The presence of women in science spans the earliest times of the history of science wherein they have made substantial contributions. Historians with an interest in gender and science have researched the scientific endeavors and accomplishments of women, the barriers they have faced, and the strategies implemented to have their work peer-reviewed and accepted in major scientific journals and other publications. The historical, critical, and sociological study of these issues has become an academic discipline in its own right.
The involvement of women in medicine occurred in several early Western civilizations, and the study of natural philosophy in ancient Greece was open to women. Women contributed to the proto-science of alchemy in the first or second centuries CE During the Middle Ages, religious convents were an important place of education for women, and some of these communities provided opportunities for women to contribute to scholarly research. The 11th century saw the emergence of the first universities; women were, for the most part, excluded from university education.[1] Outside academia, botany was the science that benefitted most from the contributions of women in early modern times.[2] The attitude toward educating women in medical fields appears to have been more liberal in Italy than elsewhere. The first known woman to earn a university chair in a scientific field of studies was eighteenth-century Italian scientist Laura Bassi.
Gender roles were largely deterministic in the eighteenth century and women made substantial advances in science. During the nineteenth century, women were excluded from most formal scientific education, but they began to be admitted into learned societies during this period. In the later nineteenth century, the rise of the women's college provided jobs for women scientists and opportunities for education. Marie Curie paved the way for scientists to study radioactive decay and discovered the elements radium and polonium.[3] Working as a physicist and chemist, she conducted pioneering research on radioactive decay and was the first woman to receive a Nobel Prize in Physics and became the first person to receive a second Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Sixty women have been awarded the Nobel Prize between 1901 and 2022. Twenty-four women have been awarded the Nobel Prize in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine.
Ancient History
The involvement of women in the field of medicine has been recorded in several early civilizations. An ancient Egyptian physician, Peseshet (c. 2600–2500 B.C.E.), described in an inscription as "lady overseer of the female physicians",[8][9] is the earliest known female physician named in the history of science.[10] Agamede was cited by Homer as a healer in ancient Greece before the Trojan War (c. 1194–1184 BCE).[11][12][13] According to one late antique legend, Agnodice was the first female physician to practice legally in fourth century BCE Athens.
The study of natural philosophy in ancient Greece was open to women. Recorded examples include Aglaonike, who predicted eclipses; and Theano, mathematician and physician, who was a pupil (possibly also wife) of Pythagoras, and one of a school in Crotone founded by Pythagoras, which included many other women.[15] A passage in Pollux speaks about those who invented the process of coining money mentioning Pheidon and Demodike from Cyme, wife of the Phrygian king, Midas, and daughter of King Agamemnon of Cyme. A daughter of a certain Agamemnon, king of Aeolian Cyme, married a Phrygian king called Midas. This link may have facilitated the Greeks "borrowing" their alphabet from the Phrygians because the Phrygian letter shapes are closest to the inscriptions from Aeolis.
During the period of the Babylonian civilization, around 1200 BCE, two perfumeresses named Tapputi-Belatekallim and -ninu (first half of her name unknown) were able to obtain the essences from plants by using extraction and distillation procedures. During the Egyptian dynasty, women were involved in applied chemistry, such as the making of beer and the preparation of medicinal compounds. Women have been recorded to have made major contributions to alchemy. Many of which lived in Alexandria around the 1st or 2nd centuries C.E., where the gnostic tradition led to female contributions being valued. The most famous of the women alchemist, Mary the Jewess, is credited with inventing several chemical instruments, including the double boiler (bain-marie); the improvement or creation of distillation equipment of that time. Such distillation equipment were called kerotakis (simple still) and the tribikos (a complex distillation device).
Hypatia of Alexandria (c. 350–415 CE), daughter of Theon of Alexandria, was a philosopher, mathematician, and astronomer. She is the earliest female mathematician about whom detailed information has survived. Hypatia is credited with writing several important commentaries on geometry, algebra and astronomy. Hypatia was the head of a philosophical school and taught many students. In 415 CE, she became entangled in a political dispute between Cyril, the bishop of Alexandria, and Orestes, the Roman governor, which resulted in a mob of Cyril's supporters stripping her, dismembering her, and burning the pieces of her body.
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