Approaches to vulnerability in the XXIst Century

This data leads us to consider two possible hypotheses:

1) To think that, indeed, throughout the history of mankind, women have occupied a second place, always in the shadow of men, without standing out, something like the eternal secondary actresses of the movie.

2) To think that women have always been present, but history books, generally written by men, have not recognized the real protagonism we have had.

As coordinator of the Women and Vulnerabilities Axis, I think that the first hypothesis is not true. The first reason is purely factual, from life experience. I sincerely believe that no one who knows the female universe can truly believe that for more than six thousand years of history we women have been silent, letting men do what they have done. Therefore, even before going to archives and historical documents, I believe I am not mistaken in affirming that this first hypothesis can be discarded. And I dare to add that this lack of recognition of their role in history (and, therefore, of the visibility of their contributions to progress) is a vulnerability that causes many others, because what is not valued is not respected, therefore, it is easier to mistreat it, .

By using scientific arguments, the results of the most recent research show that women have not remained on the sidelines. Quite the contrary. The truth is that over the centuries, women have not only made a great contribution to sustaining the home as mothers and caregivers, but we have also carried out important work in political, scientific, artistic, social, economic, etc. development, and, in my opinion, both aspects have gone unnoticed in the histories in use. In this regard, the work published in 1988 by two American historians, Bonnie S. Anderson and Judith P. Zinsser, Women’s History, a history of their own, is very interesting (*) Among other things, the book highlighted a need that had begun to be claimed a few years earlier: the obligation to reread history in a feminine key, giving women the real role that we have had, giving us the role we deserve. That is why I think it is incorrect to say that women’s work has been/is invisible. In my opinion, the correct thing to say is that it has been/is silenced or badly told, but I cannot admit that it has been invisible. {…}

Women in the public sphere

I have stated that, {…}, scientific data show that women have carried out an important work in political, scientific, artistic, legal, economic, etc. development. In this group, we find, on the one hand, great women who had the misfortune of having their work attributed to a man. For example, James Watson, Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins received in 1962 the Nobel Prize in Medicine “for their discoveries on the molecular structure of nucleic acids and their importance for the transfer of information in living matter”. In April 2023, scientists, based on new evidence, concluded that Rosalind Franklin contributed in the same way as her colleagues in the process of discovering DNA, rather than as the results had been presented at the time of discovery.(**) It is also not well known that the person who had the brilliant idea of attacking Al Capone’s mafia organization on the tax evasion flank was not Elliot Ness, but Mabel Walker Willebrandt, an assistant prosecutor and advocate for vulnerable women of his time (victims of domestic violence and prostitutes).(***)

The case of Lise Meitner is noteworthy: forty-eight times nominated for the Nobel Prize (she was nominated nineteen times for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry between 1924 and 1948, and twenty-nine times for the Nobel Prize in Physics between 1937 and 1965), without success. Her achievement: discovering nuclear fission working together with Otto Hahn. Without Meitner’s contributions, it would not have been possible for Hahn to discover that the uranium nucleus can split. Hahn received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for this discovery (****), but not Meitner, whom even Christopher Nolan’s recent film Oppenheimer forgets to mention.

More difficult has been for women of other ethnic diversities. Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughn and Mary Jackson were three brilliant African-American women scientists who worked at NASA in the early 1960s, providing NASA with an important set of mathematical data to develop the first space mission launch program. These are women whose names were until very recently hidden.(*****) And so a long list goes on, to the point that there is what is known as the “Matilda effect”. Margaret W. Rossiter, historian of science, established this concept in 1993 in honor of Matilda J. Gage, to identify that social situation where women scientists receive less credit and recognition for their scientific work than they would receive from an objective examination of their work.

In many cases, the problem for women is not the lack of merit, but the absence of recognition. A data that can serve to exemplify this statement is the number of women and men who have won a Nobel Prize from 1901 to 2023. The data are not justified even taking into account the later incorporation of women into higher education. Moreover, the difference is striking even in fields that could be considered more feminine, such as peace or literature:

This lack of recognition of our contributions in the public sphere is a vulnerability that many of us women have suffered – and continue to suffer – in our professional lives, and its effects permeate all levels of society. I repeat: that which is not valued, that which is not recognized, is mistreated.

An anecdote about the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Edith Wharton comes to mind. The outbreak of the Great War found Wharton in Paris. As is well known, the trigger for this conflict was the assassination in Sarajevo of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria. Shortly after the attack, correspondents began to send their chronicles emphasizing that this attack was going to have serious consequences for Europe. Wharton also made his chronicle, but a detail that to me personally says a lot is that in his chronicle he asks for the wife of the archduke, he calls her by her name, Sofia, and asks about her state (*V). This reaffirms to me the need for cooperation between the female and male work: the male chronicles focus on the geopolitical consequences, she focuses on the human consequences, on the human suffering that will be unleashed. Let us work together, let us not despise half of humanity’s talent.

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(* )Anderson, Bonnie S. and Zinsser, Judith P.: Women’s History. A history of their own. 2 vols. Barcelona, Editorial Crítica, 1991.