CONTRIBUTION OF  WOMEN IN SCIENCE

For a many centuries, women have seldom got recognition for their achievements in science, technology and medicine. Unfortunately even now very less women work in the field of science as compared to men. For example when you hear the word “nurse” what is the first thing that your mind pictures? A woman or a man. I’m sure many of you must’ve   pictured a woman helping a doctor or taking care of a patient. Another question that I want to ask you is that which scientist in your opinion has contributed the most? Nikola Tesla? Galileo Galilei? Or even Stephen Hawking? I am sure most of you have noticed by now that all of them are males.

          But did you know that the first programmer in the world was Lady Ada Lovelace. A woman! Ada lovelace is considered to be the founder of scientific computing and is the first programmer. Marie curie, a physicist and chemist is considered as one of the brightest minds in History. She is one of the four people who have won Nobel Prizes in two different categories. The 84^th element of the periodic table i.e  Polonium was named after Curie’s country. She, along with Pierre curie discovered this highly radioactive metal which is nowadays used as an atomic heat resource. Another women who generously contributed to the field of science is Rosalind Franklin, a British chemist. She is best known for her research that was essential to elucidating the structure of DNA. Sadly she was not credited for her key role. There are also a myriad of female scientists from the 18^th century who had been tirelessly working and contributing to this world.

                                                        In India, there are a lot of people who still believe that women don’t belong in science which is again totally wrong. There are innumerable female Indian scientists like E.K Janaki Amal, who was a renowned botanist of the 19^th century, B Vijayalakshmi who researched about wave equations and their proportions, Anandibai Joshi who was the first Hindu woman to obtain a medical degree. The first female astronaut of Indian origin  Kalpana Chawla and many more. So, people can’t deny that women cannot or have not excelled in this field.

         I would like to conclude my article  by stating  that women have been constantly proving that they can do anything by attaining success in not only science but other fields as well. Therefore, we must not underestimate them. Although, women having science and engineering degrees are fewer in number as compared to males. Therefore, we the young generation of girls must try our best to bring change in the society and prove ourselves by actions and certainly not by words.

                                                        Preyasha Majumdar