Feminist Standpoint
Being a woman in science isn’t easy in today’s world. There are many people hat believe you can’t do it as well or be smarter than a man, and for that reason, they doubt you and they doubt your knowledge. Female scientist today have to work twice as hard as their male counterparts to get the recognition that they deserve and to get the positions that they have worked for. And if you think that being a female scientist in today’s world is hard, imagine what Marie Curie’s experience was.
Marie Curie made many significant strides for females in science, contributing to making our paths to being in the science field much easier than she had had it, but obviously, we still have a lot more to go. Marie was the first female to win a Nobel Prize for science, and she did it twice, for two different areas in science. This was an incredible feat for female scientists around the world, proving that females can make significant discoveries in science and that they do belong in the scientific community.
Through all of this, Marie’s experiences as a female scientist and her relationships that she had with the other male scientists around her significantly impacted her discoveries as well as the recognition that she received for them. Although Marie was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, she had shared that recognition and her work with her husband, and although he deserved the recognition, it is hard to imagine that Marie would have gotten the same recognition that she had if she had made these discoveries by herself, or with another female counterpart. Would they have trusted the scientific work of women without a male being part of the work as well? According to Dr. Halpern and her article, Standpoint theory, in order to make science the most productive, we need to be able to listen to others opinions, especially those who have different backgrounds and experiences. Everyone has lived a different life and may have a different scientific perspective that could help contribute to greater scientific findings. I believe that this is the reason Marie was so productive in her work, the feminist standpoint theory comes into play and allows her to bring in a totally new perspective to her teams work, only adding new insight to their ideas.
Another time when Marie was the first woman to accomplish a feat was when she became the first female professor at a University. However, they had only offered her her husband’s position after he had died. Her personal relationship with her husband and his death was the only reason this university would consider hiring her for the position. Although, this is still a great accomplishment for women and for Marie, the University could have easily hired another male to take the position instead. This was a step in the right direction, allowing Marie to be a role model for women scientists everywhere, regardless of the personal relationships that allowed for her to get there.
Marie’s personal life with male scientists also negatively impacted her when the rumors of her affair with Paul, a notable, married scientist, became public. The Nobel Prize committee no longer wanted Marie to come to the ceremony to accept her reward because of all the drama revolving around her. They were punishing Marie for her personal relationships by taking away from her scientific feats.
Women in science still have a far way to go until they can consider themselves equals in the field, but pioneers like Marie only help us to slowly progress to reaching that point. Women are useful resources to use to think about science in another way and should be utilized more to help scientific discoveries. Science is complex and it is creative, our scientific community needs to be more accepting of anyone who could provide insight into new innovative ideas and this needs to be a more accepting field. We can no longer use women’s relationships as a reason to accept them or to punish them for their scientific attributes. We need to look at everyone’s thoughts the same, regardless of who they are coming from.
