Women in Biology

For my Final project I did a slide show like thing with the quotes I received from questions I asked those I know. The project based around the question “Why do you think there is a perception that if women go into science they go into biology?” I asked professors and some biology majors more questions, but I asked that question of any one of my facebook friends that wanted to respond. I got great responses. Because of the organic, ever evolving nature of this project I didn’t feel a paper did it justice, so there is a “video”. I did not know where this project was going to go, which was terrifying for me, but in the end I feel I learned a lot. Here is the video, I’m really sorry it’s hard to read, it wasn’t really designed to be compressed for the web.

With this project I learned that while it appears that women have gained a level of equality in biology that is not necessarily present in other science fields, this is partly due to old patriarchal views on what is acceptable for women to do. Biology was seen as the most feminine “softer” science it was more acceptable for women to be in the field, and consequently more women were in the field making contribution earlier then other science field. There have consequently been strong female role models for girls in school showing them it is possible for them to become a scientist too. So because of people like Rosalind Franklin, Marie Curie, and my current favorite, Nettie Maria Stevens the field of biology is really about even in the gender divide.