Nobel Prize for Chemistry won by two women!

[ErrolTheDragon]

Some good news - two women being recognised for their great work.

www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/2020/press-release/

It's tremendous and they're awesome. Their work is so impressive.

I heard a snippet of one of them speaking on the radio, about it being less cumbersome to be a man in science. Trying to find her quote now..

It’s definitely far less cumbersome to be a man in science. In fact anywhere for that matter.

I started a thread on this earlier! Should have been clearer with my title:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4044636-Something-to-celebrate

Brilliant.

And a woman was one of the three prize winners for the physics prize announced earlier in the week.

Ah, sorry, I missed that. This can serve as a redirect to yours.

I did think it was funny on the BBC app headline, where they'd obviously tried to avoid saying 'two women won the nobel prize for chemistry', and instead changed it to 'two scientists won the nobel prize!' as if that were something unusual.

I like the idea of the Finkbeiner test to check whether writing about a scientist is more about her work or the fact that she's a woman.

www.nature.com/scitable/forums/women-in-science/writing-about-women-in-science-i-finkbeiner-102113387/

Granted, there may well be a news article in the fact that it's women who've won, and they might have some interesting thoughts about that,, but that should be as well as an article about what they've won for and their actual work.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-54432589

Heh you're right very funny

In the article it says 'Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna are the first two women to share the prize, which honours their work on the technology of genome editing.'

I think they're banking on shouty TRAs not having a strong interest in science

But omg yes amazing brilliant news indeed and to the physics woman as well!

I mean and not reading past the headline sorry that wasn't obvious!

I did think it was funny on the BBC app headline, where they'd obviously tried to avoid saying 'two women won the nobel prize for chemistry', and instead changed it to 'two scientists won the nobel prize!' as if that were something unusual.

I swear it said "women" earlier! Bastarding BBC.

Though as you say, somewhat ridiculous. "Scientists win prize for science..." - who did they expect to win it, a team of Morris dancers?

I like the idea of the Finkbeiner test to check whether writing about a scientist is more about her work or the fact that she's a woman.
www.nature.com/scitable/forums/women-in-science/writing-about-women-in-science-i-finkbeiner-102113387/

Incidentally, Andrea Ghez, the physicist named in your article (from 2013) just won the Nobel prize for physics this week . Serendipitous or what?

yes either they need to say 'women' and make the article about that, why it's unusual for women to win given the prejudices they might face,

or two chemists won the prize for discovering.... and make the article about what they've discovered, rather than about the fact that they're women.

I heard 'two women' had won on Sky headlines on Alexa, but they weren't named. If I had the time I would look back at previous headlines and compare if men had their names mentioned. Now if only Gender Studies degrees did this kind of research these days.

@CaraDuneRedux

I like the idea of the Finkbeiner test to check whether writing about a scientist is more about her work or the fact that she's a woman. *www.nature.com/scitable/forums/women-in-science/writing-about-women-in-science-i-finkbeiner-102113387/*

Incidentally, Andrea Ghez, the physicist named in your article (from 2013) just won the Nobel prize for physics this week . Serendipitous or what?

yes that's rather perfect, isn't it! Wonder what the articles about her will be like :)

Well, at least we've got beyond the 1964 headline 'Oxford mother wins Nobel'.

As a woman in STEM, I'd say being a woman in science is always both about the science, and about the sexual politics of being a woman in science - you can't pretend it isn't.

Interestingly, these women are all the same age as me, give or take a year or so. So they, like me, will have grown up in an environment where there were huge barriers to them becoming scientists because they were women. In my opinion, we absolutely should celebrate the fact that this is the first all-women award of a Nobel prize.

Talk about their science, and talk about their achievement. Because in the words of the famous quote "they were doing it backwards, in heels." We need to acknowledge this. Otherwise we're doing the sexism equivalent of those well meaning but tone deaf white people saying "of course, I don't even see colour."

Yes, absolutely, interesting articles about the fact that being women throws up all sorts of barriers to this sort of achievement.

But it would be nice to see some articles as well that are just about the fact that they've won for doing this particular bit of science, full stop.

I think both think are interesting to discuss. But every article doesn't need to be about the barriers. Some can be about just the science.

And trying to avoid it by absurd headlines like 'scientists win science prize' just come across as funny to me.

Re. Ghez, the coverage in the UK press has focused almost entirely on Penrose (name-checking both Ghez and Genzel, but other than that not saying much about them). This is mainly because Penrose is a Brit, rather than sexism, I think.

Penrose and Hawking made the theoretical breakthroughs predicting the existence of black holes and the circumstances in which you'd expect to see them (Hawking would undoubtedly have shared this had he not died: they don't award Nobels posthumously), Ghez and Genzler did some superb observational work to confirm that there was indeed a massive black hole at the centre of our galaxy.

I'm copying across both the articles from the BBC website because (ridiculous "scientists win science prize" headline aside) they're both actually pretty good on a lay-person's account of the science:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-54432589
www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-54420240

(think = things)

There's a wrinkle to this award.

The two women made the initial discovery, filed for patents, and went about their work. A (male) scientist at the Broad Institute (I think associated with MIT) working in the same field either made a similar discovery later or benefited from their work (I don't think he came up with it independently, but don't know) and filed for an expedited patent.

The good old US Patent Office went an awarded his patent first.

Ever since, this guy, whose name I forget, has been trying to push the narrative that it's actually his discovery.

So not only has the Nobel Prize gone to the right workers, it's a big STFU to the guy.

@quixote9

There's a wrinkle to this award.

The two women made the initial discovery, filed for patents, and went about their work. A (male) scientist at the Broad Institute (I think associated with MIT) working in the same field either made a similar discovery later or benefited from their work (I don't think he came up with it independently, but don't know) and filed for an expedited patent.

The good old US Patent Office went an awarded his patent first.

Ever since, this guy, whose name I forget, has been trying to push the narrative that it's actually his discovery.

So not only has the Nobel Prize gone to the right workers, it's a big STFU to the guy.

Can you please try and find a link for this. A quick google isn’t helpful. Thanks

@CaraDuneRedux

I did think it was funny on the BBC app headline, where they'd obviously tried to avoid saying 'two women won the nobel prize for chemistry', and instead changed it to 'two scientists won the nobel prize!' as if that were something unusual.

I swear it said "women" earlier! Bastarding BBC.

Though as you say, somewhat ridiculous. "Scientists win prize for science..." - who did they expect to win it, a team of Morris dancers?

Although it is theoretically possible to be a Morris dancer and a top scientist. I hope if members of a Morris dancing troupe do win it would be announced that way !

Although it is theoretically possible to be a Morris dancer and a top scientist. I hope if members of a Morris dancing troupe do win it would be announced that way !

Oh, I would so love that to happen. (And as per my earlier post, they could win it "backwards and in clogs" Though not sure if the footwear for Morris dancing is tecnhically clogs.) And as a scientist myself, I can attest to the strange and varied range of hobbies me and my colleagues have!

this made my day

@Totickleamockingbird

"Can you please try and find a link for this. A quick google isn’t helpful. Thanks"

I think there's some background here:

www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/10/crispr-revolutionary-genetic-scissors-honored-chemistry-nobel

I was a bit quick with that - there's even more here:

www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/02/how-battle-lines-over-crispr-were-drawn