HIDDEN FIGURES
Tuesday - Fan's Choice!
93.5% of Nobel laureates are men. 93% of Pritzker architecture prizes are men. 97% of Best Director Oscars are men.
Do you think it's because men are just better at these things?
Based on the ethics, capability, and courage of the women in my life... not a snowball's chance in hell.
Gatekept, snubbed, or left disadvantaged by culture, bias, systemic economics, data and medical neglect, and many more - so many women have been left forgotten in the unrecorded annals of history that were being written by men. I present this myopically like it's new information - but more than half the world has known this for millenia.
This topic is a particular favourite of mine, deep diving science papers and footnotes to find "true" firsts and unsung heroes. There are many, many, many, many, many stories of snubs for big Prizes. Here are just ten.
So for this quiz - try not to focus on getting all ten right. Instead, learn these stories, memorise these names, and try to immortalise some of their quotes when you can.
If you want to suggest a topic for next week, or vote, join the discord or message me!
If you want your score to count - or get nominated for Funniest Answer of the Week… Submit your answers on Wikiquiz!
TUESDAY QUIZ - HIDDEN FIGURES
"For most of history, anonymous was a woman".
Which famous literary icon and British post-modernist author wrote these words in her foundational 1929 feminist essay, A Room of One's Own, where she explored why women were so historically underrepresented in literature and the arts?
Along with being repeatedly passed over for the Nobel Prize in Literature (both to systemic sexism and a premature and very sad death), she also pioneering the stream-of-consciousness narrative style in her 1927 masterpiece "To the Lighthouse". Never did anybody look so sad. Bitter and black... a knife's edge between happiness and melancholy.
Who is this pictured "First Lady of Physics", whose monumental achievements include disproving the law of parity conservation in 1956, making vital contributions to the Manhattan Project, and serving as the first female president of the American Physical Society? She was controversially excluded when the Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded solely to her male colleagues Tsung-Dao Lee and Chen-Ning Yang?
She's got a belter list of quotes. Here are a few.
"There is only one thing worse than coming home from the lab to a sink full of dirty dishes, and that is not going to the lab at all!"
"The main stumbling block in the way of any progress is, and always has been, unimpeachable tradition."
"...It is shameful that there are so few women in science... There is a misconception in America that women scientists are all dowdy spinsters... a woman is valued for what she is, and men encourage her to accomplishments yet she remains eternally feminine."
"Don't let anyone keep you down... The real prize is finding something new out there"
I can understand that the Matilda effect is a pretty dark matter - but no more than for this woman. Which astronomer provided the definitive observational baseline for galactic rotation curves which proved the existence of dark matter? Her groundbreaking cosmic data completely revolutionized modern astrophysics, and an observatory in Chile was named to honor her legacy.
"I work and work and still it seems that I have nothing done."
Name this African American chemist who developing the highly effective, water-soluble injectable extract that became the premier global treatment for leprosy during the early twentieth century? This was decades before antibiotics, and she did this at just 23. Sadly, she died at just 24 from tuberculosis (but may have been an inhalation of chlorine gas) - and her work was stolen. After her death, the president of the College of Hawaii, Arthur L. Dean, continued her work, took credit for her discovery by publishing it under his own name (the "Dean Method"), and for years the scientific community left Ball in total oblivion.
"Architecture can't force people to connect, it can only plan the crossing points, and remove barriers".
Which influential urban planner was controversially denied inclusion when the prestigious Pritzker Architecture Prize was awarded exclusively to her husband Robert Venturi in 1991? Her works include the Sainsbury Wing, National Gallery (London), the Seattle Art Museum (Seattle, Washington), the Children’s Museum of Houston (Houston, Texas), Franklin Court (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania), Nikko Kirifuri Resort (Nikkō National Park, Japan), and the Toulouse Capitol Complex (Haute-Garonne, France)
"I don't see myself as only a woman. My films just have strong voices"
Serving as the crucial, officially credited co-director behind the spectacular camera and casting dynamics of the multi-Academy Award-winning 2008 drama Slumdog Millionaire, which Indian filmmaker was completely omitted from the official Best Director category by the Academy (which would have made her the first female director to win it)? While director Danny Boyle took home the golden statuette and constantly fought for her inclusion as co-director, her vital creative leadership was locked out.
"The purpose of studying economics is to learn how not to be deceived by economists."
Formulating the groundbreaking macroeconomic theories of imperfect competition that permanently transformed twentieth-century trade analysis, which brilliant British economist is widely considered the greatest thinker never to win the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences? Her left-wing political leanings and sharp criticisms of mainstream contemporary economics fueled her lifelong academic exclusion.
"It is conceivable that when heavy nuclei are bombarded with neutrons, these nuclei break up into several large fragments which are isotopes of known elements, but are not neighbors of the irradiated element". Okay... maybe not the most inspiring quote... but...
A double-snubber - Otto Hahn and physicist Lise Meitner were partners in both work and life for over 30 years. In December 1938, Hahn and his colleague Fritz Strassmann chemically identified barium after bombarding uranium with neutrons. Because Meitner was Jewish, she was forced to flee Nazi Germany to Sweden. From exile, she and her nephew, Otto Frisch, mathematically calculated and theoretically explained this process, ultimately coining the term "nuclear fission". When the Nobel Prize was awarded in 1944, the Nobel Committee controversially gave the award exclusively to Otto Hahn, completely omitting Meitner. Today, historians widely regard her exclusion as one of the most egregious snubs in the history of science.
However... which German chemist came up with the idea for nuclear fission three full years before this?! In 1934, she published a paper proposing that bombarding heavy elements like uranium with neutrons could cause them to break into smaller fragments. This was arguably the first theoretical suggestion of nuclear fission.
"I was taught by my father that when someone is drowning you don't ask if they can swim, you just jump in and help"
Operating by the codename Jolanta and smuggling over two thousand five hundred Jewish children out of the Warsaw Ghetto by hiding them in ambulances and body bags, which heroic Polish nurse and humanitarian was controversially passed over for the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize? Her near-execution and heroism were exposed by the documentary "Life in a Jar", alluding to how she would strategically bury the identities of the smuggled children so they could reunite with their families post-war.
"If brains have brought us to what we are in now, I think it is time to allow our hearts to speak."
Co-founding the historic Women's Peace Party and serving as a key architect behind the 1915 International Congress of Women at The Hague, which radical Hungarian feminist and diplomat was systematically blocked from the Nobel Peace Prize due to her uncompromising anti-war stance? She made history by becoming the world's first officially appointed female ambassador. (Though an argument can be made for Diana Abgar as an honorary Armenian council to Japan earlier in the same year).
Time for the answers! I hope you enjoyed!
ANSWERS:
“For most of history, anonymous was a woman”.
Which famous literary icon and British post-modernist author wrote these words in her foundational 1929 feminist essay, A Room of One’s Own, where she explored why women were so historically underrepresented in literature and the arts?
Along with being repeatedly passed over for the Nobel Prize in Literature (both to systemic sexism and a premature and very sad death), she also pioneering the stream-of-consciousness narrative style in her 1927 masterpiece “To the Lighthouse”. Never did anybody look so sad. Bitter and black... a knife’s edge between happiness and melancholy.
Virginia WOOLFWho is this pictured “First Lady of Physics”, whose monumental achievements include disproving the law of parity conservation in 1956, making vital contributions to the Manhattan Project, and serving as the first female president of the American Physical Society? She was controversially excluded when the Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded solely to her male colleagues Tsung-Dao Lee and Chen-Ning Yang?
She’s got a belter list of quotes. Here are a few.
“There is only one thing worse than coming home from the lab to a sink full of dirty dishes, and that is not going to the lab at all!”
“The main stumbling block in the way of any progress is, and always has been, unimpeachable tradition.”
“...It is shameful that there are so few women in science... There is a misconception in America that women scientists are all dowdy spinsters... a woman is valued for what she is, and men encourage her to accomplishments yet she remains eternally feminine.”
CHIEN-SHIUNG WU“Don’t let anyone keep you down... The real prize is finding something new out there”
I can understand that the Matilda effect is a pretty dark matter - but no more than for this woman. Which astronomer provided the definitive observational baseline for galactic rotation curves which proved the existence of dark matter? Her groundbreaking cosmic data completely revolutionized modern astrophysics, and an observatory in Chile was named to honor her legacy.
Vera RUBIN“I work and work and still it seems that I have nothing done.”
Name this African American chemist who developing the highly effective, water-soluble injectable extract that became the premier global treatment for leprosy during the early twentieth century? This was decades before antibiotics, and she did this at just 23. Sadly, she died at just 24 from tuberculosis (but may have been an inhalation of chlorine gas) - and her work was stolen. After her death, the president of the College of Hawaii, Arthur L. Dean, continued her work, took credit for her discovery by publishing it under his own name (the “Dean Method”), and for years the scientific community left Ball in total oblivion.
Alice BALL“Architecture can’t force people to connect, it can only plan the crossing points, and remove barriers”.
Which influential urban planner was controversially denied inclusion when the prestigious Pritzker Architecture Prize was awarded exclusively to her husband Robert Venturi in 1991? Her works include the Sainsbury Wing, National Gallery (London), the Seattle Art Museum (Seattle, Washington), the Children’s Museum of Houston (Houston, Texas), Franklin Court (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania), Nikko Kirifuri Resort (Nikkō National Park, Japan), and the Toulouse Capitol Complex (Haute-Garonne, France)
Denise SCOTT-BROWN“I don’t see myself as only a woman. My films just have strong voices”
Serving as the crucial, officially credited co-director behind the spectacular camera and casting dynamics of the multi-Academy Award-winning 2008 drama Slumdog Millionaire, which Indian filmmaker was completely omitted from the official Best Director category by the Academy (which would have made her the first female director to win it)? While director Danny Boyle took home the golden statuette and constantly fought for her inclusion as co-director, her vital creative leadership was locked out.
Loveleen TANDAN“The purpose of studying economics is to learn how not to be deceived by economists.”
Formulating the groundbreaking macroeconomic theories of imperfect competition that permanently transformed twentieth-century trade analysis, which brilliant British economist is widely considered the greatest thinker never to win the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences? Her left-wing political leanings and sharp criticisms of mainstream contemporary economics fueled her lifelong academic exclusion.
Joan ROBINSON“It is conceivable that when heavy nuclei are bombarded with neutrons, these nuclei break up into several large fragments which are isotopes of known elements, but are not neighbors of the irradiated element”. Okay... maybe not the most inspiring quote... but...
A double-snubber - Otto Hahn and physicist Lise Meitner were partners in both work and life for over 30 years. In December 1938, Hahn and his colleague Fritz Strassmann chemically identified barium after bombarding uranium with neutrons. Because Meitner was Jewish, she was forced to flee Nazi Germany to Sweden. From exile, she and her nephew, Otto Frisch, mathematically calculated and theoretically explained this process, ultimately coining the term “nuclear fission”. When the Nobel Prize was awarded in 1944, the Nobel Committee controversially gave the award exclusively to Otto Hahn, completely omitting Meitner. Today, historians widely regard her exclusion as one of the most egregious snubs in the history of science.
However... which German chemist came up with the idea for nuclear fission three full years before this?! In 1934, she published a paper proposing that bombarding heavy elements like uranium with neutrons could cause them to break into smaller fragments. This was arguably the first theoretical suggestion of nuclear fission.
Ida NODDACK“I was taught by my father that when someone is drowning you don’t ask if they can swim, you just jump in and help”
Operating by the codename Jolanta and smuggling over two thousand five hundred Jewish children out of the Warsaw Ghetto by hiding them in ambulances and body bags, which heroic Polish nurse and humanitarian was controversially passed over for the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize? Her near-execution and heroism were exposed by the documentary “Life in a Jar”, alluding to how she would strategically bury the identities of the smuggled children so they could reunite with their families post-war.
Irene SENDLER“If brains have brought us to what we are in now, I think it is time to allow our hearts to speak.”
Co-founding the historic Women’s Peace Party and serving as a key architect behind the 1915 International Congress of Women at The Hague, which radical Hungarian feminist and diplomat was systematically blocked from the Nobel Peace Prize due to her uncompromising anti-war stance? She made history by becoming the world’s first officially appointed female ambassador. (Though an argument can be made for Diana Abgar as an honorary Armenian council to Japan earlier in the same year).
Rosika SCHWIMMER
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