A solid combination of a feminist critique and a fascinating discussion of the progression of 20th- and 21st-century science.
How women have shaped science and vice versa.
Since the early 1900s, Marie Curie (1867–1934), a two-time winner of the Nobel Prize, has been an inspiration for women who aspire to become scientists. Des Jardins (History/Baruch Coll.; Women and the Historical Enterprise in America: Gender, Race, and the Politics of Memory, 1880–1945, 2002) deconstructs the myth of a woman who was apparently “achieving it all: marriage, family, and career,” and setting the standard: “To succeed in men’s fields, women couldn’t be themselves; they had to perform better than men.” The author examines the lives of Maria Goeppert Mayer (1906–1972), winner of the Nobel for discovering the shell structure of the nucleus, and Rosalind Franklin (1920–1958), whose seminal work on the structure of DNA anticipated Crick and Watson’s “discovery” of the double helix but was largely overlooked. While opportunities for women holding doctorates in science increased during World War II, in its aftermath “the ratios of women to men [employed] in math and physical sciences plummeted to one in twenty-five.” Married women who successfully forged careers were expected to make a superhuman effort, while accepting their subordinate role to men, both in the home and in the lab. Rosalyn Sussman Yalow—the winner of the 1977 Nobel in Physiology or Medicine who was dubbed “a Madam Curie from the Bronx” for her groundbreaking work on radioactive tracers—appeared to subordinate herself to physician Sol Berson, her partner until his death in 1972. She deliberately scripted her behavior to accord to the accepted portrait of Marie Curie as the “doer” and her husband Pierre as the “thinker.” In her Nobel speech, Yalow spoke about how sexism in science was an obstacle for women to rise above, but she failed to challenge the basic presumptions of sexist science. Des Jardins juxtaposes Yalow’s failure with the crucial role played by such luminaries as environmentalist Rachel Carson, primatologist Jane Goodall and biologist Barbara McClintock.
A solid combination of a feminist critique and a fascinating discussion of the progression of 20th- and 21st-century science.Pub Date: March 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-55861-613-4
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Feminist Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2009
BOOK REVIEW
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
