Dark Lady: An Holistic Perspective - Essay Example

 A variety of material has been written about Rosalind Franklin and her role in the discovery off DNA. Sayre (2000) considers her from her perspective as a friend, and a feminist, writing in the 1970’s and emphasizes how she was wronged by history and fellow scientists because of her female gender. Her biography was a provoked response to Watson’s distinctly non-feminist book, characterizing Franklin as a pathetic, arrogant and bossy nerd, who lacked social skills, couldn’t hold a normal relationship, and probably had Asperger’s Syndrome, a type of Autism [Hil02]. Watson demonstrated his own lack of social skills by hurling insults at the woman upon whose work he claimed a Nobel Prize, a woman who had in fact died of ovarian cancer, which was likely hastened by her exposure to Gamma radiation, as part of her work [Elk03] . He began hurling these insults shortly after her death, and took every opportunity to keep it up. Shakespeare’s famous line in Hamlet, spoken by Queen Gertrude, “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.,” [eNo11] was ringing in my mind as I read what he had to say. He devoted so much energy to denying and downplaying Ms. Franklin’s significance, that it becomes quickly obvious he knows differently, quite well. I suspect that some or even most of his comments on Rosalind were based on his projection of his own guilt and insecurity. To answer these extremist portrayals of Rosalind, are also many voices. Brenda Maddox spoke from a post-feminist perspective, two and a half decades after Sayre, and revealed details that shed light on things glossed over by Sayre, due to her socio-cultural and historical limitations, and clarified distortions that Watson so eagerly revealed. For example, Maddox addresses Rosalind’s sexuality, revealing how she had feelings for a man who was having an affair with her colleague, and how she seemed very awkward and naïve [Bre03]. Sayre surely knew about this, as her friend, but was not in a position to talk about it because it was not politically correct for a serious feminist of the mid 1970’s to discuss something so personal and awkward, which might detract from a great woman scientist’s dignity and perceived competence. Maddox’s revelation of Franklin’s sexuality showed she was not the sexless, inept nerd, painted by Watson. She had feelings, however much Watson portrayed her as a cold fish. Maddox, writing at a time when gender discrimination in Science was understood to be there and understood to be something we need to change, was not bound by the cultural context from which Sayre wrote, a context in which there was widespread denial about gender discrimination in the field of Science. She was not bound by the values and stereotypes of an era through which lens Watson experienced and insulted Franklin. Being more free of the forces motivating Sayre’s and Watson’s agenda, Maddox was able to put energy in clarifying details. One area of those details involved Randall’s role in the premature revealing of Rosalind’s material to the men who ultimately took credit for an understanding of DNA, critically due to Franklin’s Photo 51. Maddox [Bre03] explains that Randall had re-assigned the DNA project to Franklin after Wilkins had made it a low priority. Apparently Randall did not clarify this properly to Wilkins, and Wilkins thought he was going to be Rosalind’s supervisor, not her competitor. As her supervisor, he might be defended for prematurely showing her photo 51 to Crick and Watson. Perhaps if he had been clearer on his working relationship to Franklin, this might have been avoided. But Randall was not the only unfortunate catalyst in this fiasco. Another scientist at Cambridge, Max Perutz, handed over a confidential report containing Franklin’s notes and photographs [Bre03]. He had access to her work only because he had responsibility to evaluate the lab for the Medical Research Council. So these were not his personal property, but were professional resources he did not have discretionary power over. Perutz misused the trust placed in him. Randall and Perutz were major contributors to the wrongs done to Franklin. Turning our attention in a different direction, a voice answering Watson’s perhaps accurate but inappropriate diagnosis of Asperger’s Syndrome and insulting insistence, implying that most women in science are defective in this way, is Morgan. She cites research [Mor08] by Felix Post, a London physician who published in 1994, in the British Journal of Psychiatry, a lengthy investigation of the psychopathologies of creative people, based on their biographies, including 45 male scientists. He found that two thirds of the scientists studied had signs of psychopathology . Morgan quotes Neil Cole, Alfred Psychiatric Research Centre in Melbourne, in his opinion that genius hangs on eccentricity and that mental illness is a central factor in creativity. She quotes Hans Asperger, a pediatrician for whom Asperger’s Syndrome is named, as saying, "it seems for success in science or art, a dash of autism is essential" [Mor08], and she refers to Fitzgerald’s belief that the same genes mediate both genius and high-functioning autism [Mor08]. Of course, having Asperger’s Syndrome does not automatically qualify a person as a genius, but it apparently helps. Far from Watson’s dismissal of Franklin, with his unqualified diagnosis of Asperger’s, we might consider that Asperger’s was a point in her favor, and a factor which might have significantly contributed to her success and to our understanding of DNA. Surely a giggling femme, distracted by boyfriends and parties and shopping and gossiping with friends, would not have been as well-positioned. Solving the riddle of DNA required focus, precision, obsession, a thorough approach, an excellent grasp of 3-D spatial considerations, and genius. All these are apparently more likely with Asperger’s Syndrome [Mor08], but Watson spoke from sexism, guilt and ignorance, inadvertently outlining a point in her favor. Everyone who wrote about Rosalind Franklin had an agenda, so we must try to see beyond the reflections of their agenda, in order to know Rosalind Franklin with any clarity. Watson was grounded in a male-biased world of laboratory science. Rosalind excelled at doing science but did not excel at impressing the patriarchy with her feminine wiles. And why should she waste energy in such a way? If, like Watson, Crick and Wilkins, and other colleagues judged her from a sexist perspective, then it is they who cut her off socially, even more than was her predisposition. If, like Watson, Crick and Wilkins, Franklin excelled in doing science, is not that the central reality? But Watson and apparently others could not get past her alleged gender faux-pas. Perhaps she did have Asperger’s Syndrome, was bossy and lacked adequate social skills, but she worked in laboratories, after all, as a scientist, a superbly thorough, qualified and precise scientist. Social skills and feminine charm are not part of the job description, the way they are for airline hostesses and the wife of the President. It is understandable that Sayre’s agenda was to make a feminist statement with her biography. This statement needed to be made. It was a statement about the accomplishments of a superb woman scientist who was wronged by male competition and the sexist bastion of science, dominantly male, too sacred to criticize [Say00]. We need to understand Sayre in a cultural and historical context, to understand the era in which she was writing. We also need to understand that she was Rosalind’s friend, and that she felt a need to defend her from sexist-motivated attacks. I am sure Anne Sayre had many experiences of the effects of sexism, herself, and now her friend had given her life for her work, had contributed to science in a really big way, yet was being maligned because she was female. She was attacked in a way that targeted both her femininity and her scientific competence. Her status as a female was attacked, based on patriarchal definitions of what it means to be a woman. Her status as a scientist was being attacked to cover up the competitive and inappropriately acknowledged capitalization of her discoveries, benefitting, as usual, men [Hil02]. Few Nobel Prizes have been awarded to women . Furthermore, as Rosalind’s friend, Anne mourned her death and no doubt felt attacks on Rosalind to be personal, by extension. This was strengthened by a worldview of women’s solidarity in sisterhood and a personal conviction to speak up, to defy the power that elevated men and made women invisible. It seems clear to me that Watson’s statements were sub-consciously intended to lessen his social embarrassment and boost his personal self-image. It was not very chivalrous of him to be so insulting, so soon after Ms. Franklin’s death from ovarian cancer, but Watson’s social and diplomatic skills in this situation were obviously lacking. We need to understand him in a psychological context. He was in pain, threatened by a dead woman, and the pain worsened as the controversy waged on. He too lacked social skills and every time he opened his mouth about Rosalind, there were people who saw him putting his foot into his mouth. The more he tried to address it, the more insulting he was seen to be. Lost in embarrassment and guilt, he could not see himself and his behavior clearly. He could not hear the sound of his own words. He could only feel his pain and he struggled to lessen it. He had made efforts to be kinder to her, after all, so how was he to blame? Watson was confused. We need to understand him in socio-historical context also, in that he was hardly alone in being a man of his era, a man who thought scientists were men and women were assistants. Anglican teaching was that Eve was taken from the side of Adam. Surely she was not intended to dominate him? He was no doubt a man confused by feminist rhetoric. After all, haven’t women always been happy addendums to men’s work? How was Rosalind Franklin, not even a model of womanhood, by societal standards, any different? She made some notes and she took a nice photo, and yes, it was helpful but surely it was not pivotal? She was, after all, however unpleasantly, a woman, while he, Crick and Wilkins were men! Watson was not a feminist and cannot be harshly judged against feminist ideals that were not widely grasped at that time. Few men saw women as equal, and certainly not as superior. Watson may be a jerk, but for his time he was probably not unusually so, and was no doubt clueless about why feminist ideology portrayed him in this way. Brenda Maddox [Bre03], speaking from a post-feminist, perhaps socially calmer perspective, provided lots of interesting details, broadening the picture we construct of the events surrounding Photo 51 and the winning of the Nobel Prize after Franklin’s death. With her book, we begin to see shades of gray, and I think that is a fine contribution because it inspires us to look more closely. When we look closely, we see factors that go beyond the immediate situation and the well-articulated controversy. Although it was mentioned by both primary biographers that Rosalind Franklin was Jewish, neither Sayre nor Maddox discussed the implications of Franklin growing up in in the violently anti-Semitic environment of post-war London [Hil02]. To sort out the many things said about Franklin, and to make sense of who she really was, it might be helpful to creatively apply the Stress-Vulnerability Model (Spring and Zubin, 1977). It suggests that individuals have different strengths and vulnerabilities with respect to psychological, biological and social elements, from which they respond to stressful situations. For example, identical twins may each carry the gene for schizophrenia, but one twin becomes psychotic and the other remains mentally healthy. In line with this model, I conclude that Rosalind Franklin was influenced by being the youngest child of an overbearing father; being Jewish in an anti-Semitic and fervently Anglican location; being highly intelligent, maybe having Aspergers; living in a male-dominated society and working in an extremely male-dominated field, with colleagues geared for competition; being university-educated in a time when rarely any woman was; being unhappy at King after enjoying her work in Paris. Watson, Crick, Wilkins, Randall, Perutz and others were inadequately ethical and supportive. These were Rosalind’s risk factors in life. Various people with personal agendas further muddied the picture, tilting it this way or that. But I think to view it with clarity, we should not try to tilt our heads in looking at it, but to see it in an holistic manner, uniting many contributing perspectives. References Hil02: , (Rose, 2002), Elk03: , (Elkin, 2003), eNo11: , (eNotes.com, 2011), Bre03: , (Maddox, 2003), Mor08: , (Morgan, 2008), Say00: , (Sayre, 2000), Read More