A Laboratory of Her Own: Women and Science in Spanish Culture

415 Pages·2021·3.786 MB·English

by  Victoria Ketz (editor), Dawn Smith-Sherwood (editor), Debra Faszer-McMahon (editor)

A Laboratory of Her Own

A Laboratory of
Her Own
Women and Science in
Spanish Culture
Edited by
Victoria L. Ketz,
Dawn Smith-SherwooD, anD
Debr a FaSzer-mcmahon
VanDerbiLt UniVerSity PreSS
Nashville
Copyright 2021Vanderbilt University Press
All rights reserved
First printing 2021
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Ketz, Victoria L., editor. | Smith-Sherwood, Dawn, 1968– editor. |
Faszer-McMahon, Debra, 1974– editor.
Title: A laboratory of her own : women and science in Spanish culture /
edited by Victoria L. Ketz, Dawn Smith-Sherwood, and Debra
Faszer-McMahon.
Description: Nashville : Vanderbilt University Press, [2020] | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020034108 (print) | LCCN 2020034109 (ebook) | ISBN
9780826501288 (paperback) | ISBN 9780826501295 (hardback) | ISBN
9780826501301 (epub) | ISBN 9780826501318 (pdf)
Subjects: LCSH: Women in science—Spain. | Women in
science—Spain—History. | Women in science—Social aspects—Spain.
Classification: LCC Q130 .L33 2020 (print) | LCC Q130 (ebook) | DDC
500.82/0946—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020034108
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020034109
For young women (y las chicas raras) everywhere, that they might be welcomed
into and challenged by both the STEM fields and the arts

Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Foreword by Roberta Johnson xiii
Introduction. The Story of Women and STEM in Spanish Culture 1
Victoria L. Ketz, Dawn Smith-Sherwood, and Debra Faszer-McMahon
Part I. On rOle MOdels: FeMale scIentIsts
and sPanIsh letters
1. Las chicas raras de STEM: Recuperating #WomensPlace in
Spanish Literary and Scientific Histories 33
Dawn Smith-Sherwood
2. “The Doctor Is In”: Elena Arnedo Soriano (1941–2015), Women’s Health,
and the Cultural History of Gender and Medicine in Spain 52
Silvia Bermúdez
3. Gender and the Critique of “Ascientific Traditions”: Science as Text and
Intertext in Rosa Montero’s La ridícula idea de no volver a verte 70
Ellen Mayock
4. From la santidad de la escoba to la trinidad higiénica: Rosario de Acuña
(1851–1923) and a More Inclusive Vision of Spain’s Public Health 89
Erika M. Sutherland
5. Science, History, and Gender: An Interview with María Jesús Santesmases 119
Victoria L. Ketz and Debra Faszer-McMahon
Part II. On ste(a)M: IntegratIng scIentIFIc InquIry
IntO the cultural realM
6. Science in the Works of Clara Janés: A Poetics of Theoretical (Meta)physics 141
Debra Faszer-McMahon
7. An Extension of Sympathy: Science and Posthumanism in the Paintings
of Remedios Varo 166
Marta del Pozo Ortea
viii contentS
8. Subversive, Combative, Corrective: Carmen de Burgos’s Interventionist
Translation of Möbius’s Öber den physiologischen Schwachsinn des Weibes
(The mental inferiority of women) 187
Leslie Anne Merced
9. Contrasting Images of Women Scientists in the Early Postwar Period (1940–1945)
and the Novel María Elena, ingeniero de caminos by Mercedes Ballesteros 207
Miguel Soler Gallo
10. Unorthodox Theories and Beings: Science, Technology, and
Women in the Narratives of Rosa Montero 235
Maryanne L. Leone
Part III. On gender: usIng steM tO crItIque gendered rOles
11. Biotech, Barceló, Bustelo: Reproduction, Motherhood, and
Gendered Hierarchies in Spanish Science Fiction 265
Mirla González
12. Challenging Boundaries of Time, Science, and Gender: Einstein’s Theory
of Relativity in Marina Mayoral’s “Admirados colegas” 291
Victoria L. Ketz
13. Technological Portrayals: Framing Fernandinas in the Colonial Context
through Photography and Press during the Spanish Second Republic 315
Inés Plasencia
14. Punishing Narratives: The Challenges of Gender and Scientific Authority
in Spanish Science Fiction Film 350
Raquel Vega-Durán
Appendix. List of Works by Genre Addressed in This Volume 371
Contributors 379
Index 385
Acknowledgments
Many of our female colleagues, including two of this collection’s editors,
initially focused on the sciences in their educational formation, only to
abandon this line of inquiry to pursue a career in the humanities. While
humanistic pursuits have provided us with fascinating and fulfilling work,
this pattern of shifting disciplinary focus sparked an interest in exploring
the factors dissuading many of our female colleagues from STEM fields.
While such patterns have been shifting over time, the power of academic
structures and gender norms still seems to hold strong sway, and we see
this in our own classrooms and with our female students. As our collec-
tion demonstrates, women in science, in Spain and worldwide, have faced
pervasive and systematic discrimination that has affected their interac-
tions with STEM fields. Yet our story is one of hope, experimentation,
and interdisciplinarity. Spanish female cultural producers have insisted
since at least the nineteenth century on connecting science and art, and
we have attempted to honor their work and their passion for interdisci-
plinary STE(A)M endeavors throughout this volume.
The rejection of disciplinary silos and the importance of diverse per-
spectives is the focus of Banu Subramaniam’s Ghost Stories for Darwin: The
Science of Variation and the Politics of Diversity.1 She offers intriguing examples
of how women scientists might challenge the boundaries of established
scientific research in order to connect with humanistic pursuits. Her own
personal story echoes “la mirada tuerta” posited by Peninsular novelist
and journalist Montserrat Roig. In the preface, subtitled “On Interdisci-
plinarity,” Subramaniam describes the challenges of looking in both direc-
ix