This is the first post for the series Wonderful Women.
It is the season of the Nobels and this year, women have done exceptionally well in catching the nobel prizes. They have got it in Medicine/Physiology, Chemistry, Economics and Literature ie in 4/6 fields. When one thinks of Nobel prizes and one thinks of women, it is hard to miss the person who has done more than anyone else to make the position of women in science respectable. And that is the first woman nobel laureate, the first two-time nobel laureate in two subjects – Marie Curie or Madam Curie.
The biography and other details are chronicled nicely in Wikipedia – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Curie
What I want to observe here is the way she managed to tackle all her obstacles and make them look small even when they were so huge in the times that she lived in. To fight the financial burden, to fight the fight of being a woman and therefore getting rejections by default, to fight the doubts as to her abilities and many other such small but significant things. She did not let anything stand in the way of her love, her curiosity of finding things.
I cannot but imagine how daunting the conditions must have been for her to pursue what she truly loved in a field where women wee not only not encouraged but straight away denied entry. Instead of fighting it out loudly and getting dejected, she found a better way. She did the best job she could do, she did the job better than others could do and thus shut the mouth of her detractors and became the icon for women and other scientists that she is today.
If there is anything one ought to take away from her is the spirit and strength.
Thanks goes to Madam Curie for showing a way to numerous aspiring women scientists who would later join her in the eminent scientist’s club. The one who started it all – we salute you.
As I like it 