During the process of writing this book, I saw the birth of a little girl. First daughter,
first granddaughter. A world of expectations awaited her. Her room was prepared with
care and drawings all over the walls. Planets, rockets, stars, and even a flying saucer. In
the first photo shared, the caption written by her mother revealed her desire for the
future: “Be whatever you want!”
Not infrequently, the idea of female empowerment comes associated with figures
of the universe, for their grandeur and limitlessness. Also common is the search for the
relationship between female capabilities and professions for many decades restricted to
men, such as astronauts and scientists. Stereotypes persist, despite numerous advances.
The challenge of this work was to portray women who have science as their daily
practice, through photographs and words, with emphasis on the art that this connection
proposes and that seems distant from the scientific work.
However, it is not. Of the 30 interviewees, from different generations, with different
accents, working as researchers, teachers, and businesswomen, most mentioned their
appreciation for the beauty of music, painting, dance, or poetry. Some even use their
little spare time to sew, write, play an instrument, or take photographs.
The texts that make up this book are varied in their formats and, mixed
together, resemble a kind of patchwork quilt. Beyond the colorfulness and
patterns, it aims to warm you.
For the opening story, from the 30 stories heard, I sought common traits, sensations,
and particularities that were representative of all of them. The textual structure,
the vocabulary and the model of the journey reproduce the traditional fairy tales.
Nevertheless, unlike them, the female protagonism is not marked by passivity, but
by decision making, guided by desire and bravery. Thus, the script unfolds up to the
metaphorical encounter, common to all the stories collected.
Before listening and writing, the question came up: what kind of science are we
talking about? After all, the term encompasses countless areas of knowledge, from
humanities to political and social sciences. As a cutout, given the project’s objective, we
focused on the set of sciences that some theorists call Natural Sciences and that include
Physics, Chemistry and Biology, with their unfoldings.
Once the definition is adopted, another type of text appears in our quilt. Data and
technical information offer support to the statements and to the relevance of the general
theme. Research and indexes highlight the need to talk about struggles, rights, and equity.
We also have the voices of the 30 scientists interviewed, who are exposed throughout
the work and, between quotation marks, convey ideas and reflections about their jobs,
their learning, and how they walk among the delights and sorrows of their profession.
We chose not to identify each statement, proposing a game of imagination with the
reader. In this way, a phrase may have been said by any of the scientists, without loss of
power, and may even belong to all of them. Multiple voices echo in unison.
Five theme-words outline suggestions for chapters, with informative introductions
and new brief fictions. Without using the usual structure of short stories, these texts are
slices of an invented - but very real – life. Or the other way around. Explicitly inspired
in the trajectories of important women scientists who lived about 100 years ago - the
time of the official beginning of women’s participation in science - the poetic prose was
created to bring these experiences closer, to embrace and welcome them.PREFACE
28 A Ciência com Rosto de Mulher