Women in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics)

This fascinating biographical dictionary surveys the American women who have made significant contributions to major fields of scientific endeavor since 1950. In American Women in Science, each of the concise A_Z biographies of more than 300 women includes information on the woman's background, employment history, honors, and publications, and then places her achievements in the appropriate scientific and social context.

Edited by two of the most respected scholars in the field, this milestone reference combines "facts-fronted" fast access to biographical details with highly readable accounts and analyses of nearly 3000 scientists' lives, works, and accomplishments.

This book investigates how women have striven throughout history to gain access to education and careers in science and engineering. The author focuses on the history of women's education in mathematics and science through the ages, from antiquity to the Enlightenment. While opportunities for women were often purposely limited, she reveals how many women found ways to explore science outside of formal education. The book examines the lives and work of three women -Sophie Germain, Mileva Einstein, and Rosalind Franklin - that provide excellent examples of how women's contributions to science have been dismissed, ignored or stolen outright. She concludes with an in-depth look at women's participation in science and engineering throughout the twentieth century and the current status of women in science and engineering.

The era of the Scientific Revolution has long been epitomized by Galileo. Yet many women were at its vanguard, deeply invested in empirical culture. They experimented with medicine and practical alchemy at home, at court, and through collaborative networks of practitioners. In academies, salons, and correspondence, they debated cosmological discoveries; in their literary production, they used their knowledge of natural philosophy to argue for their intellectual equality to men. Meredith Ray restores the work of these women to our understanding of early modern scientific culture. Her study begins with Caterina Sforza's alchemical recipes; examines the sixteenth-century vogue for "books of secrets"; and looks at narratives of science in works by Moderata Fonte and Lucrezia Marinella. It concludes with Camilla Erculiani's letters on natural philosophy and, finally, Margherita Sarrocchi's defense of Galileo's "Medicean" stars.

A Lab of One's Own describes the experiences of some extraordinary but sadly neglected scientific women who tasted independence, responsibility, and excitement in World War One. Suffragists aligned themselves with scientific and technological progress. Defying arguments about intellectual inferiority and child-bearing responsibilities, during the War they won support by mobilising women to enter conventionally male domains, including science, industry, medicine, and the military. "A Lab of One's Own" reveals these women's stories, celebrating successes and analysing setbacks.

This book aims to combine the objectification of women as the subject matter of scientific enquiry with an exploration of women's involvement in the pursuit of science between 1780 and 1945. It examines three areas: women's active involvement with science as practitioners, gender representation within science, and the tensions between science and feminism.

Focuses on 19th and 20th century American and European women scientists. Great introduction by the editors of essays written by 12 women historians.

If women's interest and participation in the advancement of science has a long history, the academic study of their contributions is a far more recent phenomenon. These studies have mostly focused on the obstacles that women have had to overcome in the field of education and employment or in their quest for acknowledgement by their male peers. The aim of this volume is to try and approach the issue from a different and more comprehensive point of view, taking into account not only the position of women in science, but also the link between women and science through the analysis of various kinds of discourse and representation such as the press, poetry, fiction, biographies and autobiographies or professional journals-including that of women themselves.

In this newly revised twenty-fifth anniversary edition, acclaimed writer and journalist Vivian Gornick interviews famous and lesser-known scientists, compares their experiences then and now, and shows that, although not much has changed in the world of science, what is different is women’s expectations that they can and will succeed. Everything from the disparaging comments by Harvard’s then-president to government reports and media coverage has focused on the ways in which women supposedly can’t do science. Gornick’s original interviews show how deep and severe discrimination against women was back then in all scientific fields. Her new interviews, with some of the same women she spoke to twenty-five years ago, provide a fresh description of the hard times and great successes these women have experienced.

In volume one of this landmark study, focusing on developments up to 1940, Margaret Rossiter describes the activities and personalities of the numerous women scientists—astronomers, chemists, biologists, and psychologists—who overcame extraordinary obstacles to contribute to the growth of American science. This remarkable history recounts women's efforts to establish themselves as members of the scientific community and examines the forces that inhibited their active and visible participation in the sciences.

Margaret Rossiter's widely hailed "Women Scientists in America: Struggles and Strategies to 1940" marked the beginning of a pioneering effort to interpret the history of American women scientists. That effort continues in this provocative sequel that covers the crucial years of World War II and beyond. Rossiter begins by showing how the acute labor shortage brought on by the war seemed to hold out new hope for women professionals, especially in the sciences. But the public posture of welcoming women into the scientific professions masked a deep-seated opposition to change. Rossiter proves that despite frustrating obstacles created by the patriarchal structure and values of universities, government, and industry, women scientists made genuine contributions to their fields, grew in professional stature, and laid the foundation for the breakthroughs that followed 1972.

The third volume of Margaret W. Rossiter's landmark survey of the history of American women scientists focuses on their pioneering efforts and contributions from 1972 to the present. Central to this story are the struggles and successes of women scientists in the era of affirmative action. Scores of previously isolated women scientists were suddenly energized to do things they had rarely, if ever, done before--form organizations and recruit new members, start rosters and projects, put out newsletters, confront authorities, and even fight (and win) lawsuits. Rossiter follows the major activities of these groups in several fields and their campaigns to raise consciousness, see legislation enforced, lobby for passage of the Equal Rights Amendment, and serve as watchdogs of the media. This comprehensive volume also covers the changing employment circumstances in the federal government, academia, industry, and the nonprofit sector and discusses contemporary battles to increase the number of women members of the National Academy of Science and women presidents of scientific societies.

A comprehensive historical review of the debates surrounding women's contributions and roles in science, with emphasis on women's access to education, training, and professional careers. This remarkable work illuminates the debates surrounding women's involvement with science throughout history. It examines the question posed throughout history: Are women capable of doing science? Whether people have the right to even ask the question is germane to the debate itself. The coverage discusses Hypatia, the first female scientist about whom we have information; examines the contradictory behavior of the church in the treatment of women during the medieval era; and covers the 17th century debates over women's education. It examines women physicians, discusses feminism and science, and delves into why there are so few women in science even today.

'Had God intended Women merely as a finer sort of cattle, he would not have made them reasonable.' Writing in 1673, Bathsua Makin was one of the first women to insist that girls should receive a scientific education. Despite the efforts of Makin and her successors, women were excluded from universities until the end of the nineteenth century, yet they found other ways to participate in scientific projects. As well as collaborating in home- based research, women corresponded with internationally renowned scholars, hired tutors, and even published their own books. They played essential roles in work that was frequently attributed solely to their husbands, fathers or friends. By re- examining the lives of individuals, PANDORA'S BREECHES explores how women of the 17th and 19th century engaged in science and contributed to its rapid growth.

A fascinating analysis of the work of notable women by national group, giving thorough data comparing the contributions of women in choice fields. Among the women presented are more than a few colorful personalities representative of the entire social scale, from a royal princess to the daughter of a Paris slum shopkeeper.

Published in 1998, Ladies in the Laboratory provided a systematic survey and comparison of the work of 19th-century American and British women in scientific research. A companion volume, published in 2004, focused on women scientists from Western Europe. In this third volume, author Mary R.S. Creese expands her scope to include the contributions of 19th- and early 20th-century women of South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada.The women whose lives and work are discussed here range from natural history collectors and scientific illustrators of the early and mid years of the 19th century to the first generation of graduates of the new colonial colleges and universities. Rarely acknowledged in publications of the British and European specialists, the contributions of these women nonetheless formed a significant part of the natural history information about extensive, previously unknown regions and their products.