Samantha McKnew

Ms. Santiago
Writing and Inquiry ll
10/13/16
Persuasive Essay
Since the beginning of time, women have always struggled with equal rights in almost
everything around them. One of the main issues has been the equality of gender in education.
Even to this day women are still trying to get full equality; especially in the field of science. For
some reason, science has been one of the hardest fields for females to be treated equally in. Laws
from back in the day made it almost impossible for women to be able to advance in this field.
The ridicule of men made it that much harder for them to progress as well. While fighting all of
these factors, women were still trying their hardest so that they could be honored for their
discoveries to. The Nobel Prize is a prime example of how women have been treated these last
decades. With as little as 48 women who have won the Nobel Prize, it shines through that women
have always been undermined.
The first step in being able to understand the struggle is by looking at all of the history and laws
against women in education the last 100 years. One of the main laws that restricted women in the
field is that they were not allowed to work at the same University/College as their spouse. The
government made something called the marriage bars to block women from being able to get
hired if they were married. It also prevented them from being able to marry while in the field
because they would get fired if they did. Eventually the bar was lifted in 1941 in several states.
Back in the day, females were told that their main role was to be in the house and take care of the

family. The mans job was to go out, work and make the money for the household. This
obviously caused issues for women because they would never have the chance to receive an
education and be able to go onto great achievements. Another issue women ran into back in the
1800s was that they could not control their wages and this causes a problem for even trying to
get an education. The laws above really stopped women from being able to do and achieve a lot
of things. The laws were in the time frame of when the Nobel Prize started and that is the main
reason why a lot of women have not won a Nobel Prize. They had no way of achieving an
education and if they got lucky enough to get into the field, they were still undermined and
ignored.
The science field was particularly difficult because women have been denied in that field the
most over the others. Science is known to be a male field which makes it harder for women to
work their way in. They were said to be distractions and didnt belong in the field. The reasoning
behind it being a male field is because it was to intellectually hard for a woman to handle the
work and research. Even if women did end up being in the same position as a male, they were
discriminated against just because of gender. Universities also made it to where females couldnt
work with their husbands at the same place. Yet another obstacle in the way of women. After all
of the laws subsided, women still had to fight the struggle of getting through to men in their
fields. Women to this day are still not treated equality when it comes down to gender in certain
areas.
Another factor in the struggle for success was facing the harassment and disrespect from men in
their field. Women had to deal with sexual assault and the mental abuse from male colleagues.
Men would constantly ignore women and always choose the male over the female. Even in
society today women do not get the same reorganization like men do for their accomplishments.

Their work gets down played, or if funding is needed it will never get off the ground. This
gender bias is not just through the Nobel Prize organization, but throughout society as whole.
How is a woman who faces gender bias, objectification, and sexual innuendos/ harassment
supposed to make a difference in this word to win this prize and face these circumstances?
Society has a big part in this as well. Women were known to be weak and to only be there to take
care of the household agenda and support the family. When the laws changed, unfortunately the
mindset of everyone did not. Thus, causing women to still face the difficulty of being accepted
and chosen for jobs. Even when the woman ended up getting the job, she would still get paid
much less and be treated with much less respect than their male colleagues. Most organizations
now require that females be hired. This is a negative connation due to woman not being hired
due to their skills but due to being politically obligated. This relates to the Nobel Prize
organization since it correlates directly with the low number of women winning. Even when the
numbers of women winning increased they were winning in areas that were miniscule compared
to the big scientific and evolutionary advances that men were getting credit for. Even before the
Nobel Prize organization was created, women were using mens names to publish artwork and
literature due to the backlash they wouldve received otherwise. Leading to this idea that women
are not up to par in anything in society other than domestic duties.
The Nobel Prize is a great example to use to show that women are not as important as men.
There has been a total of 889 prizes given out and only 48 women have received the prize. This
is an astronomical difference in gender. The nomination percentages have gone up with women,
but the percentage of women awarded the prize has not gotten any better. Women have been
snubbed by the Nobel Prize also. The organization sometimes gives the award to the higher male
figure over the female that did all of the work. There is plenty of evidence to prove that women

do the work to earn the prize, but it is still given to someone else over them. This is very
degrading and can make a female scared to even attempt to go for success.
In short, there were plenty of obstacles in the way of women reaching for success, especially in
the Nobel Prize committee. Laws were made to make it almost impossible for women to get a
good education and be able to reach for high goals in life. When the laws were removed, the
discrimination was not. This was another stepping stone for women to overcome. They were
harassed, ignored, and abused in the field. They were paid less and overlooked on all their
achievements made. The Nobel Prize still to this day ignores the success of women and it is
proven in the numbers of laureates. The number of nominees is increasing in women, but the
numbers of women awarded is still minimal. Hopefully in the future this will change and finally
be over for good.