Tag Archives: Women Scientists
Women and femininity in the history of science
By Claire Jones Women have always participated in scientific endeavour, even before the term ‘scientist’ was invented. (The term ‘scientist’ is usually attributed to William Whewell, Cambridge academic, who used it in its modern sense in 1841, but some scholars
Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, c 1623-1674
by Claire Jones Playwright; poet; natural philosopher. It was famously said of Margaret Cavendish that she was different to the rest ‘of her frail sex’ who, unlike her, ‘have Fruitful Wombs but Barren Brains’. Gender in the seventeenth century The
Mary Somerville (1780-1872)
Mathematician, astronomer, translator By Claire Jones Context It was difficult for a woman to reconcile the conflicting identities of ‘woman’ and ‘scientist’ in the nineteenth century. Theories of sexual difference of the time constructed women as less capable of abstract
Augusta Ada Lady Lovelace (1815 – 1852)
Mathematician and collaborator with Charles Babbage on the development of the forerunner to the computer. By Claire Jones Early Life There are conflicting accounts of Ada’s life—and even some mythologizing (probably due to her association with her celebrated father, the
