Women in Science

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses how Rachel Carson and Barbara McClintock,two of the most successful 20th century female scientists in the world often had their early work denigrated and ignored. Carson's work helped the world recognize the destructive and deadly powers of DDT and its relatives and helped establish the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Dr. Barbara McClintock won a Nobel Prize in 1983, after more than fifty years of research in genetic transposition. This paper looks at how both women had difficulty finding decent positions and reaching acceptance from their peers and how female scientists today continue to make great strides in research and technology, but still have difficulty in being taken seriously by their colleagues.

From the Paper:

"She began writing as a way to make extra income to help support herself and her mother, and left the Bureau of Fishers in 1952 to devote herself to writing. She began studying the effects of pesticides on people and animals as early as 1945. "'The more I learned about the use of pesticides, the more appalled I became,' Carson recalled"(Matthiessen). She went on to write one of the most influential volumes of the decade, "Silent Spring," which vehemently condemned (with startling and graphic research as evidence) the use of pesticides in commercial and agricultural spraying for the control of insects. Her description of the total annihilation of songbird populations where spraying occurred is chilling even today."

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