straightforwardly told the story of a very interesting genius who happened to be female).

I met her once - back in the early 80's. Just saying...

Oh! I was thinking listening to the series that I'd love to have met her! What did you talk about?

Yes! I enjoyed this more than anything I've heard for ages. The writer and narrator Georgina Ferry clearly had such respect and affection for her subject, and Hodgkin came across as interesting, inspiring and deeply human.

From my listening, feminist issues or concerns ran like a thread through it I suppose because it was about a woman's life - from the support and encouragement of both her parents, to her own advocacy for maternity pay when that didn't exist, and the likelihood that she missed promotions and opportunities because of her sex.

What did depress me was the frequent thought of how many other brilliant women's skills and talents were/are lost to the world or lacked recognition (eg. Rosalind Franklin) for all the usual reasons.

Georgina Ferry wrote her biography which is really good, well worth a read. It's 50 years since Dorothy Hodgkin won the nobel prize and there really hasn't been enough to celebrate that IMHO. She was such a great role model.

Noddingoff

My apologies, I've only just seen you had asked me a question. It was only the briefest of hellos and she was gone. She was quite frail as I recall - and her rheumatoid arthritis meant she was unable to shake hands. But I remember meeting her to this day.

X-ray Crystallography was always a mystery to me - but to be able to use the technique on complex molecules like proteins - too much for me.