April 19, 2004
Science Women Get Cinematic Boost
By Kristen Philipkoski
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,63096,00.html

Hmm…

This article came my way given a discussion a friend and I continue to have around women and women’s place in the/”our” world including that of “our” history, “our” art, “our” technology, “our” sciences, “our”…

This discussion falls into one of those zones where, like it or not, my friend and I are on different sides of the fence simply given our chromosomal make-up. He remains “he” and I remain “she”.

So… my friend and I pitch information, articles and thinking back and forth, trying to understand what the other does and doesn’t get about being s/he. I suppose we are trying to understand the “/” part.

This article, one forwarded to me by “he”, is one that professes to give two women their place in the history of “our” sciences. And I write “professes” given one of the last paragraphs of the article. In this paragraph the filmmaker is quoted as having said the following about Hedy Lamarr, one of the subjects of the film…

“My point of view in the screenplay was she was very out of sync for her time. (Her life would have been different) had she been born in a different era when women with both brains and beauty could have flourished instead of being oppressed.”

Now I am assuming that I have not missed an era somewhere along the way and that this quote refers to a time “yet to come”. I write that given that I cannot believe that any of us — particularly those celebrating the contributions and lives of any women — actually believe that the issues of feminism are a “done deal” and that “flourishing” rather than “being oppressed” is now the norm.

So… much as I think that rectifying our active version of history is a good thing, until stories such as this are no longer an exception “today”, we still have a very long way to go. And, as an opening into how large we need to go to actually be inclusive of women, I point back to the larger “our” through the article linked to in International Labour Standards. And to point to how deep we need to go in areas closer to my “western world” home, I point to some recommended reading, “The Story of Jane Doe” as well as many of the articles in the web log Netwoman.