Well, today is #WomenInScienceDay!

[Lordfrontpaw]

Let's hope this generation of children aren't listening to the gender stereotypes that 'Barbie don't do science'.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres:

'To rise to the challenges of the 21st century, we need to harness our full potential. That requires dismantling gender stereotypes. On this International Day of Women and Girls in Science, let’s pledge to end the gender imbalance in science.'

Well said!

https://www.un.org/en/observances/women-and-girls-in-science-day

I should get back to my computer... every day is a woman in science day in my house.

"It is shameful that there are so few women in science...There is a misconception in America that women scientists are all dowdy spinsters. This is the fault of men."
— Chien-Shiung Wu, experimental physicist

I teach History, and one of the units I teach is Health and Medicine. I love teaching the students about the achievements of Marie Curie and her Nobel Prizes for Science. The girls I teach find her an inspiration. Sadly there aren't too many women on this syllabus.

Yup, 'girl power' really pinged back and smacked females back to the middle ages...

I remember being told in the early 80s that my chosen field wasn't a good idea for a woman because 'it moves so rapidly that you can't take time out then resume a career in the field'. The insinuation being that I was only a few years away from taking time off to have children. Three years ago, I was being pushed to apply for a management position because, although I was slightly less qualified than the leading male applicant, they were very eager to shift the gender balance at that level (I declined because I personally dislike 'positive' discrimination but, hopefully, things will swing back to a happy medium in the near future).

I'm depressed by the Royal Insititution Christmas Lectures. Five of the last seven lecturers have been women, but what used to be five hours of exposotion of theory and evidence has become a party-poppers and fireworks laden kids birthday party that explores nothing, criticises nothing and proclaims that everything is Amazing.

what used to be five hours of exposotion of theory and evidence has become a party-poppers and fireworks laden kids birthday party that explores nothing, criticises nothing and proclaims that everything is Amazing.

It's a lot easier to collate view counts than it is the number of budding scientists who have been inspired.

Not just scientists. I remember Eric Laithwaite showing linear induction which blew my little mind. Carl Sagan showed me Google Maps in 1977. The last good one was, ironically, the first woman, Susan Greenfield.

Eric Laithwaite showing linear induction which blew my little mind

Unfortunately, I missed out on that due to a lesser interest in physics but I did recently see one of his videos on Youtube and the ease with which he presents an accessible introduction to the topic should be an example for all educators.

I'm depressed by the Royal Insititution Christmas Lectures. Five of the last seven lecturers have been women, but what used to be five hours of exposotion of theory and evidence has become a party-poppers and fireworks laden kids birthday party that explores nothing, criticises nothing and proclaims that everything is Amazing.

Pretty much in line with the general decline in science broadcasting as a whole. Anyone who can recall a "Horizon" from the 1970s (where I learned about quarks aged 8) might agree ? The last one I was unlucky enough to catch spent a whole five fucking minutes with some human interest story about how two researchers met and got married. The actual subject ? Searching for extra terrestrial intelligence .

Back on topic: OK, Radium, but what else?

A great story of a woman in science is that of Celia Payne. With no prospects of anything but a career in teaching in England, she left for Harvard to study astronomy, where she was put in with the female 'computers' who wrote up the observational data and invented the classification system for stars in the process.

Payne's thesis was the first to suggest the abundance of hydrogen and helium in the universe, but was initially rejected by her supervisor. Rather than scream and stamp her assertive feet, she did the feminine thing and blamed herself, repudiating her own findings in her conclusion.

When her supervisor found similar results, he credited her in his paper but was widely credited as the discoverer.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cecilia_Payne-Gaposchkin#Doctoral_thesis

A recent BBC item quoted a recent poll that showed that half of people couldn't name a single female scientist, dead or alive...
Not even Marie Curie!

Yes to Christmas Lectures, Mockers.
I sat down to watch them this year with my son - he was completely unimpressed with "the hidden power of maths". He was wanting something a bit challenging - not party poppers.
(If I had a daughter she'd be watching too).

I wonder how many results / papers over the years have missed off the contribution of women scientists and given the credit to a man? Probably more than we'll ever know.

The new exhibition at the Science Gallery is on gender. london.sciencegallery.com/seasons/genders

Looking at the programme of events and the exhibitors is like anxiously watching a horror film through your fingers. I guess I'm going to have to go to find out how gender critical it is. My guess would be that it won't be critical at all. Does anyone know anything about it?

Not off topic I hope: it is called the Science Gallery!

You can watch some of the old RICLs on the website. Not wanting to go down the road of 'Kids Today Dont Know Nuffing!' but we had an attention span, mainly because with just three tv channels there was quite literally nothing else. They'd all be reaching for their phones after nnety seconds now.

I wonder how many results / papers over the years have missed off the contribution of women scientists and given the credit to a man? Probably more than we'll ever know

To my shame I had no idea Hedy Lamarr was more than an actress until it was mentioned in a recent (and typically overlong) BBC4 documentary. That also bigged up the role Mrs Benz played in automotive history en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Benz#Bertha_Benz's_long-distance_drive

One of the things that sort of annoys me about Women in science days (and things like Black history month, books on 50 amazing women who changed the world, etc.) is that we have quite a lot of these individual stand out things but the real problem is integrating into the mainstream. We need more pressure to push female scientists to be talked about alongside male ones in the everyday and effort to point out how damaging it is for science that those from non-traditional backgrounds can be overlooked for everyone, not just on a somewhat ghettoized "day".

Not that I want the days to go anywhere at this stage, they seem like a vital step to me. It does seem, though, that we lack focus on pushing the content that is focused on during them into being normal.

Have to agree with the dumbing down of science broadcasting in general. It's depressing.

Flora - rather you than me. That doesn't look like an exhibition I'd be able to get round without loud swearing.

Mockers - thanks - I'll have a look.

I'm a physicist in an area where there is almost 50:50 in the junior levels at least - but at university overall physics was around 1 female to 20 male students. I love physics and what it does for real people, but I am saddened by the number of people who proudly tell me they could never do physics, or that their kids find it boring and pointless...

On the Christmas lectures, tbh I think that we aren't the people they are aimed at - I hope the format is to try and get children to just see a clip and be inspired to look further. My ds enjoys the variety of them, just as listening to popular science books sometimes makes me squirm, but its worth it as a jumping off point to learn more. I know my whole career went from one New Scientist article as its what made my interests just pop.

I also studied physics (25 years ago) and there were four females out of I guess 40 students.
But on the chemistry course we often followed into or out of lecture theatres, it was more than 50% female. And this was 25 years ago.
I also know lots of female academics and industrial scientists at all levels.
I know the statistics show my field is male dominated, but my personal professional life has been different.

OK, Radium, but what else?

Dorothy Hodgkin and Rosalind Franklin's contribution to discovering the structure of DNA. Further expanding the pantheon of women in science: Margaret Thatcher was an understudy of the former.

Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna: CRISPR-Cas9

Dorothy Hodgkin and Rosalind Franklin's contribution to discovering the structure of DNA.

To clarify, the former solved the structure of penicillin, vitamin B12 (for which she won the Nobel Prize - still Britain's only female science Nobel I think) and many other contributions to the field of protein crystallography in particular insulin. She lead many others and was an inspiration to many, myself included. She was still working with others on insulin structures towards the end of her life.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Hodgkin

Young Margaret Roberts invented Angel Delight.

(Sort of)