Dragaera

RE: Favorite NON-fiction  

Ruhlen, Rachel Louise (UMC-Student) RuhlenR at missouri.edu
Tue Jan 28 11:37:52 PST 2003


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Andrew Lias [mailto:anrwlias at hotmail.com] 
> Sent: Tuesday, January 28, 2003 8:04 AM
> To: Ruhlen, Rachel Louise (UMC-Student); dragaera at dragaera.info
> Subject: RE: Favorite NON-fiction  
> 
> 
> >It's a big women's lib thing too. I had an entire course on Women in
> >Science, for example, which I guess was supposed to counter 
> all the lies 
> >being told in the other courses. My personal pet peeve is 
> that Watson & 
> >Crick discovered the structure of DNA. They stole it from Rosalind 
> >Franklin, who died young of ovarian cancer and so never had 
> a chance to 
> >raise a big stink.
> 
> Um, that's not exactly accurate either, Rachel.
> 
> Franklin made important contributions towards the ultimate 
> determination of 
> the structure of DNA, including the determination that the 
> sugar-phosphate 
> backbone of DNA lies on the outside of the molecule.  She 
> also described the 
> *basic* helical structure of DNA.  Nor is there any question 
> that there was 
> a lot of dirty dealing. Watson, in particular, has gone to 
> some length to 
> deride her essential contributions.
> 
> Be that as it may, it was, in fact, Watson and Crick who 
> discovered the 
> actual structure of DNA, which is a double-helix and who, 
> properly, deserve 
> credit for that work.  This isn't to say that Franklins 
> contributions are 
> unfairly overlooked, but that is the nature of scientific celebrity.

I still have my textbook from that class. I will look that up when I get home. I remember learning otherwise, but my memory is frequently faulty. Like when I could not find my car last night...

Regardless, Franklin's contributions are unfairly overlooked, as you say. That was my point...that is one of my pet peeves. Perhaps it is true that it is the "nature of scientific celebrity". The point of this particular class was to address the tendency of the classroom to overlook consistently contributions of females. Of course those contributions were overlooked, denied, lied about in the society that existed simply because of gender. Now that gender is no longer an issue (well, it is, but that's another argument, so I'll simplify...), there is still a gender discrepency in many scientific fields, in part due to what young girls are learning about scientists, namely that they are white males who resemble Einstein and wear white lab coats and have frizzy white hair. Even though the women weren't winning Nobel Prizes back then, it is the duty of educators now to make some arbitrary assessment of contributions they allegedly did make, and teach that as well. Perhaps in a gender-unbiased world it would have turned out the same for Franklin. I'm not concerned about her fate now. I'm concerned about my daughter's future.

Clearly it is time to get off the soap box before I fall!

Now I'm going to make a stretch and drag the conversation back to topic. One of my favorite things about the Khaavren romances is the gender equality. Very clever to use the term "Dragonlord" and then throw in "who liked him" (I don't remember the exact passage but you get the idea). And I love Tazendra as Porthos. So many powerful beings are female, like Sethra & Verra. What males compare to them? There are male gods but they don't do much in the stories we know. It's not there in the Vlad books, because the Jhereg itself is segregated (the Left Hand), and while it may be "separate & equal", this day & age one is naturally suspicious and inclined to think otherwise. Steve is one of very few authors who can write great characters of the opposite gender. On another topic (I believe the Favorite Authors thread) there was discussion about some male authors who couldn't write female characters, but it's not limited to male authors. Jane Austen couldn't do it, but even her attempts are much better than, say, LM Montgomery or Louisa May Alcott. So--thanks, Steve! 

Rachel