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geekberry's review against another edition
4.0
Dense reading with a constant barrage of names (which I'm bad with) and jumpy timeline, and heavy reading because of attitudes that should have changed but haven't. I was concerned at first that the book was too focused on suffrage and not focused enough on the science it was supposed to be about, but later chapters alleviated that fear. I'm coming away from this experience satisfied and having learnt something.
maggil's review against another edition
4.0
Fill with the stories of complex, smart, groundbreaking, problematic, and real women. They were stories I'd never before heard about women doing work I'd never considered.
ari_odinson's review against another edition
2.0
Wow for a book that started so strong this became a quick disappointment for me. It was a disjointed narrative that never really focused on female scientists and their contributions to WWI. While I know "Suffrage" is in the title the focus was more on the Women's Suffrage movement and random references to Virginia Woolf? This all built up to the disjointed paragraph that quickly mentioned women it felt more like this [name] was a chemist and then [name] was also a chemist who got married. It went on like that without delving into actual scientific contributions or progress during this period of time.
Fara also lists James Barry in a long list of female doctors, which really was the point that made me mad. Not once does Fara really discuss the fluidity of gender. Yes, change in societal views and she took so long to establish while these viewpoints may exist then it goes nowhere. Then she casually lists how James Barry was a doctor before another individual using his deadname and says "male scientist," but it doesn't sit well with me at all that Fara wanted to talk about science before the war, only speaks about cis women then includes him?
Anyhow, I'm bummed that this did not turn out to be the read I thought it would be, but I do really like the bibliography. I'm hoping to find some other things to read from there.
Fara also lists James Barry in a long list of female doctors, which really was the point that made me mad. Not once does Fara really discuss the fluidity of gender. Yes, change in societal views and she took so long to establish while these viewpoints may exist then it goes nowhere. Then she casually lists how James Barry was a doctor before another individual using his deadname and says "male scientist," but it doesn't sit well with me at all that Fara wanted to talk about science before the war, only speaks about cis women then includes him?
Anyhow, I'm bummed that this did not turn out to be the read I thought it would be, but I do really like the bibliography. I'm hoping to find some other things to read from there.
llamasquama's review
3.0
Incredibly thorough and well-written. I enjoyed parts of this quite a bit, but with the subtitle “Science and Suffrage in the First World War,” I expected more science than suffrage, which was not the case.