Pandora's Breeches

'Had God intended Women merely as a finer sort of cattle, he would not have made them reasonable.' Writing in 1673, Bathsua Makin was one of the first women to insist that girls should receive a scientific education. Despite the efforts of Makin and her successors, women were excluded from universities until the end of the nineteenth century, yet they found other ways to participate in scientific projects. Because these were being carried out inside private houses, rather than in universities or industrial laboratories, experiments often involved the whole family. As well as collaborating in this home-based research, women corresponded with internationally renowned scholars, hired tutors, and even published their own books. They played essential roles in work that was frequently attributed solely to their husbands, fathers or friends. Women, in this way, have not been written out of the history of science: they have never been written in. If mentioned at all, they appear in subservient roles as helpless admirers or menial assistants. Historians always decide which facts to emphasise, and they generally choose to depict a vision of scientific progress that ignores women's activities.

ISBN 1844130827   Pages 212 ISBN13 9781844130825 (What's this?)   Volumes 1 Publisher Vintage   Weight (grammes) 381 Imprint Pimlico   Published in London Format Paperback   Height (mm) 26 Publication date 04 Mar 2004   Width (mm) 156 Library of Congress Q130   Spine width (mm) 21 DEWEY 500.82   Academic level General DEWEY edition DC22

		List of Illustrations
		Acknowledgements
		Pandora/Eve/Minerva		1
		Prologue		3
1		Women/Science		9
2		Lady Philosophy/Francis Bacon		32
		In the Shadows of Giants		49
3		Elisabeth of Bohemia/Rene Descartes		55
4		Anne Conway/Gottfried Leibniz		74
5		Emilie du Chatelet/Isaac Newton		88
		Domestic Science		107
6		Jane Dee/John Dee		114
7		Elizabetha Hevelius/Johannes Hevelius		130
8		Caroline Herschel/William Herschel		145
9		Marie Paulze Lavoisier/Antonie Lavoisier		167
		Under Science's Banner		187
10		Priscilla Wakefield/Carl Linnaeus		194
11		Mary Shelley/Victor Frankenstein		212
		Epilogue		232
		Notes		237
		Bibliography		254
		Index		267

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