Talk:List of female scientists before the 20th century

message: Besides Enheduanna, I don't see any Non-Westerners in this list; even if I'm missing all the rest, I can't see how it there could be very many at all.
What about Merit-Ptah or Akka Mahadevi, for instance?
自教育 (talk) 18:38, 15 April 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: If you have other articles on female scientists please add them. Akka_Mahadevi seems more like a philosopher than a scientist, she isn't in any other scientist cats.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 18:58, 15 April 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Maybe you can find some more in WikiProject Women scientists/missing from main list. Also, if you can find any good lists of non-Westerners on the web, it would help to post them at WOMENSCI. RockMagnetist (talk) 21:28, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

text: Cleopatra  the Alchemist is another ancient Egyptian in the list, and I have added Peseshet. RockMagnetist (talk) 21:38, 15 April 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Western Bias: Non-Western Female Scientists?

message: Any chance of reorganising so searching by letter searches the surname instead of first name? — Preceding unsigned comment added by  93.174.143.18 (talk)  08:24, 7 May 2014
:It was mostly ordered by surname already. I fixed a few exceptions. RockMagnetist (talk) 21:56, 7 May 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Surnames

message: I created a page for finding articles that are not included in this list: Talk:List of female scientists before the 21st century/missing articles. I am working up from earlier centuries (currently it covers the 11th-18th centuries). Earlier I had a Wikiproject page doing this work, but it now has a different purpose. RockMagnetist (talk) 23:05, 24 June 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Missing from list 

message: * List of female scientists before the 20th century
* List of 20th century female scientists
This page is likely to grow enormously, I would estimate by several thousand entries at least. 
All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 18:30, 31 October 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Based on this list, I would say more like 600. But a split might still make sense since the 20th century dominates the list. RockMagnetist(talk) 21:26, 31 October 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: I would support a split: in the 20th century women scientists was no longer an exception in the same way as in the previous centuries any way - though I admit there is a difference between the 1910s and the 1990s in that regard. --Aciram (talk) 23:19, 31 October 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: I suspect a split should be on a significant event such as the end or beginning of WWI or WWII not on a century year.   If they were active before then, in the earlier article, otherwise in the later article.   I will note that the the total number of scientists is vastly greater in the 20th century then in earlier centuries.--Erp (talk) 03:09, 1 November 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: It's quite hard to date the beginning and end of WWII.  I don't see WWI as such a significant watershed.  In any case would we then split the others sections on the Crimea and the Peninsula Wars?  All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 19:43, 6 November 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: It would be hard to determine exactly were to make the split: WWII can be a good choice, so can WWI, as many nations gave women the right to vote in circa 1920. But such reasons can always be contested, particularly since this is a worldwide list. Therefore, the most uncontroversial choice, I think, should be to split it at the year 1900, and give the entire 20th-century a separate list. It it still true that there will be a huge difference between the 1920s and the 1980s, but I suspect that would still be the most uncontroversial choice.--Aciram (talk) 19:54, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

text: Rich, I think you can perform the split know. Women scientists may have been a minority in the 20th-century but no longer an exception, and the split must be performed because the 20th century members will grow to a huge extent, eclipsing all other in the list. They need a separate list. If the 20th-century list should be split to further, then it can be discussed and performed after the century has its own list.--Aciram (talk) 17:03, 13 November 2015 (UTC)

text: I agree that hiving off the 20th century would be helpful for this to really function as a reading/finding aid. It may even be that down the line the 19th century will need to be split off as well.Alafarge (talk) 20:44, 30 November 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm going to do the split though I'll name the 20th century article List of female scientists in the 20th century so the first bit is the same.  Erp (talk) 01:50, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Go for it. RockMagnetist(talk) 02:00, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Done though someone should probably check that I didn't miss anything.  I put Marie Curie's picture at the top of the new article.   Erp (talk) 02:28, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Proposed split

message: I don't want to get into a gender politics debate, but I'm not sure the opening line is completely 100% accurate. For the cultures that we're aware of and studied to a mass extent, it would be true (more or less) to state that women in science was rare. For the many other cultures we haven't studied to a great extent, we can't be certain that it was rare that women didn't become scientists or studied science in some capacity. Thus, I think this should be rewritten to reflect that. -RomeW (talk) 02:47, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: And it would probably help to have a citation, to go with that statement change. Jooojay (talk) 21:52, 10 October 2017 (UTC)
thread_title: Opening line

message: I am having trouble editing right now due to technicalities, so I am adding a note here as a reminder; the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania has notable alumni listed that I noticed they are not on this page so perhaps they can be added here too. Most of them were the earliest Western-medicine trained female doctors, from all over the world. Jooojay (talk) 21:52, 10 October 2017 (UTC)
thread_title: Add more women to this list

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: What are the inclusion criteria for being on this list? I realise that the division between science and philosophy is a modern one, but there are a lot of ancient philosophers on this list for whom I can find no evidence that they were interested in anything that would be recognised today as a scientific question.  For instance: Abrotelia, whose article mentions "philosophical fields such as metaphysics, logic, and aesthetics"; Asclepegenia, apparently interested in theurgy and mysticism; Axiothea of Phlius, a student of Plato; and Melissa (philosopher), whose only known writing is a letter on the need for wives to be "modest and virtuous". I doubt most modern readers would understand any of these women as scientists.  If they are to be included, we should make it clear what we mean by "female scientists"!  
There are various other ancient women whose inclusion on this list I find deeply suspect. To name a few:
* "Agamede (12th century BCE), physician in Ancient Greece (possibly mythical)" – I am not sure there is any possibility she is not mythical.  She appears in Homer's Iliad and Hyginus' Fabulae, in which she is described as a consort of the god Poseidon. Should mythical figures be included on this list?
* "Agnodike (4th century BCE), first woman physician to practice legally in Athens" – also generally agreed to be fictional. If we are to include, we should at least make it clear that most scholars believe the story of Agnodice to be fiction.
* "Anyte (300 BCE), Greek physician and poet" – Ogilvie et al. describe "Anicia or Amyte" [sic] as "described by Pausanias as a woman doctor of Epidaurus who was also a poet". He says no such thing. The story about Anyte reported by Pausanias at 10.38.13 clearly describes her as a poet, not a doctor, and the healing that she was involved in is portrayed as the miraculous gift of a god.
The more I look at this list, the more questions I have... Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 16:11, 27 September 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay, as there's been no support for keeping these entries I am removing all of those for philosophers where I can find no reason to think they have every been associated with natural philosophy or mathematics. Surviving the cull are Melissa (philosopher) (Ogilvie et al. speculate that, like other Pythagoreans, she was interested in mathematics but she's on thin ice because as far as I can tell that's just a guess that they have made), Myia (Ogilvie et al. describe her as a natural philosopher and say that she wrote about "the nourishment of the child", though calling what she wrote scientific is a stretch), and Perictione (Ogilvie et al. say that Perictione II discusses arithmetic, geometry and natural science). I'm still not convinced that these three should be included either, (or or Ogilvie et al. as a source on ancient figures in general!) but this gets rid of many of the most dubious entries on this list. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 11:32, 4 October 2023 (UTC)
thread_title: Inclusion criteria/ancient women