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APPENDIX E-2
Historical Perspectives on Women in Chemistry, Computer Science, and
Mathematics
Mariko Ogawa,1 Lisa M. Frehill,2 Sophia Huyer3
Chemistry has a long history ultimately dating back to alchemy, although there have not
been as many female chemists in history as female mathematicians. Maria Sklodowska Curie
(1867-1934) and her daughter, Irène Joliot-Curie (1897-1956) won Nobel Prizes in Chemistry in
1911 and in 1935. Over the past several centuries, chemistry has been able to attract women to
undergraduate study. Indeed, the Women's Committee of the American Chemical Society in the
United States was founded 85 years ago.
Crystallography is an exceptional field related to chemistry. In England, in the first half
of the 20th century, the research groups of both William Henry Bragg (1862-1942) and his son
William Lawrence Bragg (1890-1971), who were 1915 Nobel laureates in physics, attracted
remarkable numbers of female researchers. Kathleen Yardley Lonsdale (1903-1971), Dorothy
Mary Crowfoot Hodgkin (1910-1994), and Rosalind Elsie Franklin (1920-1958) were the most
distinguished three women in the Braggs research tradition. Lonsdale was elected as the first
female member of the Royal Society in 1945. Hodgkin was a Nobel Prize winner in chemistry in
1964. Franklin has recently become known for her crucial contribution to the identification of
the double-helical structure of DNA. The Braggs' record of employing women chemists
illustrates that environment and encouragement are important in women's participation (Julian
1990).
However, the capital-intensive nature of laboratory work in chemistry has posed special
challenges for women's participation. Without access to equipment, supplies and space,
performing chemistry experiments can be problematic. So if academic institutions and chemical
industry employers do not hire women--such as was the case prior to World War I and again
after the immediacy of war needs no longer prevailed--then women who are trained in chemistry
in college have fewer options to practice in the field. Instead, they seek work in which the
science background is useful but for which laboratory resources are not required. Henry
Etzkowitz's recent idea of a "Vanish Box," whereby highly trained women disappeared from
academic bench science and subsequently reappeared in technology transfer offices at the
interface between science and economy, is an example of this process (Etzkowitz 2009).
1
Mariko Ogawa, professor, history of science and science studies, Mie University, Japan.
2
Lisa M. Frehill, senior research analyst, Energetics Technology Center.
3
Sophia Huyer, executive director, Women in Gender, Science and Technology.
73
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74 BLUEPRINT FOR THE FUTURE
The nature of work in mathematics, however, differs compared to chemistry. That is,
mathematics work involves few resources, often merely a paper and pencil. Indeed, in the 18th
and 19th centuries, women enjoyed solving mathematical problems as a contest. The Ladies
Diary was designed specifically for the amusement and entertainment of women with an
appendix of curious and valuable mathematics papers for use by students (Perl 1979; Costa 2000;
Costa 2002).
There were many women who were good at mathematics in their student lives. One
excellent example was Philipa Fawcett (1868-1948), who was ranked above the Senior Wrangler
in 1890, achieving the highest mark in mathematics at the University of Cambridge. While there
were other female Wranglers, no other ranked as senior or as second. Grace Chisholm Young
(1868-1944), who marked almost equivalent to a Senior Wrangler in 1892, received her Ph.D.,
magna cum laude, from Göttingen in 1895.
However, seven examples in the history of famous women mathematicians are
traditionally noted. Their accomplishments prove that women could be highly skilled
mathematicians4 (Osen 1974; Alic 1986). These exemplars include
· Hypatia (about A.D. 360-A.D. 415)
· Maria Gaetana Agnesi (1718-1799)
· Émilie du Châtelet (1706-1749), who translated into French, with commentary, Isaac
Newton's work Principia Mathematica
· Sophie Germain (1776-1831), French mathematician
· Mary Somerville (1780-1872), Scottish popular science writer; her talent was highly
appreciated though she lacked scientific originality
· Sofia Vasilyevna Kovaleskaia (1850-1891), Russian mathematician, professor at
University of Stockholm
· Emmy Noether (1882-1891)
The presence of such notable women contradicts the common myth that women are not good at
mathematics. The "math myth" however, has proved rather intractable even today. Witness, for
example, the world's most popular doll, Barbie, and her Japanese sister, Licca.5 Both dolls have
issues with mathematics. Licca is poor at mathematics, but good at art and music. And when
Barbie finally spoke in 1992, one of the first phrases programmed in for her 800 million young
owners to hear was "math class is tough" (Schiebinger 1999). So that, despite the low resource
requirements necessary to perform mathematical work, persistent gendered stereotypes have
thwarted women's participation in the field in some cultures.
Computer science is a much newer discipline. However, some of the foundations for the
discipline were established by two notable women. The name of Grace (Brewster Murray)
Hopper (1906-1992) should be designated foremost among early computer scientists. She
worked for the U.S. Navy and was engaged in the development of the first BINAC and later
UNIVAC. She was mainly involved in designing software for digital computers. The
development which made her name famous was the computer language COBOL. She was the
most famous female computer science specialist of the 20th century. But we also find her
4
Osen and Alic are two of the seven world famous female mathematicians; sometimes Caroline Herschel (1750-
1848) was added.
5
For more information about the Japanese doll Licca, see Licca chan hausu no hakurankai (Exhibition of Licca's
House) (in Japanese, Tokyo: INAX, 1997), p. 5.
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APPENDIX E-2: HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES 75
forerunner in the 19th century. Mathematician, Augusta Ada Byron, Countess Lovelace (1815-
1852) was the first developer of conceptual programming for Charles Babbage's Analytical
Engine. The Ada programming language in the Pentagon is named after her.
In summation, then, when we look at women's participation in the chemical sciences,
mathematics, and computer science, we are able to point to some notable women in each field,
yet women's pursuit of these fields as a profession has been affected by larger social forces. In
mathematics, women had access to the field as a recreation and to study mathematics at
universities in England. The chemical sciences' resource-intensive nature of work stood as a
barrier to women's participation. When employers had labor shortages, such as during the First
World War, women chemists were able to locate work. But when they were no longer needed,
women were pushed out of the laboratory. Finally, some elements of computer science are like
mathematics with a lower need for expensive resources, so it is a field that could have been able
to attract women who could have been inspired by the achievements of women like Grace
Hopper and Ada Byron.
So far, our emphasis has been on notable women in chemistry, computer science, and
mathematics in the developed world, specifically, Europe and North America. When we turn our
attention to developing a history of these fields and women's participation in the developing
world, there are many challenges. Much literature is from Western Europe and North America
therefore there is a need to engage with multilingual literature for broader global coverage.
Furthermore, science is in the early stages of development in many developing countries,
therefore information can be difficult to locate. In addition, the colonial past and path to
independence hold many implications for women's participation in science. There is a body of
work about women's participation in agriculture that was impacted by colonial processes and
that, now, has provided a backdrop against which women become involved in science. Finally,
the chemical industry, which is capital-intensive, has also been rather mobile in the 20th century.
Hence, as the capital resources for the chemical sciences move to new locations, new labor
forces must be developed. In such cases, there is a need to consider the interaction of gender
within contexts.
REFERENCES
Alic, M. 1986. Hypatia's Heritage. Boston: Beacon Press.
Costa, S. 2000. The Ladies' Diary: Society, Gender and Mathematics in England, 1704-1754.
Ph.D. dissertation. Cornell University.
Costa, S. 2002. The Ladies' Diary: gender, mathematics and civil society in early eighteenth-
century England. Osiris 17 (2nd series): 49-73.
Etzkowitz, H. April 2009. Vanish box. Online. Research EU: the Magazine of the European
Research Area. Available at http://ec.europa.eu/research/research-eu/women/article_women23_
en.html. Accessed March 20, 2011. For his forthcoming book with Marina Ranga, see
http://www.stanford.edu/group/gender/People/HenryEtzkowitz.html.
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76 BLUEPRINT FOR THE FUTURE
Julian, M.M. 1990. Women in crystallography. Pp. 335-383 in Women of Science: Righting
the Record, G. Kass-Simon and P. Farnes, eds. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana
University Press.
Perl, T. 1979. The Ladies' Diary or Woman's Almanack, 1704-1841. Historia Mathematica 6:
36-53.
Osen, L.M. 1974. Women in Mathematics. Cambridge, MA and London: Massachusetts
Institute of Technology Press.
Schiebinger, L. 1999. Has Feminism Changed Science? Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard
University Press. 67 pp.
