Women in Science: Then and Now

A book about the history of women in science that doesn't feel dated, even though it was written 30 years ago. The interviews with women of the 1970s are reporting the same experiences reported by most women in science today The exception is the older women, who came into science when it was impossible for women to even get a job in science, and most of them hung about as unpaid help in their husband's labs. Now women are in science, but their numbers still aren't representative. This book is a good corrective to those who believe Lawrence Summers was right, and women aren't willing to put in the work required. These are women who do that work, and gladly. Also a corrective to the current spate of articles about how women are not show more fulfilled if they don't have husband, children, and plenty of time for cooking, cleaning, and doing laundry. This author does not try to force her women into that mold; instead, she accepts it when they say they would rather give up love than science, and that they do not regret their choices. One complaint about the book is the heavy emphasis on physics and chemistry; there are a few biology women in the book, but like most books on science, biology is extremely underrepresented, in spite of the fact that there are more biologists doing science than there are physicists and chemists, and women face the same problems doing biology as in the other sciences. The other downside is her insistence on the language of lab coats; even in a book that visited real scientists, she didn't manage to notice that most scientists don't wear lab coats. Otherwise a fine work and easy to read. show less