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The Way of Progress was Neither Swift nor Easy: Celebrating Women in Science: Issues Facing Women Scientists

Past Occurances

  • Geneticist Nettie Stevens was never asked to speak on her discovery of sex determination and her role in the discovery was often overlooked by male scientists doing research in the same area at the same time. (Nettie Stevens - Wikipedia)
  • Florence Sabin was passed over for the position of Department Chair at Johns Hopkins in favor of a former student, Lewis Weed, and was promoted to full Professor of Histology instead. (Changing the Face of Medicine | Florence Rena Sabin (nih.gov))
  • Libbie Hyman began her career as a botanist but switched to Zoology after encountering anti-Semitism. (Libbie Henrietta Hyman | Jewish Women's Archive (jwa.org))
  • Dr. Chien-Shiung Wu’s research in Particle Physics was not recognized when the 1957 Nobel Prize was given. (Dr. Chien-Shiung Wu, The First Lady of Physics (U.S. National Park Service) (nps.gov))
  • Ruth Sager had difficulty getting a faculty position in Genetics at Columbia University due to skepticism over uniparental inheritance via chloroplast and gender discrimination. (Ruth Sager - Wikipedia)
  • Dr. Eugenie Clark was interviewed by the FBI after World War II for being a suspected terrorist; it deprived her of a research opportunity in the Philippines. (Lawlor, L. (2017). Super Women. Holiday House: New York.)
  • Katherine Johnson started in a segregated office area when she began working for a government organization, later known as NASA. (Lawlor, L. (2017). Super Women. Holiday House: New York.)
  • Marie Tharp was not allowed on a research boat sent to map the topography of the ocean floor because she was woman, so her work entailed interpreting the data collected by a male researcher and colleague, Bruce Heezen. (Marie Tharp - Ages of Exploration (marinersmuseum.org))
  • In 1901, the Royal Society (UK) would not allow a woman scientist to read a paper to the members, so a male associate had to read Hertha Marks Ayrton’s “The Mechanism of the Electric Arc.” However, she did read her paper, “The Origin and Growth of Ripple Marks” for the Royal Society in 1904--she was the first woman to do so. (Ogilvie, M. B. (1986). Women in Science. MIT Press: London.)
  • Even though she fulfilled the requirements for a doctorate, Harvard University refused to grant Mary Whiton Calkins a Ph. D. in Psychology because she was a woman. (Ogilvie, M. B. (1986). Women in Science. MIT Press: London; Mary Whiton Calkins - Wikipedia)
  • Jacobina Félicie was legally prosecuted for practicing medicine in France despite her training and skill. (Ogilvie, M. B. (1986). Women in Science. MIT Press: London; Jacqueline Felice de Almania - Wikipedia)
  • Sophie Germain was a self-taught mathematician and learned from the notes of others due to the fact she was not allowed to attend classes herself because she was female. (Ogilvie, M. B. (1986). Women in Science. MIT Press: London; Sophie Germain - Wikipedia)
  • Dr. Sophia Jex-Blake had a hard time finding a university willing to admit and train women in the field of Medicine.   (Ogilvie, M. B. (1986). Women in Science. MIT Press: London; Sophia Jex-Blake - Wikipedia)
  • Christine Ladd-Franklin gave up pursuing a career in Physics because graduate laboratory facilities were unavailable to women. (Ogilvie, M. B. (1986). Women in Science. MIT Press: London; Christine Ladd-Franklin - Wikipedia)
  • MIT refused to grant Ellen Swallow Richards an advanced degree in Chemistry because the university did not want the first advanced degree awarded to go to a woman. (Ogilvie, M. B. (1986). Women in Science. MIT Press: London; Ellen Swallow Richards - Wikipedia)
  • In 1951, a regional meeting of the Mathematical Association of America was held in a whites-only hotel, so Evelyn Boyd Granville and two of her colleagues of color where denied access.  (Evelyn Boyd Granville - Wikipedia)