Sanato 27 August the first issue dedicated to the great female figures in history. There is still a lot to do for effective equality in the world of research. The Nobel laureates Rita Levi Montalcini and Marie Curie stand out as examples
We start with the scientists. It seems to us an excellent argument for the launch of a series of books dedicated to women in history. While it is true, in fact, that the female universe, with its values and rights, with its presence in various qualified areas, still struggles to emerge from the shadows, telling women of science focuses on a specific regime of female exclusion is even harder than achieving other goals. But, on the other hand, it also reveals its successes, through citations and analyzes of the works of astronomers, philosophers, mathematics, physics, chemists, biologistscomputer science, astrophysics.
The ingenuity of Minerva. Brilliant scientists from ancient times to today the title of volume by Letizia Giangualano, offered as a tribute as the first issue of the series La storia delle donne, on newsstands on 27 August with Corriere della Sera. Observes Barbara Biscotti in the introduction to the series: The presence of women in scientific fields is still significantly minority and the obscene specter of an alleged lower “natural” inclination of the same for the scientific, technological, engineering and mathematical subjects (the so-called Stem) is still today often agitated carelessly. She adds: The statistics show that today there is still a long way to go in this regard, starting with the way in which boys and girls are educated from an early age according to gender stereotypes and the persistent socio-cultural pressure exerted on girls to reach the problems presented by a highly discriminatory labor market especially in those sectors.
Women of science, then. If having received the Nobel Prize is a significant fact (and it is) to measure female visibility, here the author of the work in the first lines goes to the point: In the 2021 edition of the Nobel no prize was awarded to female researchers scientific. Strange? No. the confirmation of a general trend that speaks clearly since it was established in 1901 – notes Giangualano – 58 women have been awarded to date, compared to 975 medals awarded, 4 percent of the total. And the numbers go down even more if we consider the scientists: 24 awarded women (25, given that Madame Curie has won two) in one hundred and twenty years… The male-dominated Nobel committee? Or are there fewer female scientists than scientists?
In fact, women account for less than 30 percent of all scientists in the world. This injustice is a reflection of the society in which we live. We still have a lot of work to do, said Goran Hansson, secretary of the Royal Swedish Academy. Mind you, times have changed a lot since Agnodice, a gynecologist and obstetrician, disguised herself as a man to study medicine. The astronomer Hyginus tells it, and it seems that the event took place in Athens in the fourth century BC, that of Plato, Aristotle, Hippocrates. And speaking of medicine, it is no coincidence that the origins of women’s interest were gynecology. From the historical and dramatic literature, some information is obtained on modesty and empiricism of healing from diseases in the female world, notes the author of The ingenuity of Minerva. Basically, the difficulty of women to rely on male specialists.
Giangualano, therefore, points to virtuous examples of female gynecology. At the beginning of the 12th century the name of Trotula de Ruggiero stands out, active among the doctors of the Salernitana School (Mulieres Salernitanae), an anomaly among the places of culture of the time. She wrote important treatises on obstetrics and gynecology, which remained in use in the following centuries.
The excursus on the path of female scientists, from the past to the present time, full of stories about female figures, some known, others less so. From Elena Lucrezia Corner Piscopia, a Venetian noblewoman, first Italian graduate (1679), to the German entomologist Maria Sybilla Merian, the first scientist to document the life cycle of insects. In 1699 she embarks on a scientific expedition to South America to study tropical insects. Other names: Maria Gaetana Agnesi publishes Analytical institutions for the use of Italian youth, first mathematics textbook written by a woman (1748); the English paleontologist Mary Anning discovers the first complete ichthyosaur (1811); physics and chemistry Marie Sklodowska Curie the first woman to receive a Nobel Prize for Physics in 1903. She Doubles in 1911. In 1943, the American computer scientist Grace Hopper participates in the creation of the first digital computer. In 1986 Rita Levi Montalcini received the Nobel Prize for Medicine.
And on until 2020, the year in which the biochemists Jennifer Doudna (American) and Emmanuelle Charpentier (French) receive the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. just a taste of what the volume proposes.
The review. As a gift the book L’ingegno di Minerva
The appointment on newsstands for Saturday 27 August, when the readers of Corriere della Sera will receive the book by Letizia Giangualano as a gift The ingenuity of Minerva. Brilliant scientists from ancient times to today. The volume inaugurates the new series The history of women, created in collaboration with Io Donna and edited by Barbara Biscotti, professor of Institutions of Roman law and History of Roman law at the University of Milan-Bicocca. The series includes 25 volumes (the first ten titles in the graph on the right) to be released every week with the newspaper until 11 February 2023. The authors explore the different fields in which female protagonism has manifested itself over the course of history, despite the many obstacles that the dominant patriarchal mentality has always opposed to the emancipation of women. It is a question of reconstructing with due attention events that have been distorted by the prevalence of the male point of view, sometimes even male-dominated. On 3 September, the second title of the series, the book by Massimo Canuti, will be released on newsstands with Corriere The Silent Resistance. The combatants in the Italian Liberation War, at a price of € 6.90 plus the cost of the newspaper. All the other volumes of the series will be on sale at the same price: September 10 will be the turn of the book The conquest of power. Queens and empresses by Francesco Merlino. Followed by: Andrea Dusio, Portrait of an artist. Painting, sculpture, avant-garde, performance (September 17); Giovanni Landi, The city of ladies. Courageous, authoritative, authoritarian: women in politics (September 24); Ruth Migliara, The philosophical genius. Great thinkers from antiquity to the twentieth century (1st October).
August 23, 2022 (change August 23, 2022 | 20:16)
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