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If I were asked to give a lecture series on the topic of my choosing, it would be:

The Lovely Ladies of Science

OR...

Wow, They Really Got Screwed.The first person I would talk about is Rosalind Franklin. Of the people in the world who can tell you who discovered the strucutre of DNA, 90% will tell you it was James Watson and Frances Crik. It's

Comments

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Exactly.

That point about the affirmation of creative subjectivity over the objectification of naming was aesthetic and meta-ethical, not pragmatic. As a person whose early life and identity was shaped by being either ignored or made an object of ridicule and violence by others because of how I was physically different from the dominant (normal) form, I have developed the habit of pointing out the positives of being marginalized and scorned as a both a creative response to power and a survival strategy. Nietzsche called it 'tragic affirmation' and it is a gift that allows us to recognize our own worth in the presence of others' devaluations of us. None of this excuses the primary acts of ignoring or passing-over. It's not an either/or, it's a both/and.

People who make decisions about who gets funding and who gets to be a person who makes decisions really should not allow any value for the biological sex parameter to limit whose work and stewardship-of-projects they believe to be worth affirming in their decisions.

Franklin would be much more visible as a female scientist if the Nobel committee were to break tradition and award the prize to her posthumously, preferably while Watson is still alive and able to go Charlie Rose and talk about it.