I received an email from Amy R. at a Strategic Agency (not the name, but the type of Agency). In it she gave me the following link:
Nearly Two-Thirds of Americans Can’t Name a Famous Female Scientist According to National Survey
Seeing the headline, my first thought was, “WTF? Seriously?” I asked Dr. Manto name one and he said, “You.” (Which demonstrates his brilliance.) I’ve since asked other people and I’ve received one of three answers (I’ve yet to get ‘you’ as an answer again): (1) Marie Curie, (2) Rosalind Franklin, (3) Ummm…. Unfortunately, answer 3 seems to be the most prevalent. So, maybe that survey is about right. I hope not, though.
Hmm…that kind of depends on what you mean by famous. Household name famous, Nobel Prize famous, or famous within one’s field?
I suspect that the average person would be hard-pressed to name more than 5 famous scientists, male or female. So, perhaps the fact that they can’t name one famous female scientist is not that surprising. Scientists aren’t general thought of as historical figures who are worth learning about.
It disappoints but doesn’t really surprise me. Maybe it will change soon- there is supposed to be a movie coming out about Hedy Lamarr’s scientific career…
I lean towards ilovesciencereally’s comment. I wonder what the split would be?
This article does, however, give me a great discussion jumping-off point for one of my fall classes– thanks!
Mad Hatter: I’m not really sure which they asked about. My guess would be that the surveyors asked for just a female scientist.
Mrs Whatsit: That’s probably true. A lot of people I asked couldn’t name one or named Einstein. Scientists just don’t hold the same romanticism as war heroes.
Albatross: Really? That’d be kind of cool…
Unbalanced Reaction: No problem. š I thought it was interesting and something that I hadn’t thought about.
The reason I asked is because, obviously, I can name quite a few female scientists who are famous in my field, but may not make the “famous in general” category. I’m not sure I agree with ilovesciencereally that the average person could not name 5 famous scientists, male or female. I asked my husband, who is not a scientist, and he easily named a whole bunch more than 5. Granted, he was an engineering major and perhaps not representative of the average person, but as he pointed out, one can take just about any major unit of measurement (e.g. Hertz, Joule) or constant (e.g. Planck or Rydberg) from a high school science textbook and one is very likely to have the name of a famous scientist!
Mad Hatter: That’s very true. I don’t know how they defined famous. And that’s very important. If it’s Nobel Prize famous, then there are more male winners than female and that seriously limits the odds that a female name would be known. Also, that would rule out other famous scientists that have yet (or will not ever) win the Nobel. Rosalind Franklin comes to mind with that one. I’ll try to email Amy R. and find out.
I was at an MD/PhD grand rounds, and one of the faculty stood up and asked how many J.Lo movies we could name. He got many replies (and laughs). Then, he asked us to name female Nobel laureates in science categories. CRICKETS.