Ann-Sophie Barwich: The lady vanishes

By Dilip -

What was the name of the female scientist who pioneered the mRNA research behind the success of recent COVID-19 vaccines? Who was that 16th-century catholic nun from whom René Descartes stole the evil demon thought experiment that secured his place in public memory as the father of modern philosophy? I doubt you remember either woman. Their names appeared recently in newspapers, on social media, and within academia. But recalling them is difficult. Seldom have women thinkers been more acknowledged and lauded than today. But how many of their names have we retained in our memory?

The mechanisms of collective forgetting are fascinating and important. Our practice of writing genealogies determines who gets remembered, and who doesn’t. It is also haphazard. Whether intentionally or unintentionally, if our lines of transmission remain co-opted by strategic omissions, the selective erasure of names will continue. Many names that have faded from history were women’s. That’s no coincidence. Women aren’t just missing. They have been made absent, as the historian David Noble argued in A World Without Women (1992)...

https://aeon.co/essays/why-are-women-philosophers-often-erased-from-collective-memory

 

MARIA POPOVA - How Lise Meitner Discovered Nuclear Fission and Was Denied the Nobel Prize


Katie Hunt: 'Ammonite' and 5 more works about women overlooked by history


Satarupa Chakraborty: CJI's Remarks on Women Farmers Are an Assault on Human Agency and Constitutional Rights / Pratap Bhanu Mehta: SC’s order on the farm bills is terrible constitutional precedent, bereft of judgment


US ‘dark money’ groups spend million+s overseas in support of campaigns to limit or ban rights for women and LGBTQ people


Women warriors: the extraordinary story of Khatoon Khider and her Daughters of the Sun


100 years of the outbreak of the Russian Revolution March 8 (February 23), International Women's Day


HAMNA ZUBAIR - Qandeel Baloch is dead because we hate women who don't conform / When it comes to honour killing, India is neck and neck with Pakistan


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