About this item
Why are the fields of science and technology still considered to be predominantly male professions? The Madame Curie Complex moves beyond the most common explanations - limited access to professional training, lack of resources, exclusion from social networks of men - to give historical context and unexpected revelations about women's contributions to the sciences.Exploring the lives of Jane Goodall, Rosalind Franklin, Rosalyn Yalow, Barbara McClintock, Rachel Carson, and the women of the Manhattan Project, Julie Des Jardins considers their personal and professional stories in relation to their male counterparts - Albert Einstein, Robert Oppenheimer, Enrico Fermi - to demonstrate how the gendered culture of science molds the methods, structure, and experience of the work. With lively anecdotes and vivid detail, The Madame Curie Complex reveals how women scientists have often asked different questions, used different methods, come up with different explanations for phenomena in the natural world, and how they have forever transformed a scientist's role.
About the Author
Julie Des Jardins is a historian who writes on American women and gender. Born in Evanston, Illinois, she got her doctorate in history at Brown University and taught at Harvard and CUNY. Her books are conversations between the past, the present, and the future. From Madame Curie, to Walter Camp, to Missy Meloney, her subjects have been specially picked because they shed light on questions that preoccupy us now: the "woman" problem in STEM, the crisis of CTE in football and constructions American masculinity, the dilemma of 'work-life balance,' and the animosity against women in charge.
