Product Description

Why, when girls outstrip boys in exams, are there still so few women in the top levels of science? Why have women been excluded and is there still discrimination? Acclaimed science writer and children's author Patricia Fara investigates science past and present to find the answers. She examines women scientists' struggle against unequal opportunities, and shows how they have succeeded despite the obstacles stacked against them. The renowned names are here ? Marie Curie, Florence Nightingale, Rosalind Franklin ? but Scientists Anonymous also reveals the forgotten contributions of many other dedicated and brilliant women. Combining history, science and biography, Fara presents the stories of female explorers, mathematicians, astronomers and chemists from all over the world.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #143358 in Books
• Published on: 2007-08-02
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

Review
'Fara is an exhaustive, encyclopaedic guide to the achievements, both celebrated and unsung, of women in science, scrupulous about setting these in their historical and cultural contexts, explanatory without being didactic and immensely readable.' Jan Mark, Guardian

About the Author
Patricia Fara is a Fellow of Clare College at the University of Cambridge where she teaches history of science. She is an expert on magnetism in the eighteenth century, and has also written and lectured widely on scientific portraits, the northern lights and international exploration. Her most recent book, Newton: The Making of Genius, examines how Newton came to be celebrated as a national hero and the world's first scientific genius.

Customer Reviews

Putting women back into the equation
This book (in its 1st edition incarnation) provided some revelation for me - a female wanna-be scientist. Since reading it I have gone on to study for a PhD myself - perhaps I have become one of the women bridging back the gap(!) In any case, the revelation was nothing short of an understanding that women had not been absent from science in history because of oppression, but that they had just not been credited with their achievements because of that oppression - which in case you're wondering really IS a big revelation to young females competing with so much genderisation in the sciences.

The only failing of this book is that it cannot possibly fit all of the stories of forgotten scientists, nor adequately do each story justice - for that I think we are in need of a series.

Having got so much out of it myself I have recently bought the new edition in the hopes of inspiring my nieces. I only wish it could be core reading in schools!