We should always add a mental asterisk to the names of male researchers who discovered things while women were oppressed.
That said, this meme is playing loose and fast with the specifics, which undermines that important message.
Just picking the first one:
Payne’s work was her Ph.D. thesis and Russell did not tell her not to publish it, her advisor did. The advisor told her not to rock the boat in her thesis. This is good advice that even Einstein was given. Payne, badass, declined.
When Russell later reproduced her research, he cited her thesis as the “most important research” he’d seen on the subject.
The real snub with Payne is that her title was “Technical Advisor” for 20 years despite being well regarded as a full time professor. It wasn’t until the 50’s she was recognized as a professor, when she was also made chair of the department.
Source: https://www.amnh.org/learn-teach/curriculum-collections/cosmic-horizons-book/cecilia-payne-profile
See also Rosalind Franklin who first discovered DNA’s double helix structure (three men later received the Nobel Prize for this finding).
And more examples here.
When I took some astronomy classes in the early 2000s, Jocelyn Bell was absolutely credited. In her own words:
It has been suggested that I should have had a part in the Nobel Prize awarded to Tony Hewish for the discovery of pulsars. There are several comments that I would like to make on this: First, demarcation disputes between supervisor and student are always difficult, probably impossible to resolve. Secondly, it is the supervisor who has the final responsibility for the success or failure of the project. We hear of cases where a supervisor blames his student for a failure, but we know that it is largely the fault of the supervisor. It seems only fair to me that he should benefit from the successes, too. Thirdly, I believe it would demean Nobel Prizes if they were awarded to research students, except in very exceptional cases, and I do not believe this is one of them. Finally, I am not myself upset about it - after all, I am in good company, am I not!
That said, yeah, I think she absolutely should have been awarded the Nobel prize. But while she did not, she has the admiration — rightly so — of many a budding astronomer.
Lise Meitner went on to be forgotten? In my city, a big street bears her name, including the tram station there. Fittingly, it’s the tram to the University that stops there. Essentially, her name is hammered into all students’ heads here.
Also she herself said that Otto Hahn deserved the Nobel prize. She and Otto Frisch (far kess known than she is!) did the theoretical work regarding the physics behind it.
But Pauli got the physics prize that year, and he sure deserves it. Maybe one of the later prices could have been awarded to her.
Otto Frisch is better known these days because he went on to work on the Manhatten Project. He appeared as a character in Oppenheimer.
Agree. There’s a street, a monument, a research facility and two schools with her name in a 10km radius of me.
She also has an element named after her
Shout out to the bad bitch Margaret Hamilton who was a coder for the Apollo 11 mission. She was a huge inspiration to me as a kid and they made a Lego set that included her.
I’d love to meet whoever made this graphic. Shake his hand. Seems like a good dude.
Lol… what?
My attempt at a joke about casual sexism. I was a little high, and I’m not sure if it landed
A exhaled some air harder than usual, and gave you an Upvote. FWIW.
That’s honestly all I wanted
Probably made by a promising young man.
Nowadays the men have learned to be more subtle and would say “and thanks to Lise for arranging the socials”.
Actually, that Hertha Ayrton quote at the end? About the cats or whatever? That was actually me. I said that.
I wamted to post Ada Lovelace and Maria Curie, but then I read image.
Marie Skłodowska Curie
For our polish friends
Bobr says yes.
Who is downvoting this?
Probably people who have heard of these scientists being recently credited for their work.
The phrase “all the credit” is a bit sensationalist, and it’s too easy to poke holes in, although I do concede that “Most of the credit” is vague and “All of the Nobel Prize recognition and prize money / peer accolades” is a bit too wordy.
It’s important that we don’t weaken the cause by easily disprovable exaggeration. These scientists did not get nearly enough credit; true.
So, how about you go ahead and do the math on how long it took for that to finally happen for each of these women? And when you’re done not bothering to do that, go ahead and admit that you wouldn’t be pissed at all if your hard work and lifetime of research and sacrifice was credited to someone else- and not corrected until you’re long dead.
Because I’ll be waiting here to call you a liar.
I agree, it’s infuriating.
Have you met men on the internet lately? like a 1/3 chance of intense misogyny.
If we’re still honest here, didn’t these men just shield them from the burdens of fame and criticism?
So they could focus on their families
I think people missed your sarcasm lol
Missing the mention of Einstein’s first wife?
The nobel prize is a fucking self congratulatory sham anyway if you read about its history
Inventor of dynamite’s legacy: pin awards on great discoveries.
How did you think that would pan out?
To the best, or to the loudest & most destructive?
I want to upvote this so many times!!