“In the late 1960s, Dr. Rossiter was working on her Ph.D. at Yale, when a comment from one of her male professors puzzled her. Who, she had asked, were the women in science? There were none, he said. Another professor mumbled something about Marie Curie being the exception.”🙃
The naked display of idiocy, the unforgivable lack of intellect and knowledge of that attitude (that is not uncommon and far from extinct) continues to blow my mind.
I remember speaking to Prof. Rossiter at a conference around the time she retired. She was gracious and keenly interested in the work younger scholars were doing, in a genuinely curious way that you often don’t see from senior scholars of some reknown. She will definitely be missed.
She got into Radcliffe during an era when that was far harder than (men) getting into Harvard. She got into Yale for a PhD at a time when women were rarely taken seriously as thinkers. Even w/these credentials she struggled to get a permanent job until AFTER she won a MacArthur genius grant in 1989🫠
My mother was at Radcliffe at same time in the HRPBA, a program that was for women who were not allowed to attend HBS. The powerhouse that Radcliffe was in the 50s was something she made sure we all knew.
There are more women academics—then and now—who go through this than I realized at the start of my career. Most don’t talk about it openly because they’re ashamed they weren’t able to beat the system, even though it was rigged against them.
Some of the brightest lights I’ve known have been forced to eat shit repeatedly in their careers. And they were the “lucky” ones—in that they were able to stay in the game. Many more just got completely pushed out and we never know about them except as faceless statistics.
Interesting. I started a PhD in 1980. 'People' said it was really difficult getting 1st academic post. (Really? Compared to now?) I wasn't offered teaching opportunities. Couldn't see myself as lecturer. Couldn't see many women academics. Abandoned that PhD. 'People?' All men. [Got PhD 2009.]
Real talk: I came very close to not going up for tenure — not submitting my materials, walking away from academia entirely — because I was so attuned to the threat of being pushed out. (#MeToo, so there was a price on my head). My chair talked me down, and I’m glad she did, but the struggle is real.
And, I was not only ultimately tenured, but recruited away with tenure. Which makes me not just a woman academic, but a woman academic survivor with academic freedom, a cushy office with a view, and — on rare and special occasions — a vendetta that doubles as a research direction. Priceless.
I'm sure you lift others up too.
She’s a little younger than my Mom, who graduated from Radcliffe a few years earlier. The barriers against women having academic careers were massive in a way that people today would have trouble grasping.
I love science. Was my life's goal to get a PhD and do research. I had no choice but to eventually leave due to harassment. I've been called a failure and a quitter countless times. I'm sorry to the young women studying today that it isn't better.
her books, on your bookshelf, were the first i browsed (and ones i kept returning to) the year you let me use your office 💕
It’s like the ‘what have the Romans done for us?’ gag in Life of Brian. Ok, aside from Curie. And Maude Menten of course. And Ada Lovelace, I mean we all know about Ada Lovelace. And we wouldn’t have a star classification scheme. And I mean we all know Rachel Carson. But aside from that…
Both professors forget that Irene Curie also won a Nobel, in chemistry. Maria Mayer won in physics in the 60s. Gerti Cori in medicine. Also Dorothy Hodgkin in 1964. Hedy Lammar should have won the physics Nobel. Noether in maths. Hypatia. Lovelace.
Lise Meitner, who should have shared the 1944 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for nuclear fission. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lise_Me...
Oh yeah, I watched a video a month ago about how she was robbed of the prize, Swedes were even somehow worse than the French and Americans with misygony.
I knew nothing about her until the late ‘90s, when a local writer wrote a play about her life. She should be up there as one of the notable scientists of the 20th century.
womenshistorynetwork.org/about-page/
There are popular science books published in this decade, about current work, that mention zero women other than long-suffering wives who acted as field assistants 🙃
I’m currently reading a book published in 2019, in which the male author acknowledges his wife for “sterling editorial work and writing chapter 5.” His is the only name on the cover.
That like is a dislike
OMG! This reminds me of a book I bought about the history of computing, and not one woman was listed. _Not one_ I did the only thing I could do: I left bad reviews everywhere. Wtf is wrong with people?
Holy shit. Do I dare ask what book?
I can't find my review on Amazon right now, but I'll let you know if I remember the name. I'm pretty sure I recycled the book in disgust.
Let their error fuel the ghost of Admiral Hopper. www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2012-0...
Wow. Not even Ada Lovelace?
Oh, the Curies were definitely an exception -- because Pierre wouldn't let people put just his name on the Nobel Prize. And they tried, oh they tried. And in so many other cases, they got away with it.
Just more Ivy League bullshit.
