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Review of Forging a New World Since 1972: Women Scientists in America, Volume 3 Marilyn Bailey Ogilvie* Department of the History of Science, The University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma 73019-3106, United States third volume the problem was sorting through massive mountains of data and deciding what to include and exclude in order to tell a coherent story. Although the book basically is organized topically, it is also (as Rossiter notes) organized “somewhat chronologically”. The first five chapters report on the euphoria of the 1970s that women scientists experienced as they rejoiced in the destruction of legal barriers and their subsequent disillusionment when they discovered that legality was not the only barrier to women’s advancement in science. During this time, women learned to organize themselves into efficient advocacy groups. “Invisible” women became visible through groups that gave voice to the concerns of women scientists. Some of these organizations were independent, whereas others formed new units within existing organizations, sometimes with funding from governmental sources (e.g., the National Science Foundation, NSF, and the National Institutes of Health, NIH). Academia as an important employer of scientists had been a male bastion for many years. Women had to overcome a long-time prejudice in order to make significant inroads in the universities, especially the research universities. Problems over hiring, promotion, tenure, and retention had to be addressed. For the women who managed to get desirable academic positions, the “chilly climate” that they often felt made the work environment unpleasant. When women resorted to lawsuits to remedy unfair conditions, they were often unsuccessful. Nevertheless, the numbers of women faculty slowly increased and programs were put in place to support them, some more successful than others. Different disciplines had more trouble than others recruiting undergraduate women science majors. Engineering and agriculture were the most difficult fields in which to recruit female majors, partially because they would be in such a minority that they would find few fellow women students or, for that matter, women faculty members. Overall, however, the total number of women completing bachelor’s degrees in science and engineering more than doubled from 1970 to 2000. Although many of the strategies organized to increase the number of women students in these fields were less than successful, they still boosted the number of women students. Some of the reforms that led to more female undergraduates were societal and included the deliberate recruiting of women by engineering and agricultural schools, former men’s colleges “going coed”, changes in former women’s colleges, and a welcoming atmosphere in the historically black colleges and universities. Rossiter’s treatment of these events is especially strong. A public relations campaign by women scientists was developed to reach out to girls and young women with a message that it was “acceptable, practical, and even fun” to study mathematics in high school and that a major in mathematics or
Forging a New World Since 1972: Women Scientists in America, Volume 3 by Margaret W. Rossiter. The Johns Hopkins University Press: Baltimore, MD, 2012. pp. [16] p. of plates: Illustrations, extensive notes, bibliography. ISBN 9781421403632 (paperback). $45. nyone who has read the first two volumes of Margaret Rossiter’s magnificent trilogy on women scientists in America recognizes that her grasp of the subject is both extensive and intensive. For earlier time periods when information on women scientists was scant, Rossiter scoured the archives of universities, scientific societies, industries, and government agencies and discovered the types of information nobody thought was available. Her work in this area netted her a MacArthur “genius” award, and it is safe to say that she was the one person who jump-started the intensive study of American women scientists. Consequently, scholars anxiously anticipated the appearance of the third volume covering the time period from 1972 until the present. Different problems confronted women scientists in this postaffirmative action world. Women were enabled by the new antidiscrimination legislation to challenge through lawsuits those organizations that continued to discriminate against women and minorities. In Forging a New World Since 1972: Women Scientists in America, Volume 3, Rossiter applied her usual thorough methods to examine large volumes of material and concluded that although legislation outlawed the “rampant discriminatory behavior” occurring in academia, government agencies, and scientific societies, these organizations often found ways to circumvent the laws.
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Cover image provided by The Johns Hopkins University Press and reproduced with permission.
Whereas in the first two volumes Rossiter was deeply involved in detective work, locating archives suitable to be mined, in the © 2012 American Chemical Society and Division of Chemical Education, Inc.
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Book and Media Review
science was an excellent choice for a woman. Organizations led by enthusiastic women scientists based at traditional institutions such as universities, women’s colleges, and scientific societies received funds from foundations and from the revival of the NSF’s Directorate for Education and Human Resources in the late 1980s and 1990s, which provided a variety of programs to interest girls in science, mathematics, and engineering. In the second half of the book, Rossiter discusses the changing role of women in industry, the federal government, and the nonprofit institutions. By the 1990s and first decade of the 21st century, a few women scientists were rising to top positions. However, she noted that academic institutions, especially research institutions, were quite slow in following the trends. The last chapter discusses recognition of women’s expanding role in scientific societies and the prizes won by women. Because of Nancy Hopkins’s revelations about conditions at MIT in 1999 and Harvard president Lawrence Summer’s remarks in January 2005, Rossiter added an epilogue on the major events after 1999. She was hopeful that the institutions were sufficiently contrite to ignite the beginning of an institutional transformation. Because various aspects of a subject are often discussed in different chapters in this book, it would have been helpful if the publisher had chosen to include an analytical index to guide readers. Even with this caveat, for those interested in the recent developments in the role of women in science, Forging a New World Since 1972: Women Scientists in America, Volume 3 is absolutely necessary. It is not a quick read because the amount of material covered can be overwhelming, yet it is an invaluable reference tool.
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