Wimmin in STEM

The Blob was born when  I started a new job in The "Not-a-University" Institute. It wasn't in the original programme of works, but I soon decided that my mission was to recruit and maintain more Women in Science. The Future of Ireland as a Technological Nation [FITNa polybloboprev] would be better served by including the 50% of the population who identified as women: different ways of seeing; different ways of interacting with peers; different lived experience . . . might bubble up a greater choice in the solution space. I started to write ~700 word Brief Lives of women [living and dead] in science & tech thinking that one of those tales might inspire one student to come aboard and stick it out and get qualified. There are more than 100 biogs there now.

At the end of July, the rest of the family made a site visit to the Coolock branch of Dublin City where Dau.I the Librarian is currently working. After the tour, I borrowed a Book - getting into the spirit of place, like: Female Innovators Who Changed Our World: How Women Shaped STEM (2022 €20!!) by Emma Shimizu. As it happens, I have a bit of a part-time unpaid gig writing 250 word book reviews for the Coolock Library newletter. So there was just a smidgen of pressure to pick a book that was available on the shelves at Coolock.   

Right off the bat, I asked how much overlap there was between Bob's list and Emma's. I'd already written about 8 of Emma's 45 chapters: Constance Tipper, Gerty Cori [R on 2011 stamp], Rachel Carson, Virginia Apgar, Rosalind Franklin, Stephanie Kwolek, Tu Youyou, Françoise Barré-Sinoussi. With another three who are indexed in Female Innovators but don't warrant their own chapter: Florence Nightingale, Grace Hopper, Hedy Lamarr. Nobody on Emma's list has any connexion with Ireland; whereas ~20% of Bob's wear the green jersey. 

Everyone who essays these brief biogs of STEM women comes with baggage if not an explicit agenda. I, for obvious chauvinistic, want-of-imagination, reasons push the Irish connexion. Emma edges towards the dispossessed and non-whites who have played a blinder with life's crappy hand of cards. This makes interesting reading for me because so many of them are never 'eard of 'er. But perhaps that's not the best call for a 15 y.o. girl teetering between science and 'business' or modern dance. That youngster won't have heard of anyone, so may be better influenced by someone who is an 'achievable' role model - a bit more like herself . . . The Blob has loads of white Irish examples! Please please, we don't need to hear the Marie Curie story again (and again), even 15 y.o.s in unacademic catchment areas have heard of Team Curie.