Nobel Prize winners: invisible scientists

Gender issues have been present in human societies since long before the Paleolithic era. And they remain very poorly resolved.

The first known female astronomer and writer is Enheduanna, daughter of Sargo I, founder of the first known empire, the Akkadian Empire. She wrote about the education of women, and her poems (The Exaltation of InannaThe statues of the goddess Ur, created in the Mesopotamian city in the 23rd century BC, were copied for centuries. In fact, she was considered a goddess, the wife of Nanna, the male Mesopotamian god who represented the moon.

On the other hand, at the end of the second millennium BC, in Ancient Egypt, Seshat was the goddess of reason, writing, and knowledge, patroness of scribes, and protector of astronomy and architecture. Also associated with a male deity, Thoth, in her scientific roles she collaborated in the measurement of time—the knowledge of the stars—and in the establishment of the calendars that governed daily life.

These two rare and ancient references serve as a reminder that half of humanity is barely represented in the official narrative of cultural history. The discrimination against women in literary and scientific canons is sometimes a deliberate phenomenon, but at other times it is simply due to an inertia of unquestioned platitudes.

Let's look, for example, at the state of science in the last century, which is a good indicator of the gender inequalities that continue to prevail in human societies, including the most developed. We are not referring only to the overwhelming quantitative contrast between the men and women who have historically dedicated themselves to scientific fields, but also to the qualitative contrast in the recognition of their research. Thus, there are some cases in which the scientific community largely acknowledges the existence of discriminatory practices against top-level female scientists in the awarding of prizes. Let's cite just four, related to the most prestigious prize in the scientific field: the Nobel Prize.

One example is Henrietta Leavitt, a researcher of Cepheid variable stars, from which she collected more than 1,700 data points. Leavitt discovered a pattern: the brightest stars exhibit longer periods of variation, allowing scientists to measure a star's intrinsic brightness and astronomical distances. This knowledge forever changed astronomy. It enabled the American astronomer Edwin Hubble to establish the study of galaxies, as well as the expansive nature of the Universe. Hubble and many scientists asserted that Leavitt's work deserved the Nobel Prize. The lack of foresight and the conservative nature of the committee are quite incomprehensible.

One of the decisive points of nuclear physics developed in the years leading up to World War II was achieving the fission of heavy elements, such as uranium, as a new source of energy, with numerous civilian and military applications. The first country to achieve this was Germany. However, Lise Meitner—who had provided the crucial theoretical interpretation—was excluded from the Nobel Prize, which was awarded only to her teammate Otto Hahn (1944).

In the context of quantum physics research in the 1950s, an astonishing discovery was made: the non-conservation of parity in the decay of particles in weak nuclear interactions. This was a theoretical prediction made by two Chinese physicists, T.D. Lee and C.N. Yang, working in the United States. But it was experimental physicist C.S. Wu who carried out the experiment that confirmed this prediction. While Lee and Yang received the Nobel Prize (1957), Wu was excluded.

The latest example is that of British astronomer Jocelyn Bell Burnell. She discovered a type of regular, periodic astronomical radiation that advanced by four minutes per day, a fact related to the Earth's rotation around the Sun. The conclusion was that it was the emission of radio waves caused by the rotation of a neutron star—also called a neutron star. pulsars because of the similarity of the signal's very precise intervals to the pulses of the human heart. The discovery represented a fundamental milestone in understanding the evolution of massive stars. However, the Nobel Prize (1974) was awarded to Martin Ryle, one of the first researchers involved, and Antony Hewish, Bell's thesis advisor, even though all indications are that he played no role in Bell's work. A shameful oversight, etched as a black page in the Nobel committee's history.

For decades, in the field of beginningVarious national (Generalitat-EIGEC) and international (European Union, United Nations - 2030 Agenda) organizations advocate for "gender equality" in research and innovation, which is entirely appropriate. However, having beginning It's easy; however, obtaining finalsIn other words, achieving results is more complicated. Among other reasons, this is because the various desirable objectives often contradict each other in practice. For example, the inevitable tension between equality and merit among candidates requires prior measures of equity, that is, eliminating as many obstacles as possible that prevent genuine equality of opportunity. Evaluating the effectiveness of gender-based non-discrimination policies is a crucial element in terms of emancipation. It is discussed more than it is implemented and put into practice.

Often, the best policy is not to try to achieve good, but to avoid evil. If we have to discriminate, it is better to employ the kind of politics that Marie de Gournay, editor of theEssaysMontaigne, exerted this power over men who confined women to domestic tasks: "However, what can console them from this contempt is that it only comes from those men whom they would not want to resemble in the slightest" (Equality between men and women, 1622).