This blog post was inspired by the books “Forces of Nature – The Women who Changed Science” by Anna Reser and Leila McNeill and “Women in Science – 50 Fearless Pioneers Who Changed the World“ by Rachel Ignotofsky. Both shed light on a wide variety of women in science and their contributions. Here, I was only able to pick a few of them I found especially impressive, or relevant to marine sciences. Let me introduce you to a few of my heroines!
Hypatia
Hypatia lived approximately 350/370 – 415 AD in Alexandria, Egypt, which was part of the Roman Empire at the time. She was teaching astronomy and philosophy and was a respected scholar. Though a pagan herself, she was tolerant towards Christians, had Christian students, and was allegedly well-loved by the general public. Unfortunately, she was eventually killed by a group of fanatic Christians as a result of a political feud between the Roman prefect and the bishop of Alexandria. Ever since I first learned of Hypatia, I was fascinated. Here was a woman, having lived some 1600 years ago in a completely different world, yet in a somewhat similar position to a professor in my world and time. Well known, well-loved and doing what we would call science communication by going into the streets and giving lectures in a common poetic style (So I guess you could call her a science slammer?). She has become a symbol of modern feminism in science. The way she died was outrageous, but, sadly, it is probably not entirely surprising that such an impressive woman would have been killed by the hands of a group of fanatic men.
Maria Cunitz
Maria Cunitz lived in the 17th century in Germany. Her published work “Urania Propitia” is the first scientific publication of a woman preserved until today. It contains corrections and simplifications of Kepler’s tables for the calculation of planetary positions. Yes, she corrected the math of one of the important names of astronomy and yet I’ve only really heard about her recently. She was a mathematician and astronomer and was called “The second Hypatia” and “Athena of her time”. And, by the way, she was also fluent in seven languages. I certainly would feel humbled in her presence…
Maria S. Merian
Why Maria S. Merian made it into this post is obvious to anyone familiar with the German fleet of research vessels, since the RV Maria S. Merian is named after her. But even people who have sailed on that ship often don’t know who this late 17th-century scientist was. She loved to observe insects from an early age. This interest, together with the lessons in painting and drawing from her stepfather, who was a professional painter, gave her the skill set to become an incredible natural illustrator, whose work is admired for both its accuracy and its beauty to this day. At her time, it was widely believed that insects were “born from mud” through spontaneous generation. Her detailed observations lead to the discovery of metamorphosis, the development of insects from eggs to larvae to adults in distinct stages. She published several books, including Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium, which consisted of her observations of several years spent in Dutch Guiana (today part of Suriname).
Jeanne Baret
Jeanne Baret was the first woman to complete a journey of circumnavigation of the globe. She was born in France and took part in a French expedition (1766–1769). As women were strictly forbidden on French ships at the time, she pretended to be the male assistant to the naturalist Philibert Commerson, who was in all likelihood also her lover. As Philibert was in bad health for most of the journey, she not only took care of him, but also of most of the scientific work. She was eventually exposed as a woman (allegedly the Haitian population identified her as a woman immediately), but by that time her hard work had already gained her lot of respect and admiration. She and Philibert stayed on Mauritius, where Jeanne ran a tavern and had most likely additional businesses, after Philibert’s death. She eventually returned to France, completing her journey around the world, where she received a pension from the French navy, recognising her significant contributions to the expedition.
Marie Tharp
As I am basically staring at data of the ocean floor all the time as part of my research, Marie Tharp is probably the scientific idol of this list I feel most connected to. She was a geologist and oceanographer and is known to have created the first accurate map of the ocean floor. What is sometimes dismissed as a simple artistic interpretation of the data, actually required detailed geological knowledge, since the available data were only sparse transects across the oceans, that needed to be interpreted and interpolated with great care. Her maps contributed to the general acceptance of plate tectonics in the second half of the 20th century.
If you are inspired to get to know even more heroines of science, I highly recommend the book mentioned above!
Have fun reading!
Cheers,
Elisa