“Let me tell you what my problem is with women. Three things happen when you share the lab with them: they fall in love with you, you fall in love with them, and when you give the critics, they cry.” The guy who said this was Tim Hunt, who was awarded the Nobel Prize by the academy in 2001 and had no choice but to resign from his position as honorary professor at the University College of London.The world of science is overflowing with foolish comments and prejudices like this. Although the optimists of the world are rejoicing about “gender equality”, this is nothing more than a dream yet to be realized. The statistics speak for themselves:
“When climbing the scientific career the proportion of women decreases” revealed last year the Women Researchers Report 2016 of the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC). This happens despite the fact that 60% of university degrees in the world are obtained by women.
Misogyny, misanthropy and racism have always been present in the world’s mentality. If you don’t believe it, here are 3 of the most respected scientists in the world who have had this kind of opinions:
Darwin and His Justification for Inequality
Darwin regretted that the weak members of civilized societies started spreading themselves. His theory of evolution served to legitimize Herbert Spencer’s theoretical approach to social Darwinism. In it, it is argued that the Darwinian “survival of the fittest” could be applied to the social; therefore, this theory legitimizes inequality and even the perishing of the most unfortunate sectors of the population.
Many of the scientist’s followers sought a way to demonstrate that this would be completely against what the Father of Evolution would think, however, a letter written in Darwin’s own handwriting to Heinrich Fink reads:
“I fear that the cooperative societies which many see as the main hope for the future equally exclude competition. This seems to be a great danger to the future progress of mankind. Nevertheless, under any system, the moderate and frugal workers will have an advantage and leave more offspring than the drunken and reckless.”
With this -and with other statements by the scientist- it became clear that Darwin himself agreed to broaden the scope of his theory to encompass the social spectrum and thus justify the abuse of power and inequality.
Tesla and His Forced Eugenics
Tesla supported the idea of eugenics as a way to “purify” the human race. He openly expressed his support for sterilizing people suffering from mental disorders – although he himself suffered from obsessive-compulsive disorder – and also for those who had committed a crime. He even believed that forced eugenics would prevail worldwide in the year 2100.
“The year 2100 will see eugenics universally established. In past ages, the law governing the survival of the fittest eliminated the less desirable strains. Then man’s new feeling of compassion began to interfere with the ruthless workings of nature. As a result, we continue keeping alive and breed the ungodly. The only method compatible with our notions of civilization and race is to prevent the breeding of the unfit by sterilization and deliberate guidance of the mating instinct. Several European countries and several states of the American Union sterilize criminals and the insane. This is not enough. The tendency of opinion among eugenicists is that we should make marriage more difficult. Certainly, no one who is not a desirable parent should be allowed to produce offspring.”
Following Tesla’s vision we would be able to decide on who lives, who doesn’t and who has the right to reproduce.
James Watson: His Stolen triumph, Racism and Homophobia
Rosalind Franklin experienced for herself what the lagging of science in legislative matters meant. She obtained the famous 51 photograph where the double helix structure is evidenced. However, the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine only went to Francis Harry Compton Crick, James Dewey Watson and Maurice Hugh Frederick Wilkins, all men, of course. It seems unnecessary to mention that her name indeed did not appear in the history books either.
In addition to sneaking and stealing the photograph obtained by Franklin -a vital piece for the discovery of DNA– Watson showed that in besides living with a tricked-out triumph, he could express his opinion in completely unfortunate ways.
A few years ago, he declared for The Sunday Times:
“All our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours, while all the evidence shows that this is not really the case.”
As El País recalls, this was not the only unfortunate statement on the part of the scientist, previously, he declared that a woman could have an abortion if she discovered that her child “would be born homosexual”.
As highlighted by María Luisa Bacarlett Pérez, in her article “Women in Science”:
“The history of the sciences reports the tortuous and sometimes dangerous twists and turns that hundreds of women had to go through when they sought a space in Western scientific activity. Perhaps many people may wonder: what? women in scientific history?, is there even a history of women that are scientists?, is their presence not just a matter of a few decades ago? To increase this astonishment, it is worth answering such questions and saying yes, indeed, the history of Western science is full of women who developed cosmological theories, who discovered comets and new chemical elements, who created new philosophies and performed amazing astronomical-mathematical calculations.”
Unfortunately, if in this moment we could run to the library and patiently go through the books on the history of science, we might slip a hooray if a single woman is mentioned in such collections. There is not much to say, but that the role of women in science has remained silenced throughout history.
In other words, we must be able to differentiate between two things: the perception that “there are not any women in science” and the fact that official history has taken great effort to conceal it. The designation of “scientist” turns the person in question into a kind of ” shielded” being who feels entitled to give an indifferent opinion on race and gender.
It is therefore extremely necessary to recognize the role of women in this area of knowledge. It is extremely necessary to recognize the female role of women in this area of knowledge. Therefore, read about 5 women who revolutionized science and learn about the scientific danger of male dominance and why they say that “women are so bad for science”.
On the cover: John Maler Collier, Portrait of Charles Darwin (1802-1882), 1883.
This story was originally written in Spanish by Cultura Colectiva.
