Written Out of History: Meet these Forgotten Women Whose Work in STEM had been Credited to Men Pt. 2

By Arielle Arbel, Executive Blog Director

Lise Meitner, Nuclear Physics (1878-1968)

Image courtesy of Wired.com

Facing both gender discrimination for being a woman and the threat of ethnic cleansing for being Jewish, Lise Meitner went forward with her strong mind and made countless significant contributions to the scientific community. Meitner was a part of a small group of scientists, including Otto Hahn and Otto Robert Frisch, who had discovered nuclear fission. This discovery was the basis of which nuclear weaponry used in WWII was made in addition to electrical energy. Many anti-Jew Nazi laws and anti-women discrimination in the science community led to Lise Meitner being left out of the scientific contributions she had worked on. In 1944, the Nobel Prize credited to the discovery of nuclear fission was awarded only to Otto Hahn, adding yet another prestigious academic recognition Meitner missed out on. Only much later in time was Meitner’s obvious exclusion said to be unjust by scientists.

Mary Anning, Fossil hunter & Paleontologist (1799-1847)

Image courtesy of The Times

To bring an additional income to her family, Mary Anning spent her youth unearthing fossils in her native hometown of Dorset, England. At age 12, Anning unearthed several fossils whose contributions would forever change science as it was once known. The skeletons of an ichthyosaur and two plesiosaurs as well as Anning’s faultless observations led to a new approach to the origins of natural history. In fact, Mary Anning’s work directly laid the foundation of well-known scientist Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. Unfortunately, due to her gender, Mary Anning was “neither allowed to pursue a career in science nor eligible to join the Geological Society of London, despite having many scientists throughout Europe and America seek her consultation in matters of prehistoric anatomy and fossils” (Pak, 2020). Only years after her death in 1847, was Mary Anning finally credited for her significant contributions to science.

Maria Merian, Entomologist & Scientific Illustrator (1647-1717)

Contrary to societal pressures that such a subject was repulsive to study, Maria Merian chose to spend her time studying insects, specifically butterflies. Her pristine note-taking paired with an unusually observant eye lead to various significant discoveries on insect metamorphosis and classifications. Later on in her career, following an unofficial expedition in South America, Merian published Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium, largely surprising the scientific community. Unfortunately, a large portion of her work during and before this expedition was dismissed by the community on the basis it had been written in German rather than Latin, the unofficial language of Science, further tarnishing her credibility and reputation as a genuine scientist. This was also partly due to her gender. However, in today’s scientific community Maria Merian is regarded as one of the world’s leading entomologists and scientific illustrators of all time. Much of her work and classifications are still used to this day.

Image courtesy of Wikipedia

Sources

Pak, E. (2020, August 17). Alice Ball and 7 Female Scientists  Whose Discoveries Were Credited 
to Men. Biography.com. https://www.biography.com/news/alice-ball-female-scientists. 

Wikimedia Foundation. (2021, July 10). Mary Anning. Wikipedia.  
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Anning.

Wikimedia Foundation. (2021, July 6). Maria Sibylla Merian. Wikipedia. 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Sibylla_Merian.


Wikimedia Foundation. (2021, June 29). Lise Meitner. Wikipedia. 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lise_Meitner.