Book Review

Article by Philo Ikonya

THERE is an old movie The Absent Minded Professor, which made us laugh and laugh again when we were kids. The professor was –of course- a man and he was a scientist. Hilarious it was to watch him forget all sorts of things, including forgetting his own shoes, umbrella and so on.
Now I read about and meet more about professors from all shades of disciplines in the world, including female scientists and professors.
In The 21st Century Woman Scientist, Dr Mwangi demystifies both science and women in the same breath. Perhaps, it is right to say of all earths’ creations, science and woman are most mystified. Should that be an indicator that women are very scientific?
Science is the basis of running any home, looking after children and even getting on in life. “Science is everything that we are,” the author writes. She tells you that from the moment you wake up, look at yourself in the mirror, the fog you see, the sun, the plant, take the coffee that wakens you and makes you feel good – you are in the scientific realm.
I hear you say, ‘get serious, where are the inventions? Are women in these?” Right. Yes, they are to a forgotten but high percentage. Dr. Mwangi writes often about women inventors. They are many and it is good to remember, as the author advises with regard to inventing that one should start with a problem. It was a woman, Monique Tenturier, who discovered a push-chair all because she had to handle three little ones at the same time. All discoveries begin with an idea. Ideas sometimes come to us because of certain dilemmas.
Another woman, Maggie Smith Villacruz, from the Philippines discovered a tractor for wetlands in 1976. There are many other women inventors. The notion that only men can is a myth.
Dr. Mwangi is focused and energetic as she discusses matters that are deep-seated in her heart,
mostly because they form part of her own
experience in life.
In a chapter titled Removing All the Myths, she deals with six myths about science. Placing it as myth number five, she identifies an interesting notion that scientists are ‘uncomely, unsocial people’. This one is fascinating to me as it is also known to many that women are unfortunately often regarded as people who love to chatter as they knit or sell in the market places and are not known, according to this other myth, to love silence and serious work. Conclusion would be that scientists are dull men who are happy to sleep in a science lab and have no idea how to move their feet in any dance! All
these are myths.
Before myth five, Dr. Mwangi dismisses myth one which is a premise that ‘science is a difficult subject’ and myth two that girls and women are genetically inclined to do poorly in sciences. The other side of this one is that since science is unsightly and mundane, girls, who like beautiful things not among which is dissecting dead things, bearing with bad smells (not perfume) and putting hands into sewers like a plumber might, cannot like sciences. Many men hate the above as well.
It is important to note that many girls’ schools do not have as good science labs as do boys’ ones, that girls are expected to work harder on chores other than their homework, as are boys. Once this is accepted, it is easier to debunk the myth that women scientists do not do as well as male scientist. It is not true. Women are in fact ready for difficult tasks that are time and energy consuming. So far, there is no genetic reason why women or girls cannot excel in sciences.
The beauty about this book is that it gives great information on what a woman needs to do to excel in her field. Wonder of wonders, what she needs to do is what the men and women who excel do. Even more interesting is actually the fact that what you need to excel in science is what you need to do to be at the top of any profession.
You need to be inquisitive, intensely aware, creative, delight in a sense of discovery, have team spirit, be patient and dedicated, believe in the impossible, be critical, have stamina and be able to communicate to be a prolific writer, to be a journalist and many other fields one can think of. These are the qualities you need to be a good scientist!
In ten chapters, Dr. Mwangi draws from her own experience, right from the fact of being in an aircraft that experienced mechanical problems to tell women how to be achieving scientist. The time for that is now. Parents must help to make science as attractive to girls as it has been traditionally made to boys. More schools need to offer engineering, computer science and aviation.
In no field in life these days, as in the past, can anything ever be taken for granted, not in politics, not in science either. Women can belong everywhere and the woman scientist of the 21st century, who has made it already, must see to it that this information is disseminated and that it affects policy implementation in our country.