Let’s hear it for the girl!
Tonight I went to a presentation/reception for the Arts Committee of The Brearley School, my HS alma mater. I mainly went to see my former drama teacher, who I haven’t seen in years, but saw a former schoolmate and got free wine, so I had a good time.
The presentation started with the Head of School, Dr. Stephanie J Hull, remarking on how much is made of the academic and athletic excellence of Brearley girls (yes, it’s a girls school, and our mascot is the beaver - insert lesbian joke…here.) However, not much is made of the artistic achievements of the students, and this is a function to recognize the (very) hard working teachers of the arts.
Boys do act in the high school plays, and while I loved that in HS (one track mind and all,) now I remembered that they didn’t help with any production aspects. Many of the boys with whom I acted put this stuff on their resumes and called it a day. This memory was bolstered by the slide show and presentation by my drama teacher who said “The boys are next to useless.”
It was during this presentation that I realized that WE ROCK! Women are the unsung heroes of a lot of dicoveries and creations, and though I hate the phrase girl power, we as women can be incredibly powerful. I’m just lucky I went to a high school that helped me realize this. So here is a post on just a couple of women who made men famous.
Let’s start with Rosalind Franklin (1920-1958). Who was she? She is most commonly known as the woman who provided a lot of the research that helped James Watson and Francis Crick figure out that DNA is a double helix, even though she didn’t think it was. Her field was X-ray crystallography, and she was trying to figure out the structure of DNA. Her research was the key to solving the problem, but she wasn’t acknowledged at the time for her accomplishments so far by the famous pair. She was a British scientist above all else and believed that what she was doing was right. I think that she would have been even more of an asset to this research had she not died at the age of 37 from ovarian cancer.
Are you a fan of Doctor Who? Did you know that this TV show has been in production (off and on) for over 40 years? Did you know who composed the theme music? Of course, we all know (relatively): Ron Grainer. Do you know who brought it to life? Anyone? The credits say the BBC Radiophonic Workshop because the policy was that no specific person there would get credit for the job he or she did. Well in this case, it’s a she. Delia Derbyshire (1937-2001) added the cool electronics to the theme song, all of which prompted Grainer to ask favorably “Did I write that?” Apparently the music was enhanced so much that he couldn’t believe he composed that. Imagine what it would have been like without the exacting work she did.
As you may suspect, most of us know about the women who have struggled in a male dominated society, but how many know of those who worked in the background to make others famous? It’s difficult to search for something when I don’t know for what I’m searching. Do any of you know of the heroes?