Women Belong in the Lab

Every night when I was five, my mom would read me Paul de Kruif’s 1926 biology biography Microbe Hunters: The Classic Book on the Major Discoveries of the Microscopic World. It was my favorite book, and I asked for a microscope for Christmas. At five, nothing could stop my dreams of growing up to be like the scientists in Microbe Hunters. But, as the years went on, I began playing with Barbies, toy kitchens, and tea sets. I learned the role that society had apparently preordained for me as a woman, and I lost hold of my dreams. 

Then came my seventh-grade biology class. As I studied my textbook, I realized that none of the scientists mentioned were women. Thinking back, I realized my once-beloved Microbe Hunters did not have women in it either. I was then aware of the lack of representation and wondered what it meant. Despite my disappointment, biology was my favorite subject, and I became obsessed with becoming a doctor; I fell in love with science once again. 

That year, I remember my parents telling me that if I was going to become a doctor, I should be a dermatologist or an ophthalmologist because they wanted grandkids, and I would not have time to build a family while stuck on a long medical school residency track. To my parents, this comment was a joke. To me, it was another reason to let go of my aspirations and remember my future as a woman in Mexico — get married, have kids. 

Now, I’m not as convinced that I wanted to be a doctor as I was in seventh grade, but this year’s recipients for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry brought back my love for science and my hopes that my next science book will have women in it. 

On October 7, 2020, ​Dr. Emmanuelle Charpentier and Dr. Jennifer Doudna received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their ground-breaking research on CRISPR-Cas9 technology, a gene-editing tool that the New York Times called “an invention that will change the human race.” As I read the article on their discoveries, questions swirled in my mind about the technological possibilities their research will open. Suddenly, research on CRISPR-Cas9 excited me as much as Microbe Hunters excited my five-year-old self. Now, I wonder what my younger self would have felt if these women were in the books I read back then; maybe I would have never lost my love for science in the first place.

Dr. Charpentier and Dr. Doudna were only the sixth and seventh women in history to receive this prize, and it’s the first time the prize has honored two women at once. Seeing two women thrive together and get the recognition they deserve is a milestone not just for science, but for women worldwide. It means that even against the odds, women can do anything if we support each other. 

Dr. Charpentier told the New York Times that the prize will “provide a message specifically to young girls who would like to follow the path of science and to show them that in friendship, women can also be awarded prizes.”

Now, my love for science is back once again. And this time I’m hoping that with someone who looks like me finally in the limelight, my passion will stay for good. In the years since I played with Barbies, I’ve redefined my role as a woman. To me, Dr. Charpentier and Dr. Doudna are proof that societal gender roles are designed to be dismissed. 

If I ever have kids, I know the book I will read to them: Goodnight Stories for Rebel Girls — a book of inspiring women’s biographies, including figures such as Serena Williams, Frida Kahlo, Marie Curie, and, maybe one day, Dr. Charpentier and Dr. Doudna. 

If young girls are never made to believe that their gender limits their dreams and are instead able to see people who look like them working in fields across society, nothing will stop them from changing the world — just like Dr. Charpentier and Dr. Doudna.

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