Last week, academic and performance artist Colleen Webster was looking forward to doing her one-woman show on the life of the biologist, science writer and environmental pioneer Rachel Carson. “She was shy. She was humble. Devoted to family. Committed to research and to protecting nature. That, and she changed the world,” Webster told Nature from her home in Maryland.
With coronavirus raging across the United States, Webster’s performance at Harford Community College in Bel Air, Maryland, had to be postponed. Instead, she recorded a short video, with a promise to be back performing live as soon as conditions allow.
Had it gone ahead, the play would have been one of hundreds of events during Women’s History Month, commemorating and celebrating women’s contributions to society. Women often have to fight at great cost to make themselves heard, and in some cases their achievements are overlooked, underplayed, denied or undermined by male colleagues — and by some historians, too.
In the United States, the main coalition of organizations behind Women’s History Month — including the Smithsonian Institution, the US National Archives and Records Administration and the US National Endowment for the Humanities — have research in their DNA. It shouldn’t be beyond them to more actively and strategically highlight a wider range of contributions and achievements from women in research, to feature alongside the other professions.
But it isn’t only well-known scientists whose recognition is lacking during this event. More also needs to be done to highlight the contributions of women from low- and middle-income regions, and those from under-represented or minority groups in their countries. The lack of such recognition is surprising, considering the hard work being done to update Wikipedia pages with profiles of female researchers, as well as the increasing trend to call out sexism and discrimination in science, past and present.
In the United States, the main coalition of organizations behind Women’s History Month — including the Smithsonian Institution, the US National Archives and Records Administration and the US National Endowment for the Humanities — have research in their DNA. It shouldn’t be beyond them to more actively and strategically highlight a wider range of contributions and achievements from women in research, to feature alongside the other professions.