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Preface She didn’t write it. But if it’s clear she did the deed, . . . She wrote it, but she shouldn’t have. (It’s political, sexual, masculine, feminist.) She wrote it, but look what she wrote about. (The bedroom, the kitchen, her family. Other women!) She wrote it, but she wrote only one of it. (Jane Eyre. Poor dear, that’s all she ever . . .) She wrote it, but she isn’t really an artist, and it isn’t really art. (It’s a thriller, a romance, a children’s book. It’s Sci fi!) She wrote it, but she had help. (Robert Browning. Branwell Brontë. Her own “masculine side.”) She wrote it, but she’s an anomaly. (Woolf. With Leonard’s help . . .) She wrote it, BUT (1, 2). . .
The symposium on which this book is based originated after one of us (Tom Strom) organized a successful American Chemical Society (ACS) symposium in March 2016, on the Posthumous Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Afterward, the other of us (Vera Mainz) pointed out that the chemists represented in that symposium and its subsequent symposium volume were “all dead white guys.” The fact that only white men were included in the first symposium partly reflects the prevailing past (and continuing) gender imbalance in chemistry, but it also shows the power of the Matilda effect, first articulated by Matilda Joslyn Gage (Figure 1) (1826–1898) (3). The Matilda effect is an implicit bias against acknowledging the achievements of women scientists, whose work is often attributed to their male colleagues (4). An implicit bias is one which is not conscious or deliberate, but nevertheless real. The gender imbalance in the previous symposium was also noted in the on-line comments for the Chemical and Engineering News article that reported on it (6). Redressing that imbalance was the purpose of the current symposium entitled “Ladies in Waiting for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Overlooked Accomplishments of Women Chemists.” This symposium, which took place in August 2017, was sponsored by the ACS History of Chemistry Division (HIST), the Women Chemists Committee (WCC), and ACS President Allison Campbell. As we began to organize the symposium, the primary question was which women should be the subject of talks. Two, Lise Meitner and Rosalind Franklin, were mentioned in the on-line commentary in Chem. Eng. News and we fully agreed that they should be included in the symposium. Lise Meitner, as the Editor ix Mainz and Strom; The Posthumous Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Volume 2. Ladies in Waiting for the Nobel Prize ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2018.
of Chem. Eng. News noted, “made pioneering advances in radioactivity and nuclear physics, including the discovery of nuclear fission of uranium with German radiochemist Otto Hahn. Hahn, however, took home the 1944 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for nuclear fission all by himself.” (6) Rosalind Franklin, because of her early death (1958), was not eligible for the Physiology or Medicine Nobel Prize won by James Watson, Francis Crick, and Maurice Wilkins in 1962. A fair and interesting question, however, is this: had she still been alive, would Franklin have been included in a Nobel prize given for “discoveries concerning the molecular structure of nucleic acids and its significance for information transfer in living material (7).”
Figure 1. Matilda Joslyn Gage. Reproduced from reference (5). We also wondered what other women had been nominated for a Nobel Prize in Chemistry but who had not won. The Nobel Prize website (https://www.nobelprize.org/) has a Nomination Archive (8) that contains information on nominees and their nominators. It has the restriction that no nomination material other than the names can be accessed unless the nomination had been made more than 50 years ago, and unless all involved, nominee and nominator(s), are deceased. A search for all women nominated for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry between 1901 and 1965 returned a list of twelve names, see Table 1. Of these twelve, three actually won Nobel Prizes in Chemistry―Marie Curie (1911), Irène Joliot-Curie (1935), Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin (1964)―and it is well known that the first of Marie Curie’s two Nobel Prizes was in Physics (1903). One other woman on the list, Maria Goeppert-Mayer, won the Nobel Prize in Physics (1963). Since 1965, the list of female Nobelists in Chemistry has increased by only one: Ada Yonath (2009) (9). x Mainz and Strom; The Posthumous Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Volume 2. Ladies in Waiting for the Nobel Prize ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2018.
Table 1. Women Nominated for a Nobel Prize in Chemistry before 1965 (8) Nominee
Nobel Prize Chemistry
Nobel Prize Physics
# times nominated Chemistry
Marietta Blau
1
Martha Chase
1
Marie Curie
1911
1903
2
# times nominated Physics
3
1
Joan Folkes 1963
Maria Goeppert-Mayer
1
26
Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin
1964
24
8
Irène Joliot-Curie
1935
3
15
Lise Meitner
19
29
Ida Noddack
4
Marguerite Perey
4
Thérèse Tréfouël
1
Dorothy Wrinch
2
The Ladies in Waiting symposium featured all eight women on this list who did not win a Nobel. Separate talks were given on Marietta Blau, Lise Meitner, Ida Noddack, and Marguerite Perey. One talk focused jointly on the other four nominees, Martha Chase, Joan Folkes, Thérèse Tréfouël, and Dorothy Wrinch, who were not as well-known as the other four. We then asked members of HIST and WCC to suggest other names to include. In its final form, the symposium included an introductory lecture by Magdolna Hargittai on the underrepresentation and underrecognition of women in science (specifically with respect to the Nobel prize), talks on the nine women named previously, and talks on six others: Agnes Pockels, Katherine Blodgett, Erika Cremers, Kathleen Yardley Lonsdale, Rachel Carson, and Darleane Hoffman. All the women featured in the symposium are represented in this volume, except for Martha Chase, Joan Folkes, Thérèse Tréfouël, and Dorothy Wrinch; a variety of circumstances led to their being omitted. But, in compensation, chapters were added on three women whose work was not included in the symposium: Marjory Stephenson, Margherita Hack, and Isabella Karle. The last event of the symposium was a dramatic presentation, No Belles, by the Portal Theatre Company, which told the story, through a variety of storytelling techniques, of women who won and didn’t win Nobel Prizes. It is one of the most effective means we have ever seen to communicate to nonscientists why one pursues a scientific career and why it matters. Everyone present was touched by one or all of the stories of the women scientists presented. We note that the recent book by Brian Keating, Losing the Nobel Prize, made a proposal for giving posthumous or retroactive Nobel Prizes (10). His book dealt with the awards in physics. He made a strong case for awarding a prize to Vera xi Mainz and Strom; The Posthumous Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Volume 2. Ladies in Waiting for the Nobel Prize ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2018.
Rubin, discoverer of dark energy, who died in 2016. Keating suggested that a retroactive prize should go to Jocelyn Bell Burnell, the discoverer of pulsars when a graduate student. The half of the 1974 Nobel Prize in physics that honored the discovery of pulsars was given solely to her thesis advisor, although clearly there was room for a third person on the award. Brunell is still alive, as is Darleane Hoffman in our group of noted researchers. In the Preface to The Posthumous Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Volume 1. Correcting the Errors and Oversights of the Nobel Prize (11), we noted that “Any chemist with a decent background in chemical history could readily add other deserving chemists to our list . . . ” Undoubtedly, this is also the case for the current symposium: there are other women as well as noteworthy scientists of color who could have been included. These men and women should be the topic of a future symposium. By highlighting this group of extraordinary women scientists, we raise awareness of the Matilda effect, but more importantly, we honor them and their accomplishments. In a review of five books on women in science (Marie Curie, Marie Tharp, Rosalind Franklin, Hedy Lamarr, and Dorothy Wrinch), Patricia Fara wrote (12): Biographers can shift attitudes, but they need to celebrate their subjects for being special scientists, not marvel at them as weird women. Just like men, female scientists have individual personalities and idiosyncrasies, and they have weaknesses as well as extraordinay capabilities - not because they are women, but because they are human beings. That is how we wanted to present the women portrayed in this volume. We hope we succeeded!
References 1. 2.
3. 4. 5.
Russ, J. How to Suppress Women’s Writings; University of Texas Press: Austin, TX, 1983. University of Texas Press Web site. https://utpress.utexas.edu/books/rushow (accessed June 12, 2018). The publisher’s website describes the new edition of the book as “A provocative survey of the forces that work against women who dare to write.” With minimal change (change write/wrote to do the research/did the research), the cover text describes the challenges faced by women in science to get their work published and acknowledged. Wikipedia Website, Matilda Joslyn Gage. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Matilda_Joslyn_Gage (accessed June 10, 2018). Rossiter, M. W. The Matthew Matilda Effect in Science. Social Studies of Science 1993, 23 (2), 325–341. Gage, M. (née, Joslyn) (1826–1898). VCU Libraries Social Welfare History Project Web site. https://socialwelfare.library.vcu.edu/woman-suffrage/ gage-matilda-joslyn/ (accessed Oct. 11, 2018). xii
Mainz and Strom; The Posthumous Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Volume 2. Ladies in Waiting for the Nobel Prize ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2018.
6.
Borman, S. Notable Chemists Who Should Have Won the Nobel. Chem. Eng. News 2016, 94 (15), 19–21. On-line commentary: https://cen.acs.org/articles/94/i15/Five-chemists-should-wonNobel.html?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Newsletter&utm_ campaign=CEN&elqTrackId=7c450a066ecf42518c05da9ae0597920&elq= b6fb1a6abe7a46b59724c313bdea7caa&elqaid=2675& elqat=1&elqCampaignId=842 (accessed Oct. 11, 2018). 7. 1962 Nobel Prize in Medicine and/or Physiology in 1964. Nobel Prize Web site. https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1964/ (accessed June 12, 2018). 8. Nomination Archive. Nobel Prize Web site. https://www.nobelprize.org/ nomination/archive/ (accessed April 10, 2017). 9. Nobel Prize Awarded to Women. Nobel Prize Web site. https:// www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/lists/women.html (accessed June 12, 2018). 10. Keating, B. Losing the Nobel Prize; W. W. Norton & Co.: New York, 2018; pp 271–274. 11. Preface. In The Posthumous Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Volume 1. Correcting the Errors and Oversights of the Nobel Prize Committee; Strom, E. T., Mainz, V. V., Eds.; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2017; p ix. 12. Fara, P. Women in Science: Weird Sisters? Nature 2013, 495, 43–44.
Vera V. Mainz Department of Chemistry University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 600 S. Mathews Avenue Urbana, Illinois 61802, United States
E. Thomas Strom Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry University of Texas at Arlington Box 19065 Arlington, Texas 76019-0065, United States
xiii Mainz and Strom; The Posthumous Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Volume 2. Ladies in Waiting for the Nobel Prize ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2018.
