Role Women played in the Scientific Revolution of the 18th Century and Science Today - Essay Example

Role women played in the scientific revolution of the 18th century and science today Science has often been described as a purely objective inquiry into the truths of anything and everything, “untainted by the class, political and religious conviction, race, or gender of its practitioners” (Bowler and Morus, 2005, p.487). But feminist (along with class and race) discourses have contested this position pointing to the way science has evolved to become highly “masculine” focusing more on exploitation and destruction rather than constructive coexistance and peace (Bowler and Morus, 2005, p.487). Especially how science has developed a way of looking at nature and weaker sections of human society has come under critical scanner (Bowler and Morus, 2005, p.487). In this context, it is argued that women’s alternative way of looking at the world, was from the very beginning of the evolution of science, marginalized and banished from the position of being a rational mode of scientific enquiry. It is now an accepted argument and the sacred nature of objectivity itself has been questioned in the process. Rosser (2008) has thrown light upon the gender-biased beliefs and attitudes held equally in the past and the present regarding women and their role in science and said, “one of the most persistent beliefs is that only men can be scientists” (p.9). This belief, though weakened by the scientific achievements of women through history, still survives to a great extent. This is why any examination of the role played by women in the development of science historically as well as today has to be cautious of the intentional and unintentional omissions that exist in written and documented history of this topic. Scholars have noted that the contributions of many women to science went unrecorded and many contributions by them were discarded by categorizing them as non-science (Schiebinger, 1991, p.2). Yet women have made such valuable contributions to science that even a strongly patriarchal society like ours has not been able to suppress their presence and visibility in the field. Francois Poullain (1673) challenging a bestial majority that held women were intellectually inferior to men, had observed, “the mind has no sex” and the argument around this statement continues in new forms even today (as cited in Schiebinger, 1991, p.1). The major hurdle that existed in the 18th century as well as today, has been that women have much less access to education as compared to men (Rosser, 2008, p.9). One of the earliest available information in this area has revealed that as Christian Church handled and patronized science more than any other individual or institution in the recent two centuries, and hence the nuns were in a more privileged position than other women, some of them being able to learn and practice medicine (Rosser, 2008, p.9). This might have been one of the first recorded instances in history when women are seen to have an opportunity to deal with science. One individual example for such privileged women was Abbess Hildegaard and she worked in the fields of “cosmology, botany, medicine and natural history” (Rosser, 2008, p.9). Still, gender discrimination in those days were so severe that “women did not even qualify as witnesses able to validate scientific experiments, let alone as experimenters (Rosser, 2008, p.9). Owing to this backdrop, women in the 18th century, the era of scientific revolution, interested in science and scholastic learning had to depend largely on informal learning (Spielvogel, 2010, p.348). Margaret Cavendish (1623-1673) was one of the notable women scientists of the 17th century when the 18th century scientific revolution was about to set off (Spielvogel, 2010, p.348). She wrote many works on experimental and natural philosophy (Spielvogel, 2010, p.349). Maria Winkelmann (1670-1720) was another woman scientist from Germany who contributed to the field of astronomy and became very famous (Spielvogel, 2010, p.349). She had applied for a post of assistant astronomer in Berlin University but was rejected for her being a woman (Spielvogel, 2010, p.349). This kind of gender discrimination in the field of science continued till 20th century and no woman was given a place in the major institutions of science like the Royal Society of England (Spielvogel, 2010, p.349). But even in such difficult times, it has to be noted, a major proportion of Germanys “astronomers were women” (Schiebinger, 1991, p.8). Italy was an exception to the discriminatory treatment of women in science as Italian scientific academies were regularly giving admission to women (Schiebinger, 1991, p.26). Among the women who gained admission there were, Maria Agnesi, the Italian mathematician, Madeleine de Scudery, and Emilie du Chatelet (Schiebinger, 1991, p.26). Madeleine Basseport and Marie Biheron were 18th century French botanists and anatomists who made great contribution to this area of science (Schiebinger, 1991, p.26). Biheron’s wax models of human anatomy were highly-regarded even by scientific academies (Schiebinger, 1991, p.29). Emilie du Chatelet came out with her “essay on the propagation of fire” in 1738 which was published by the Academie Royale des Sciences of Paris in its proceedings and Marie Thiroux dArconvilles anatomical illustrations found place in the Academie proceedings in 1759 (Schiebinger, 1991, p.30). Caroline Herschel discovered many comets and got published by Royal Society of London (Schiebinger, 1991, p.30). Sophie Germaine worked on elasticity and “won the grand prix of the Parisian academy in 1816” (Schiebinger, 1991, p.30). Sofia Kovaleskaia was a mathematician who “won the prestigious Prix Bordin of the Academie des Sciences” (Schiebinger, 1991, p.30). Maria Sybilla Merian travelled to Surinam for her studies in entemology and made a name in the field (Schiebinger, 1991, p.68). Ada Lovelace has been considered as the first in human history to have used mathematics to derive a programming method that came very near to computer programming (Bowler and Morus, 2005, p.495). The Salons of Paris run by women scholars provided a platform for serious scientific discussions and competed with academies in their explorations of science (Schiebinger, 1991, p.30). Madame Lamberts Salon and Madame Tincin Salon were a few too name that became renowned to have moulded many academicians (Schiebinger, 1991, p.30). Many influential and affluent women also became patrons of scientists, both men and women, and played a great role in the development of science in those days (Schiebinger, 1991, p.31). It is also notable that the earliest populariztion of science was made possible when science became fashionable for affluent women and to cater to their curiosity, publications on popular science became a highly profitable industry (Schiebinger, 1991, p.37). Schiebinger (1991) has drawn attention to the presence of women in various fields of science in the 18th century and said, “among astronomers, we find Maria Winkelmann, Maria Eimmart, Maria Cunitz, and Nicole Lepaute. Among mathematicians are Maria Agnesi and Sophia Germain. Physicists include Laura Bassi, and Emilie du Chatelet” (p.44). Emilie du Chatelet had a very intimate and intellectual relationship with Voltaire and also she introduced Newton’s works to the French people (Schiebinger, 1991, p.63). Priscilla Bell Wakefield published a very popular introductory text book on botany which remained in print for the forthcoming 50 years in England and America (Berbercheck/Gie, 2008, p.16). The contributions of women to the development of crafts has been viewed by feminist historians as part of their contribution to science just because the origin of modern science is traced back to developments in three areas, namely: The tradition of letters provided by the literary humanists, the tradition of logic and mathematics provided by the Aristotelean scholastics, and the tradition of practical experiment and application provided by the artist engineers (Schiebinger, 1991, p.66-67). Women were participating in craft work in those days as “(1) daughters and apprentices; (2) wives who assisted their husbands as paid or unpaid artisans; (3) independent artisans; or (4) widows who inherited the family business” (Schiebinger, 1991, p.67). For example, the woman entemologist, Maria Sybilla Merian was trained in the craft of illustration by her artist father and slowly her taste for sketching birds and insects developed into an interest in their science as well (Schiebinger, 1991, p.68). From the beginning itself, the universities kept their doors closed when it came to admitting women into them (Schiebinger, 1991, p.13). Even when men from middle and low-income classes began to get admissions, women remained untouchables for these universities “until the end of the nineteenth and in some cases until the twentieth century” (Schiebinger, 1991, p.17). Another factor that prevented women from winning a place in the realm of science was the very anti-women nature of scientific discourses themselves. Studies in human anatomy were misused to reinforce certain male-supremacy-based presumptions and it was argued, the larger pelvic area size of female skeleton proved them as child-bearers while mens larger skull size indicated their intellectual supremacy (Spielvogel, 2010, p.350). The male-dominated science of the scientific revolution of 18th century, when viewed generally, thus propagated and reinforced the patriarchal ideology as well (Spielvogel, 2010, p.350). But there were also ongoing parallel attempts to record the contributions of women to science as early as in the 15th century when Christine de Pizan explored the contributions of women to arts and science (as cited in Schiebinger, 1991, p.3). The first encyclopedia that exclusively dealt with womens achievements in the field of science also came out as early as in the late 18th century (Schiebinger, 1991, p.3). Even in the 21st century, women are discriminated and underrepresented in the field of science, whether it be the realm of academics or profession (Rosser, 2008, p.12). Mary Curie, a woman scientist, who was also the first ever to get two Nobel prizes was still “denied membership in the prestigious Academie des Sciences [as recently as] in 1911” (Schiebinger, 1991, p.2). Rosalind Franklin, a 19th century scholar in natural sciences was the first scientist to produce clear x-ray pictures of the structure of DNA but her contributions were underplayed by her male colleagues, Francis Crick and James Watson, when they announced the discovery of the double helix structure of human DNA molecule (Bowler and Morus, 2005, p.496). Similarly, the research work of Barbara McClintock was left unacknowledged for almost 40 years as it challenged many commonly held beliefs about genetics, and was duly appreciated only in 1988 when she won the Nobel prize for her work in corn genetics (Berbercheck/Gie, 2008, p.8). Even now, women who get undergraduate degrees in physics in the US every year amount to only around 20 percent and “less than 10 percent of physicists in the United States, are women” (Rosser, 2008, p.12). This phenomenon can attributed to several factors- the general gender bias existing in the society regarding what kind of education to give to a girl child, the gender-conditioning of the girl child herself regarding which subjects to choose for study, and to the acceptability inside the scientific community of certain scientific methodologies usually more often adopted by men (Rosser, 2008, p.13). The post-modern view that there are n-number of ways for looking at and understanding truth, has in turn provided feminine alternatives to look at science; a space for the truth of experience-based subjectivity to exist along with the masculine objectivity (Bowler and Morus, 2005, p.506). Scholars like Carolyn Merchant have argued that the masculine concept of nature as put forth by the scientific revolution of 18th century was one that replaced the pre-existing “feminised view of nature” (as cited in Olby et al., n.d.). Now a correction of this mistake is happening by many attempts being made by both male and female scientists to find a balance between masculine and feminine approaches to science, both in theoretical and application levels. References Berbercheck/Gie, (2008) Women, science and technology, London: Taylor & Francis. Bowler, P.J. and Morus, I.R. (2005) Making modern science: A historical survey, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Olby, R.C., Cantor, G.N., Christie, J.R.R. & Hodge, M.J.S. (n.d.) Companion to the history of modern science, London: Routledge. Rosser, S.V. (2008) Women, science, and myth: Gender beliefs from antiquity to the present, Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO. Schiebinger, L.L. (1991) The mind has no sex?: Women in the origins of modern science, New York, NY: Harvard University Press. Spielvogel, J.J. (2010) Western civilization: A brief history, London: Cengage Learning. Read More