IntroductionSection 1: Ancient Period to Middle Ages Chapter 1: Records and Gaps, Astronomers and Myths Addresses the difficulty of writing histories of women in male-dominated fields and the way historians read both records and the gaps in records to recover these stories. Uses the biographies of two ancient women astronomers, and shows how these stories have been obscured by the way women are mythologized in even the earliest astronomical discourse. Chapter 2: Physicians and Midwives Details some of the ways that women participated in medicine in the ancient period, especially as midwives, and how they acquired and codified specialized knowledge about women's bodies. Individual Biography: Trota of Salerno Chapter 3: Witches and Mystics Explores how the ancient witches of Thessaly and women mystics of the Middle Ages harnessed the supernatural to gain authority in scientific matters. Section 2: The Renaissance & Enlightenment Chapter 4: Women Mathematicians and Astronomers Noting the persistent myth that women are unsuited to mathematics, this essay addresses several early modern mathematicians who worked on synthesizing, simplifying, and correcting the work of men, important unrecognized work that helped secure fame and acceptance for the ideas of people like Kepler and Newton. Individual Biography: Maria Cunitz Chapter 5: Wives, sisters, helpers This essay addresses how and why women in science have been left out of historical record in their roles as assistants or helpers while their more famous male relatives have received recognition. Chapter 6: Early Modern Anatomy and the Female Body Addresses the early-modern understanding of the female body as it was enabled through practices of dissection and the science of anatomy, including the work of women anatomists and physicians. Chapter 7: Colonialism and Scientific Travel In the nineteenth century, scientist explorers traveled to all corners of the world collecting specimens and observing unfamiliar people, a pursuit that was overwhelmingly male. This essay shows how the theme of scientific exploration has always been coded male, but also how some women were able to break through barriers to explore unknown frontiers.Section 3: The Long 19th Century Chapter 8: 19th century Popularizers and Natural Theology In traditional 19th century gender roles, women were seen as natural religious teachers and nurturers. This essay shows how these seemingly regressive beliefs about women's roles made them particularly suited to adapt materialistic scientific theories. Individual Biography: Elizabeth Wolstenholme Elmy Chapter 9: Collecting and crazes as feminine pursuits This essay explores nineteenth century natural history culture, known for its fossil collecting and botany crazes. As predominantly female pursuits, women were able to make names for themselves in scientific fields. This essay explores the ways that botany came to be regarded as an appropriate scientific practice for women, and how this association subsequently feminized the field within the larger scientific establishment. Male scientists and writers initiated a public campaign to reclaim botany for male practitioners. Chapter 10: Nursing This essay details how in the nineteenth-century nursing became an established professional field with formal training and nursing societies. It was considered a field of medicine particularly suited to women and allowed them an entry point into medical science. Chapter 11: Lady Doctors In the nineteenth century, there was an international movement advocating for women to be allowed to obtain medical degrees in order to treat and care for other women. This essay explains how this movement was an essential cultural moment in which women were for the first time able to enter medical science in large numbers. Chapter 12: Women's Medical Education and Missionary Medicine During the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, women from around the world entered the United States to study medicine. This essay explains how, despite superficial impressions of racial and gender equality, these medical programs outreach to international women was an attempt at Protestant religious imperialism. Individual Biography Anandi Joshee Section 4: The 20th Century Chapter 13: Women Computers at Harvard/genetics Tells the history of the Harvard Observatory and the many women astronomers, known then as human computers, who catalogued the night sky. Links the cataloguing and classifying of natural history to the computers of the 20th century but also the ones who worked with Margaret Dayhoff, Lois Hunt to compile genetic databases. Chapter 14: Domestic Science and Engineering This essay explores the ways that science was introduced into the household, and how women created scientific practices for themselves within a domestic context. Chapter 15: Bad Women Just as some men have used science to justify or enable practices that we now condemn, such as forced medical experimentation and eugenics, women have also been involved in the darker side of science throughout history. Chapter 16: Archeology & Anthropology Until the 20th century, the connected fields of archaeology and anthropology were dominated by white male practitioners, which influenced the way the fields constructed cultural beliefs about women and indigenous people. When women started to enter the field, they changed this perception. Chapter 17: The Manhattan Project and the Nuclear World Women were deeply involved with the creation of the atomic bomb, and studying its effects. Section 5: The 20th Century - Post WWII Chapter 18: Refugee scientists A number of Jewish women refugee scientists immigrated to the United States to flee the Holocaust, but unlike their male colleagues, they faced unique challenges in securing visas and employment. Chapter 19: Environmentalism and Ecofeminism Women scientists and feminists helped to shape the early environmental movement at the beginning of the twentieth century, and were instrumental in its flourishing in the post war period. Chapter 20: Science during Jim Crow/Civil Rights Addresses the specific barriers that Black women pursuing scientific careers faced during the Jim Crow era and Civil Rights period in the United States. Individual biography: Mamie Phipps Chapter 21: Women in the space program: Women Astronauts Details the struggle women faced in being included in the American space program and the extremely macho culture of early human spaceflight. This also highlights the integral roles that women played in the space program as clerical workers, programmers, and food scientists. Chapter 22: Psychology and Social Sciences Explores how women challenged dominant narratives in psychology and the social sciences that marginalized women and people of color and how they opened up new avenues of inquiry in gender and race. Chapter 23: Female Firsts Explores the way that women's history was originally written and on women whose groundbreaking science was passed over by the establishment, whose male colleagues received recognition and prizes while they remain in relative obscurity.
Anna Reser is an American artist, writer, editor, and historian of
science. She holds a Master's Degree in the history of science from
the University of Oklahoma, where she is currently pursuing
doctoral studies in the history of technology. She is the editor
and co-founder of Lady Science, an independent magazine about women
in the history of science.
Leila A. McNeill is an American writer, editor, and historian of
science. She studied literature at the University of Texas at
Dallas where she graduated with a Master's Degree in Literary
Studies. She then shifted focus to the History of Science,
Technology, and Medicine, in which she earned another Master's
Degree at the University of Oklahoma. She is now an editor-in-chief
of the online magazine, Lady Science, and an independent researcher
and a freelance writer with a focus on women and gender in the
history of science, technology and medicine.
"Full of eye-opening information, this unique perspective on
women’s history will enthrall history buffs, science enthusiasts,
and feminists."
*Publishers Weekly, Starred Review*
"Moving from the ancient world to the modern era, Anna Reser and
Leila McNeill's Forces of Nature examines women's unsung
contributions to various scientific fields."
*Bustle*
"...the scientists in this lively book inspire and fascinate."
*Mental Floss*
"This volume brings to light the contributions of a multitude of
women in science over millennia."
*Albuquerque Journal*
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