Women's Role In The Scientific Revolution By Caroline Herschel

Lisa Jardine’s Ingenious Pursuits: Building the Scientific Revolution provides a comprehensive breakdown of the discoveries that defined the Scientific Revolution and the history behind them. The story of the scientific revolution truly begins with a separation between the Catholic Church and the denizens of Europe brought on by the Protestant Reformation. This separation led directly to the questioning of the church and what they deemed to be true. The growing suspicion of the church applied not only to the politics and religious views but the scientific “facts” the church was built upon. The suspicion of these scientific facts quickly grew to an open challenging of these facts, The Scientific Revolution. The Scientific Revolution is something we have all studied in our grade school years and the discoveries of people such as Isaac Newton and Galileo Galilei are well documented and arguably common knowledge but Jardine’s book Ingenious Pursuits encapsulates the scientific revolution in a new light. Jardine accomplishes this by telling the stories of some of the greatest achievements of the Scientific Revolution. These stories reveal the collaborations of some of histories most brilliant minds as well as the secrecy amongst them and uncover the motives that fueled many of these accomplishments.

The Enlightenment is known as the revolution that brought to question the traditional political and social structures. This included the question of the woman’s traditional roles in society. As the public sphere relied more and more ?? and the advances in scientific and educated thinking, women sought to join in with the ranks of their male counterparts. Women held gatherings known as salons where they organized intellectual conversations with their distinguished male guests. Seeking to further their status, enlightened women published pamphlets and other works advocating for educational rights and political recognition. Even with this evolution of woman in society, many still clung to the belief that the role of the woman was solely

In the book “ The Scientific Revolution: A Very Short Introduction”, Lawrence Principe discusses the general occurring events of the scientific revolution, and overviews various in-depth details in relation to those events. People at the time highly focused on the meanings and causes of their surrounds, as their motive was to “control, improve and exploit” (Principe 2) the world. In his work, Principe has successfully supported the notion that the Scientific Revolution stood as a period in time where one's innovation would drive improvements towards change and continuity of future innovations, along with changes of tradition. His statement is strongly backed by his detailed and particular order of events throughout the book. Nevertheless, certain details that lead beyond the necessary background are found, as they do not appertain to the general line of the book, but rather for background knowledge.

And then towards the middle of the 1600, when the Scientific Revolution was beginning, women slowly began to work with the fields of math and science. Even though they

The Scientific Revolution was when modern science was essentially established, which came along with the major scientific discoveries took place at the time. Some major scientists that contributed to this major era include Nicholas Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, Galileo Galilei, and Isaac Newton. The scientific revolution took place following the Renaissance, from the mid-1500’s until about 1700. This revolution took place throughout Europe. This occurred because, following the Renaissance and the reformation, people became very curious and wanted to understand how the Earth worked. It was almost as if, being that this occurred after the reformation, that they wanted to either confirm or refute the church’s claims. The significance of the scientific revolution was one of great proportions, it changed mankind’s understanding the importance of science, and of how the Earth and solar system function.

Many women have had an impact on science over the years and their accomplishments tend to be underappreciated by the public eye. Often times, there are important people that have made a significant impact on the world that we have today that do not receive the credit and attention that they deserve for their accomplishments. Recognizing and acknowledging people that have made an impact on society now and in the past, is an important part of learning about history and the accomplishments of the past.

During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the Scientific Revolution, which was the development of new sciences and technology, and the Age of Enlightenment, which was the so called “age of reason”, had sparked women’s

As German biographer Johann Eberti acknowledged while recounting the life of astronomer Marie Cunitz, the perpetual conflict between a flourishing career and stable home life compelled women to abandon their household responsibilities to truly liberate their science career (Document 1). From the masculine perspective, critics of women representation, including Eberti, saddled immense responsibility on these women, attempting to scrutinize their every move to disincentivize increased involvement. Without a societal affirmation to share responsibility and champion the progress of inclusion, women retreated into the shadows of the household, stirring resentment towards the patriarchy for failure to evolve. Beyond the acquiescence of morality to household responsibilities, women who attempted to balance the endless obligations were affirmed by society as the paradigm of success, setting impossible standards for the majority. When Dorothea Schlozer first received her Ph.D., she was editorialized by the Göttingen newspaper as the ideal gentlewoman scholar, because of her mastering of household and scientific duties while maintaining her appearance. (Document 13). With the small minority of women able to balance domestic and career responsibilities, the mainstream media subjectively commandeered these women as the optimal view of society; After all, for the newspaper to appease the predominantly conservative

The primary role for women in the 17th century was to make science easier for others to understand. The last sentence in the historical background “women translated scientific works.” shows this. I think that the significance of this is to show women’s contributions to science.

From the beginning of time, science has been an essential part of the creation and progression of civilization. Although many scientists and their work are well known, such as that of Isaac Newton, female scientists are pushed into the shadows and discredited. Scientists such as Rachel Carson and Professor Wangari Maathai are often forgotten, but have done incredible work that was essential to the survival of the planet. Despite focusing their efforts in completely different regions of the world, both women had a major impact and had many similarities between them.

One of the most prolific eras in our world’s history is the Scientific Revolution. During this time men began to think outside the realm of possibility and delved themselves deep into the exciting unknown world of science. The innovative minds of these people churned out inventions like gunpowder and the printing press, as well as, inventive new ways of thinking like the scientific method. Aside from the inventors and innovators, there were also the publicists and writers without whom no one would know or understand the new ideas of the time. One such person was Margaret Cavendish who was born and raised in England. She received the same education that a lady during her time did. However, due to her husband, Sir Charles Cavendish, she was exposed to the world of science. The subject intrigued her so much that she ended up publishing her own theory on atoms. Though her atomic theory contains many scientific Renaissance ideals, it is still seen as a major contribution of thought during the Scientific Revolution.

The frequency-hopping technology associated with military technology, Wi-Fi and many other technological feats of the 21st century was first developed by Hedy Lamarr, the actress turned inventor. In the book, Headstrong: 52 Women Who Changed Science and the World, the author Rachel Swaby covers many different women who made great advancements in their field. She spends one chapter covering the life of the mastermind Hedy Lamarr. The author starts from the beginning of Lamarr’s life and ends with the resurfacing of her idea and its’ use of current technology. The author explains that though Mrs. Lamarr was a wonderful actress, she disliked the social lifestyle of a Hollywood star and preferred to use her free time tinkering. This time to tinker

Though women made up a significant part of an artist’s workshop crew, there is little documentation or representation of women as the artists or artisans in the writings and illustrations from The Encyclopédie, which represents one of France’s greatest contributions and influences on The Enlightenment movement. Though a majority of the illustrative plates of the Encyclopédie do not include any people, as the plates are mostly diagrams about anatomy, scientific concepts, machines, instruments and tools, those that do have people at work portray them as almost exclusively men, with women playing subservient roles when they are pictured. Furthermore, in discussing women from a scientific viewpoint, various contributing authors describe women as the lesser half of men, never given the respect of being considered an individual, with her roles as mother, sister, wife culminating in her definition and limitation. Women were prized for their “beauty, modesty, complaisance, cleverness, fertility, impressive ancestors, and lots of land.” (citation needed) Unable to train officially as an apprentice, women were rarely granted the protections of Guilds,

The industrial revolution, and the work by Darwin in biological determinism, are described by Radek (2008) as having created a significant distinction between the nature and roles of men and women, during the nineteenth century. While women were allowed to be educated, they were discouraged, as it was perceived to be harmful towards the family, and as a possible cause for uterine dysfunction and madness (Radek, 2008). In addition, biological determinism and social parameters

Feminist interaction with the philosophy of science, and in particular a feminist interpretation of epistemology, concerns the extent to which bias influences and shapes knowledge within the scientific community, and means to rectify this. There are three main distinctions of feminist philosophy of science - feminist empiricism, standpoint theory, and postmodernism. I am to be comparing and contrasting two of the three, specifically feminist standpoint theory and empiricism. I shall argue that standpoint theory and empiricism are both legitimate methods for feminist epistemology, yet standpoint theory is a more applicable and plausible method for the analysis of science in particular. I will first explain the main tenets of the feminist philosophy of science, going on to then explain reasons why standpoint theory and postmodernism are legitimate tools of analysis in their own right, and then evaluate their legitimacy.