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zinelib 's review for:
Mathematics for Ladies: Poems on Women in Science
by Pippa Goldschmidt, Jessy Randall, Kristin Divona
dark
funny
informative
medium-paced
About 80 women scientists, in chronological order from birth year, are documented through mostly first person poems by Randall, a special collections librarian, who, it is revealed, had a childhood obsession with Elizabeth Blackwell, MD (1821-1910). Kristin Divona provides illustrations of the women of color. Note that a few of the "women" lived in the world as men.
The poems are funny, serious, contemplative, revealing, and challenging. In the one about Rebecca Lee Crumpler, (1831-1895), the first Black woman to earn a medical degree, and the first Black woman to publish a medical text, Randall
The poems are funny, serious, contemplative, revealing, and challenging. In the one about Rebecca Lee Crumpler, (1831-1895), the first Black woman to earn a medical degree, and the first Black woman to publish a medical text, Randall
grapples with the notion of firstness, the celebration of it alongside frustration and disgust at the barriers and obstacles for everyone before and after those who are "first."
And on the next page, Rachel Bodley (1831-1888) beseeches
Stop requiring women
to be charming and delightful!
Just let us do our work.
Manhattan Project eschewer Lise Meitner (1878-1968) recalls how the same men who thought the lab was unsafe for her because she might set her hair on fire now
...created enough fire
to burn 200,000 bodies down to nothing.
Lots of brutality from librarian Randall, and I'm here for it!
Disclaimer: The author, Jessy Randall, is a friendquaintance, though we've never met in person