The Double Helix essays

The Double Helix essays Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something, and that this thing, at whatever cost, must be attained. Madam Curie There has always been a gender bias in society. In the past women were not allowed to go to school or any place that would benefit them educationally. They were the caretakers and homemakers of society and this remained so for a very long period of time. Then there was the Womens Rights movement and women began to fight for an equal right to do anything that men were allowed to do. The hardest part of this fight was actually going against the odds and doing the opposite of what men felt that they should do no matter what was said. A great example of this is the gender issues between Rosalind Franklin and the men of Cambridge during the time when the structure of DNA was still In James Watsons publication of The Double Helix Watson tells the story of the issues that were present during the race for DNA. There were a total of five main players when it came down to who was the closest to discovering the double helix. Of these five players, there was only one woman, Rosalind Franklin. Franklin was a woman playing in a mans world. She was an excellent crystallographer and was not easily bended when it came to her work. While studying at Cambridge she was asked by a fellow scientist, Maurice Wilkins, to teach him the techniques of crystallography, but she refused. Thus she was known as a troublemaker for refusing to help him. In the book it is said that she did not exhibit her feminine qualities, Though her features were strong she was not unattractive and might have been quite stunning had she taken even a mild interest in her clothes. This she did not. (p23) this is to say that perhaps ...