Departing from their sphere: Australian women and science, 1880-1960

© 2003 Dr. Jane CareyThis thesis charts, predominantly elite, white women's engagement with science in Australia over a relatively long period, in a way which has been attempted for few other countries. Noting women's relatively strong visibility in many scientific arenas prior to the 1940s, it argues that, despite the widespread coding of science as masculine, their experiences cannot be explained through simple exclusionary models or notions of hegemonic gender discourses and spheres. Beginning in the nineteenth century, elite women showed a surprising, strong, enthusiasm for scientific education and employment. By the early twentieth century, women comprised a significant proportion of the local scientific community and made substantial contributions in this critical phrase of the development of the field in Australia. In the broader cultural arena, such women were prominent promoters of the scientific cause within social reform movements. It is suggested that a specific set of circumstances was required for the masculine image of science to be fully reflected in the gendered structure and composition of the Australian scientific community. It was only in the years after World War II, as scientific education and employment expanded enormously, that men were attracted to the field in large numbers and women's participation decreased. It was only then that the masculine image of science came to be more completely reflected in gender composition of the scientific community. Patterns set in place in period were enduring and many are still evident today. Apart from simply documenting uncharted territory, it also seeks to suggest new approaches which might be fruitful. It offers a new interpretation of elite women's engagement in 'traditionally' masculine spheres, in Australia and other western countries, by focusing on the relative privileges they enjoyed. Indeed, it will be suggested that studies of 'women in science' reveal as much about the, sometimes significant, disruptions to the discursive construction of science as masculine as they do about any disjunction between the feminine and the scientific. The experiences of Australian women in science reveal that positive subcultures supportive of women's scientific engagements could coexist quite easily with discourses positing a close alignment between science and masculinity. The ideological construction of science as a masculine domain did not necessarily represent or create the experiences of all women in all times and places