ROSALIND FRANKLIN
At some point in our lives, someone will say something completely untrue, unforgivingly unsolicited. But what happens when they do it behind your back? To someone incapable of defending themselves? To someone who isn’t present? What if someone slandered your name in it’s entirety, belittling your greatest accomplishments just to, inevitably, take credit for themselves?
Rosalind Franklin was exceptionally bright, known for her unique intellect at the ripe, young age of six by her family.[1] She attended the most prestigious schools available to her, setting standards that baffled those around her. Though even her own family tended to the social order of gender inequality, (her own father only ever hired men),[2] Rosalind went to the same school as her eldest brother, until she later attended a boarding school, eventually returning to London to attend a girls’ school known for its academics. She excelled in academics, taking entrance exams to college a year before she was of age. She attended a women’s college focusing in science and mathematics, despite her parents’ wishes of her having a more maternal career. In a letter home, she referred to one professor as “very good, although female,” noting and persevering through a predominately male workforce.[3]
She graduated at the top of her class, earning herself a scholarship, leading to her PhD in 1945.[4] In her early career following school, she was offered a position as a chemist in Paris, making her one of only fifteen researchers in the Central National Laboratory. This facility treated the employed men and women equally, and it is said that her four years in Paris may have even been the happiest years in her life.[5] Though she was happy, she returned home to a new position- to work with DNA using x-ray diffraction at King’s College, a part of the lab normally run by Maurice Wilkins. Wilkins argued that she was only hired to be his assistant, when in fact she was not.[6] He didn’t handle the newcomer too well, eventually stealing her lab notes and ideas. Unlike the lab in Paris, Rosalind worked around the gender segregation, with even the lunchroom off limits to her.[7]
Ultimately, it was Wilkins, James Watson and Frances Crick that took undeserved credit for the entirety of the chemical structure of DNA, accepting a Nobel Prize, after Rosalind’s death at the age of 37.[8] Prior, Rosalind, with the help of her PhD student, had built a camera that had given the clearest x-ray images to date, which was later taken by the men, along with all of her lab notes, that created the DNA model.[9]
The biggest slap in the face, though, was Watson’s book, depicting Rosalind as an abrasive, brutish woman who knew not how to be feminine. He gave her the nickname “Rosy,” which she did not go by. He depicted her with every imaginable, unattractive trait even if they weren’t true, as to make her out to be some pushy smartass taking over his lab.[10] In fact, it is mentioned that others had the pleasure of working with her, and that she was extremely smart and precise with her work.[11] After Watson’s lies were published, a friend of Rosalind, Anne Sayre, wrote Rosalind Franklin and DNA, correcting all of the misleading ideas set forth by Watson, claiming that she had been “unjustifiably robbed” of proper credit.[12] She gave Rosalind the credit that was due, and slashed through all of the insulting ideas brought on by Watson with Rosalind’s true self. Rosalind worked until almost the day of her death- the day she died some of her work was published. She was an extremely intelligent woman, set out and destined to break records.
[1] Galvin, Eileen A., Aphrodite, Clamar, Siderits, Mary Anne, Women of Vision: Their Psychology, Circumstances and Success, Springer Publishing Company, January 2007. See page 262
[2] IBID.
[3] IBID. See page 263.
[4] IBID. See page 264.
[5] IBID. See page 265.
[6] IBID.
[7] IBID. See page 267.
[8] IBID. See page 269.
[9] IBID. See page 267.
[10] Sayre, Anne. Rosalind Franklin and DNA. New York: Norton. 2000. p 18-19.
[11] IBID. See page 21.
[12] Galvin, Eileen A., Aphrodite, Clamar, Siderits, Mary Anne, Women ofVision: Their Psychology, Circumstances and Success, Springer Publishing Company, January 2007. See page 270.
