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tabithar 's review for:
Headstrong: 52 Women Who Changed Science-And the World
by Rachel Swaby
I like the author's idea of having a female inventor/scientist hero per week for a year (52) for others to read about but the execution leaves much to be desired. In the process of my frustration, I've made a brief pro/con list (at the end of this review) that might benefit future readers or future writers for similar work. The book's author used some good resources so I feel puzzled by the tone of the book. These women each made significant achievements but the tone and perspective (seemingly unintentionally) downplays their accomplishments while making them seem more distanced as people apart from the norm rather than persons a reader would be capable of identifying as a role model.
On a limb, I'm guessing I'm not her target audience BUT I really couldn't tell what audience she was trying to target. My guess is that she was trying to make a condensed version of what was contained in books with longer entries. I think there's certainly a market for a book that manages to do this well.
Alternative books that have far better quality information:
"Nobel Prize Women in Science" by Sharon McGrayne gives good explanations of the science even for someone without a science background.
"The Madame Curie Complex" by Julie Des Jardins. Entries are longer than 20-30 pages each but are of substance. Some entries are on individual women and others are on a set of women which worked in a field of study.
Brief Pro/Con List
Pro: concept book about female contributors to science and engineering
entries are brief enough (typically 2-5 pages per person) that they shouldn't be too long for anyone to pick up and read an entry in a few minutes
inclusion of notes and citations in the back
organization of the women into fields of contribution
Con: rather than focusing on what motivated these women, there was more focus on what people (typically male figures in their lives) gave them a leg up
rather than giving a feeling of showing stages of work that led to a discovery/development (there are maybe 1-2 exceptions), it read as though these women were extraordinary among women and they just sat in the tub and thought and BAM genius occurred. While there may be instances of genius like this, reality is much background work occurs before an idea of merit and the ability to explore that idea can mature to a reality
the idea that most of these women had NO idea their work was of practical use/significance
(Thank God there were men around to see how their work was useful so it could get published/ applied with minimal credit to the inventor. [Please note that this sentence is dripping with sarcasm and disgust.])
vague explanations of what these women actually achieved
On a limb, I'm guessing I'm not her target audience BUT I really couldn't tell what audience she was trying to target. My guess is that she was trying to make a condensed version of what was contained in books with longer entries. I think there's certainly a market for a book that manages to do this well.
Alternative books that have far better quality information:
"Nobel Prize Women in Science" by Sharon McGrayne gives good explanations of the science even for someone without a science background.
"The Madame Curie Complex" by Julie Des Jardins. Entries are longer than 20-30 pages each but are of substance. Some entries are on individual women and others are on a set of women which worked in a field of study.
Brief Pro/Con List
Pro: concept book about female contributors to science and engineering
entries are brief enough (typically 2-5 pages per person) that they shouldn't be too long for anyone to pick up and read an entry in a few minutes
inclusion of notes and citations in the back
organization of the women into fields of contribution
Con: rather than focusing on what motivated these women, there was more focus on what people (typically male figures in their lives) gave them a leg up
rather than giving a feeling of showing stages of work that led to a discovery/development (there are maybe 1-2 exceptions), it read as though these women were extraordinary among women and they just sat in the tub and thought and BAM genius occurred. While there may be instances of genius like this, reality is much background work occurs before an idea of merit and the ability to explore that idea can mature to a reality
the idea that most of these women had NO idea their work was of practical use/significance
(Thank God there were men around to see how their work was useful so it could get published/ applied with minimal credit to the inventor. [Please note that this sentence is dripping with sarcasm and disgust.])
vague explanations of what these women actually achieved