Reading Connections #2 The Women in Scientific Revolution

In a previous class, we had discussed why women were not represented in the science area during the Scientific Revolution. We read an article, Gender, Science and Modernity in Seventeenth-century England, that really got me thinking where were the women? It never even crossed my mind before to ask this question.While thinking about this topic further, I decided to find the rare women who were contributing to the Scientific Revolution. I first started with notes from a professor’s teaching plan outline where I got the names of the women. It was under the sub heading of Roman numeral four; http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:w7PqiIkyWhwJ:www.danville.k12.ky.us/dhs/activities/classroom/apeuhistory/pages/notes/hoover/scientificrevolution.pdf+women+during+the+scientific+revolution&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=3&gl=us&client=firefox-a

The first woman I found was Margaret Cavendish. Margaret was the Dutchess of Newcastle and was alive from 1623 to 1673. She traveled with the exiled Queen Henrietta Maria where she was given an extraordinary education. She was passionate about science, and this was reflected in her book The Blazing World. In this book she hints at such things as atoms being one of the smallest things on Earth, as well as she puts the thought out there that there might be more worlds than just Earth in the Universe. For being a woman and having these ideas she was criticized a great deal for expressing her thoughts on science. For as much criticism she went through she still kept writing books which I believe brought inspiration to females everywhere. I think she brought women inspiration because all of her books were directed towards women instead of everyone in the science community. However, I think it helped Margaret a great deal that she was lucky to be born into a wealthy and educated family and later in life lived with the Queen, which allowed her the resources to be able to study and learn more about science as well be able to even write a book then have it published under her name during this time period when everything was dominated by men. I found a website online all about Margaret that I found very interesting. Here is the link: http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/cavendish/index.html

Many women were known to help their husbands with their research and findings. One came up by the name of Maria Winkleman. Her husband, Gottfried Kirch, was an astronomer for the Berlin Academy of Science. After the death of her husband, Maria had applied to finish her husband’s work at the academy but was denied because of her gender. She kept trying to get back to the academy to finish the work she set out to do, but every time she was denied and could not finish even though she was a very talented astronomer. Many men had accepted that women could be very useful in the area of science and allowed them to help them, such at Krich.

It is evident that the only women we hear about influencing the Scientific Revolution are those who were lucky enough to have the educational background and the connections in order to succeed. There were probably many other discoveries made by common folk women that went un-talked about because the women didn’t have the tools to explain what was happening in their experiments due to lack of education as well as a lack of being able to publish or write their findings and share with others. While researching these women I came across a website that had many women and their discoveries all in one place. Here is that link: http://www.h-france.net/vol6reviews/wellman4.html

In the article I mentioned at the very beginning, the one that sparked my interest, there were some very good theories on why women were never really mentioned. One, the author says, "they (women) were shut out from membership of the Royal Society" So many publishings and findings came to life because the authors were members of this exclusive society. There was also a fear for women who spoke out during this time. Witchcraft trials had greatly increased which many did not want to be accused of because if they were they would be sentenced to death. Taking in these considerations, the women who did get a chance to share their ideas were very couragous and brave women.

Works Cited:

Murray, BJ. "English Renaissance Drama." Margaret (Lucas) Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle. 10 Aug. 1999. 14 Oct. 2008 .

Ruth, Watts. "Gender, Science and Modernity in Seventeenth-century England." Paedogogica Historica 2nd ser. 41 (2005).