Re:Lady Ranelagh: The Incomparable Life of Robert Boyle’s Si...
by zozbot234 on Tuesday May 11, 2021 @07:38AM
(#27116816)
> assuming there is greater difficulty to achieve things as someone with a particular quality than the difficulties others face in achieving similar things leads one to naturally consider that without those difficulties perhaps they would have achieved much more.
This might apply to Warner just as well, since it seems that his work was dispersed and then likely destroyed after his death. It just goes to prove that minor and largely unacknowledged figures are pretty much ubiquitous in history. Many of these figures could have valuable books written about them; it's just a matter of doing the work.
Re:Lady Ranelagh: The Incomparable Life of Robert Boyle’s Si...
by bryanrasmussen on Tuesday May 11, 2021 @08:00AM
(#27117021)
good point, and while I do not think she should be classified as an incomparable intellectual given what little we know it would seem reasonable to think she probably had greater unrealized potential based on her gender in the same way that I look at someone like George Washington Carver and think what could he have achieved unobstructed by racism.
Re:Lady Ranelagh: The Incomparable Life of Robert Boyle’s Si...
by vagrantJin on Tuesday May 11, 2021 @08:22AM
(#27117188)
You raise a good point. My take on this is similar to yours in that if we can wax lyrical about an aristocrat who happens to be a woman, what about the genuises not even afforded the opportunity to engage with the high minds of the time. Literature like this tends to hyperfocus without context and that makes it uncomfortable to read as a fellow learned individual.
My point is Im not going to cry a river over some aristocrat who rubbed shoulders with the greats as compared to someone who had nothing but worked their way into recognition and forgotten by history.
Re:Lady Ranelagh: The Incomparable Life of Robert Boyle’s Si...
by TchoBeer on Tuesday May 11, 2021 @09:22AM
(#27117762)
I agree so much with that first paragraph. All these "women geniuses snubbed by 18th century sexism" are aristocrats (which makes sense because all the men geniuses are also aristocrats). The lack of discussion of people who didn't have the opportunities that, for instance, Ada Lovelace did, is a pretty big misstep imo.
Re:Lady Ranelagh: The Incomparable Life of Robert Boyle’s Si...
by dash2 on Tuesday May 11, 2021 @10:46AM
(#27118694)
Yeah, I think that's absolutely true and fair. It's possible that Lady R might have been a truly awesome scientist in a different world, and it's a good idea to remember all those "flowers born to blush unseen". And, in any case, maybe Lady R is just a really interesting person! You don't have to be a (drumroll) Great Scientist to be an interesting biography subject. My objection is to overestimating someone's actual achievements in the interests of a political agenda, no matter how well-meaning.
Harrison Bergeron once removed of his obstacles would surely have conquered the world and been the greatest dancer and thinker of his generation, were it not for Diana Moon Glampers and her ten-gauge double-barreled shotgun.
If this lady's achievements were on a par with Walter Warner's, then we should discuss how much more difficult was it for her to do these things as a woman. It might not have been as difficult as we assume, as we compare the misogyny of her era with those of eras that we know better. I would think poverty was more of a hindrance than gender in her time, but I do also suppose gender was some sort of hindrance.
on edit: changed thinking to thinker, changed difficult to difficulty