Rosalind Franklin
- Georgina Griffiths
- Feb 9, 2021
- 3 min read
It is no secret that women, as well as other groups, have largely been inhibited from contributing to society in the same, beneficial way that men had been able to. However, some women were able to transcend the expectations of their male peers but their legacies have been forgotten. In this series I will be discussing the life and achievements of four different women in STEM who made a difference. The women I will be discussing are:
Rosalind Franklin
Mary Seacole
Chien-Shiung Wu
Katherine Johnson
As well as potentially some others!!
Rosalind Franklin:
Rosalind Franklin was born in July 1920 in London, England, to a wealthy Jewish family and would attend St. Paul's girls school and then Newnham College, Cambridge, and, following her graduation in 1941, would be awarded a fellowship of the college to research physical Chemistry. However, this did not last. Following the outbreak of the second world war she became an air raid warden in London and gave up her fellowship in 1942 to research at the British Coal Utilisation Research Association and used her research from this period of her life to write the thesis for her doctorate and was awarded it in 1945. She would then study X-ray diffraction technology at the State Chemical Lab in Paris between 1947 and 1950 before beginning research on what would be her most well-known study yet.
In 1951 she became a research fellow at King's College, London, where she would conduct research on DNA using X-ray diffraction. At this time there was very little known about the structure of DNA, and she would find data which would be pivotal for the discovery of the structure of DNA. She was technically working on this study with James Watson, but their personalities clashed so he preferred to work at the Cavendish laboratory in Cambridge, where his friend Francis Crick and James Watson were working on building a model of DNA. It would be due to this friendship that Watson and Crick would be shown the famous "photo 51" as well as some data that Franklin had accumulated through her studies. Watson and Crick would then use her data in their study and leave Franklin uncredited. The use of this data allowed Watson and Crick and Franklin to conclude the helical structure of DNA, but the Nobel Prize would only be awarded to Watson and Crick. The nature of the omission of credit for Franklin is often disputed but I would personally put it to Watson and Crick wanting wanting to appear as the sole contributors, as Crick has been noted to lack modesty as stated in Watson's book "The Double Helix". It is clear that they probably would have done the same to any researcher even given their sex.
What is more disappointing is that Watson and Crick were awarded the Nobel Prize for their model of DNA but, even when Watson openly admitted that Franklin's work was integral in their journey in 1968 to their conclusion they award was not updated to include her. It was claimed that this was due to Franklin being deceased (Nobel Prizes notoriously cannot be awarded posthumously), however it was clear that the fact Franklin was a woman was a key factor in their refusal. Franklin died at the age of 37 in 1958 of ovarian cancer without knowing the true impact of her work on the structure of DNA.
To conclude:
Even today there is a clear disparity between the numbers of men and women in STEM. Here are some results from a study conducted by stemwomen.co.uk where they analysed the % of female graduates in different stem subjects. I do recommend taking a look at the other graphics they have provided which can be found by clicking the image.
Although in this situation it may not have been a misconduct performed entirely out of misogyny it is clear that had Franklin been a man she would have been treated differently by the various organisations she was involved with.
References:
Rosalind Franklin, Britannica, accessed 14/1/21, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Rosalind-Franklin
"Rosalind Franklin: A Crucial Contribution", from Scitable by nature education, accessed 14/1/21 https://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/rosalind-franklin-a-crucial-contribution-6538012/
(Image via) "Sexism in science: did Watson and Crick really steal Rosalind Franklin's data", by Matthew Cobb, from the Guardian, accessed 14/1/21, https://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/jun/23/sexism-in-science-did-watson-and-crick-really-steal-rosalind-franklins-data
(Image via) "The most important photo ever taken", by Fergus Walsh, from BBC News, accessed 14/1/21 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-18041884
Image via "Percentages of Women in STEM Statistics", from stemwomen.co.uk , accessed 15/1/21, https://www.stemwomen.co.uk/blog/2019/09/women-in-stem-percentages-of-women-in-stem-statistics
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