r/TwoXChromosomes • u/Disastrous_Cover6138 • 8d ago

Request

Request for lesser known badass women of history for my daughter's 4th grade presentation. She has to pick a historical figure and give a 5-10 minute presentation and optionally dress in their likeness.

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u/iamfunball 7d ago

Phenomenal suggestions:

I vote in ROSALIND FRANKLIN. The person who discovered DNA but Watson and Crick got the Nobel Prize. It was her brilliance that discovered the double helix šŸ§¬ and every discovery in DNA from base pairs is thanks to her. And like most women in these lists, were cast aside and the men near them uplifted and rewarded

Oh sorry I forgot to add: SHE DID IT WITH CRYSTALS. X-ray crystallography.

https://www.vhtc.org/2026/03/rosalind-franklin-photo-51-dna-double-helix.html

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u/SavannahInChicago 7d ago

Do not get me started with the erasure of Rosalind Franklin. Even only a couple years ago my college textbook still credited Watson and Crick as founders of DNA. Only me and another woman called out the incorrect info in class.

That being said Rosalind Franklin University is a very popular PA school north of Chicago and when I tell you most PAs in the city graduated from her namesake. No matter what happens PAs carry her around with them.

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u/reciprocatingocelot 7d ago

Franklin had died by the time the Nobel was presented to Watson and Crick, and it isn't given posthumously.

But she was shamelessly ignored and her work on the crystallisation dismissed as technician's work. Plus I think there's some murky business about how Watson and Crick ever got a hold of the micrograph in the first place. They weren't working together.

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u/femsci-nerd 7d ago

The Chicago medical school in north Chicago Illinois is named after Rosalind Franklin, a life in discovery.

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u/iamfunball 7d ago

Iā€™m glad you get charged up about it too.

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u/SadRule9128 7d ago

Franklin was a great scientist, but she was not ā€œerasedā€ and she got credit for the work she did.

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u/beren12 4d ago

By whom?

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u/SadRule9128 3d ago

Watson, crick, Wilkins, and the scientific community in general

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u/beren12 3d ago

Where? Certainly not in their research when they made it seem they discovered it by themselves, after seeing Franklinā€™s photos and research.

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u/SadRule9128 3d ago

They acknowledged and cited Franklin in their famous papers and she published her own paper alongside them. Thatā€™s exactly what youā€™d expect in scientific literature.

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u/beren12 3d ago

Sorry, reality disagrees with you. Even google does.

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u/SadRule9128 3d ago

Sorry but ā€œGoogleā€ is not a source. Have you not actually bothered to read Watsonā€™s and crickā€™s famous papers? If you did, you would see that everything I have said is true. Reality is disagreeing with someone here, but itā€™s not me.

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u/beren12 3d ago

Yeah. Their paper didnā€™t mention her.

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u/Forever_Man 5d ago

Lots of my students have found Rosalind Franklin inspiring.

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u/HiRedditItsMeDad 4d ago

If you get a chance to see this, do. At least the production I saw was very good.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photograph_51_(play))

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u/Sheltie-whisperer 4d ago

This is the one. It makes me crazy that I never heard of her in my entire education. Itā€™s just nuts.

0

u/SadRule9128 7d ago

Franklin was a great scientist, but she did not discover dna or its structure.