Mike Harron, Reading Connection #2

Over the past few weeks we have been discussing women's roles during the scientific revolution. The Scientific Revolution took place during the 16th and 17th century. During this time women were looked down upon, less superior. Men were more dominant in the field or education and physical labor, whereas women were pretty much forced to stay home and maintain the house and keep the kids in line. Basically women were looked at as tools to keep the males happy when they go home. In Watt's reading, Gender, Science and Modernity in Seventeenth-Century England, he tells us how difficult it was for women to go to any kind of formal educational institution. The Article gives us a basic view of how women lived in that time and what was tolerated of them. If women were to have any kind of intelligence on the matter and if they attempted to participate, they were accused of being witches. The witch trials had a huge impact on how woman were viewed. However, women were viewed differently in different parts of the world. According to this reading, women In England were respected and they even had a queen, but it was tradition for the women to stay home and educate the kids, especially their daughters while their husbands would be off at crusades. Then there are the women in Japan, who were thought of just to have kids for the male and were looked at with disrespect. Any male back then could take credit for a women's findings without a problem. If a women were to go to school and get and education, then invent something extraordinary, any male back then could tell the authorities that she is a witch and he could get away with it, and then take credit for all of her findings. There is no doubt that this could have happened. 

 

After the class discussions and reading the assigned articles, it is a lot easier to understand how women got to where they are now. There are many different explanations to why women were not recorded in scientific history, however, I feel that the witch craft explanation is one of the more reasonable answers to the question.

Sources

Watts, Ruth. "Gender, science and modernity in seventeenth-century England."Paedagogica Historica. 2005. 41, 1, 79-93. ISSN: 0030-9230.

Nosotro, Ritt. "Women in the Middle Ages." Hyper History. 26 Oct. 2008 .