Forces of nature : the women who changed science / Anna Reser and Leila McNeill.

Includes bibliographies and index.

From the ancient world to the present women have been critical to the progress of science, yet their importance is overlooked, their stories lost, distorted, or actively suppressed. Forces of Nature sets the record straight and charts the fascinating history of women's discoveries in science. In the ancient and medieval world, women served as royal physicians and nurses, taught mathematics, studied the stars, and practiced midwifery. As natural philosophers, physicists, anatomists, and botanists, they were central to the great intellectual flourishing of the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment. More recently women have been crucially involved in the Manhattan Project, pioneering space missions and much more. Despite their record of illustrious achievements, even today very few women win Nobel Prizes in science.

Introduction: Reading women's silence in the history of science -- Section I: Antiquity to the Middle Ages. Physicians, midwives, and "grannies" ; The supernatural and the sanctified -- Section II: The Renaissance & The Enlightenment. Women calculate their own path to science ; The wives and sisters of scientific partnerships ; Women and the science of the body in the Scientific Revolution ; Empire and exploitation in the Age of Exploration -- Section III: The long nineteenth century. Women science writers and popularizers ; Botany for ladies ; From the home to the hospital ; Home physicians and lady doctors -- Section IV: The twentieth century, pre-World War II. "Powerful levers that move worlds!" ; The home as laboratory ; Women's reproductive freedom and the eugenics movement ; Women archeologists and anthropologists humanize their past ; What cannot be unmade -- Section V: The twentieth century, post-World War II. The plight of women refugee scientists coming to America ; Nature's housekeepers begin a movement ; The double bind in the sciences ; More than astronauts ; Reconfiguring the female ; The problem with "female firsts" -- Afterword.

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