Today’s episode is called “The Great Menstrual Lie”, and as ridiculous as that sounds, this was an actual medical debate in the 1800s. Male doctors genuinely believed that periods made women too weak, emotional, and unstable for higher education or real careers. Today, we’re talking about the woman who used real science to shut that argument down. This is the story of Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi, the woman who proved that menstruation was never the problem… the pseudoscience was.

Sources

https://www.ssa.gov/oact/babynames/decades/names1890s.html

https://www.cureus.com/articles/289150-dr-mary-putnam-jacobi-1842-1906-the-pioneer-of-womens-medical-education#!/

https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/mary-putnam-jacobi

https://drexel.edu/legacy-center/blog/overview/2013/november/mary-putnam-jacobi-still-famous-after-150-years/

https://www.aamc.org/news/celebrating-10-women-medical-pioneers

https://cfmedicine.nlm.nih.gov/physicians/biography_163.html

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mary-Putnam-Jacobi

Someone be very proud of us because we are not covering a Mary, Maria, Marie today!! Instead we will be talking about Dr. Susan La Flesche Picotte, the first Native American to earn a medical degree and a woman at that.

Sources:

https://www.civilwarmed.org/la-flesche/

https://www.nebraskastudies.org/en/1875-1899/susan-la-flesche-picotte-first-na-female-physician/

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/incredible-legacy-susan-la-flesche-first-native-american-earn-medical-degree-180962332/

https://picottecenter.org/dr-susan

https://exhibits.unmc.edu/whc/PicotteFamily

When we talk about the history of astronomy, we often hear about the same familiar names: Kepler, Galileo, and Copernicus. Men whose work helped define the scientific revolution. But hidden between these well-known figures are brilliant thinkers whose contributions were nearly lost to time, simply because they did not fit the mold of who society believed a scientist could be. Today, we want to introduce you to one of those remarkable individuals: Maria Cunitz. She lived during the early 17th century, in a world shaped by political upheaval, religious conflict, and strict limits on what women were allowed to learn or do. And yet, despite all of this, she became one of the most accomplished astronomers and mathematicians of her age, often called the “Silesian Pallas” and even “the second Hypatia.” Her story is not just about scientific achievement, but also about perseverance. Without access to formal education, proper equipment, or institutional support, Maria Cunitz still managed to produce one of the most important astronomical works of her century. And today, we’ll walk you through her life, her challenges, her contributions to astronomy, and why her legacy still matters.

Sources:

https://mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Cunitz/

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/lady-astronomer-who-took-on-most-advanced-science-180962142/

https://scientificwomen.net/women/cunitz-maria-31

https://www.lindahall.org/about/news/scientist-of-the-day/maria-cunitz/

https://www.historyofinformation.com/detail.php?entryid=4087

https://www.encyclopedia.com/women/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/cunitz-maria-1610-1664

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BxX8Pxhf0c

Today, we’re talking about the woman behind the miracle of Test Tube Babies, the mother of IVF. A woman whose dedication helped solve infertility for millions of people around the world. Her name is Jean Purdy, and even though history tried to tuck her behind the men she worked with, her fingerprints are on every modern fertility clinic that exists today.

Sources:

https://winfertility.com/blog/jean-purdy-an-ivf-pioneer/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28881151/

https://www.bournhall.co.uk/fertilityblog/jean-purdy-ivf-pioneer/

https://academic.oup.com/humrep/article/38/Supplement_1/dead093.135/7202878

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Purdy

https://time.com/7178799/joy-true-story-jean-purdy-netflix/

https://www.ivfmn.com/jean-purdys-recognition/

Where's the farthest you've ever traveled?

Well, what if planes didn’t exist and you had to take a two-month sea voyage instead?

Today’s woman in STEM traveled the world when airplanes weren’t even dreamed of yet. She self-funded a journey halfway across the globe to take care of soldiers that weren’t even from her country, and was never formally recognized for her nursing due to her skin color. Today, we are talking about Mary Seacole.

Sources:

https://www.maryseacoletrust.org.uk/learn-about-mary/#

https://www.aorn.org/article/honoring-the-life-and-work-of-mary-seacole

https://www.britannica.com/event/Crimean-War

https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/blue-plaques/mary-seacole/

You're familiar with the idea of a stressed, unpaid intern running around with a million things to do, of course to include grabbing the boss's lunch and fancy coffee order? Okay, now imagine that, but in the 1940s. You’re literally inventing a whole new kind of astronomy, working on secret radar systems during World War II, and everyone’s like, “Oh, sorry, can you file these papers real quick?”, “Can u grab me a coffee?”

Today, we’re talking about Ruby Payne Scott, a physicist who helped invent radio astronomy, was often treated like an office assistant, and still managed to revolutionize how we look at the universe.

Sources

https://www.rahs.org.au/ruby-payne-scott-1912-1981/

https://csiropedia.csiro.au/payne-scott-ruby/

https://www.csiro.au/en/news/all/articles/2025/june/ruby-payne-scott

Imagine diving to the bottom of the ocean while pregnant. Dude, I feel like when I am pregnant, I won’t be able to even move or do anything. But today’s woman in STEM was literally on the ocean floor while pregnant.

Sources:

https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/sylvia-earle

https://www.britannica.com/science/marine-biology

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvia_Earle

https://missionblue.org/staff_member/sylvia-a-earle/

https://www.uw360.asia/sylvia-earle/#:~:text=Living%20two%20weeks%20underwater,it%20was%20before%2C%20was%20changing.

https://www.uw360.asia/project-tektite-the-aquanauts-that-lived-in-the-sea/

Imagine going to work or school or whatever, and that's just normal. Men's bathrooms are everywhere, but you have to walk across the street at the very least to go to the BATHROOM. Now imagine trying to do groundbreaking research and dealing with that. Well, that's what Lise Meitner had to do when she was discovering Nuclear Fission.

Sources

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Lise-Meitner

https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/history/lise-meitner

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lise_Meitner

https://www.atomicarchive.com/resources/biographies/meitner.html

https://www.nps.gov/people/women-of-the-manhattan-project-lise-meitner.htm

https://ahf.nuclearmuseum.org/ahf/profile/lise-meitner/

So we carved Pumpkins this weekend in celebration of fall, October, and all things spooky season. And you will never guess what Disha carved on her pumpkin.

It was a uterus…because there’s nothing scarier than being a woman. Well, that started me thinking about Women’s health, which led me to today’s Silenced Woman of STEM, a paleobotanist turned women’s health activist.

Sources:

https://embryo.asu.edu/pages/marie-charlotte-carmichael-stopes-1880-1958

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Marie-Stopes

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-11040319

https://ocean.si.edu/conservation/gulf-oil-spill/what-are-fossil-fuels

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Stopes

Today’s Silenced Woman of STEM not only spent hours creating beautiful and scientifically accurate illustrations of the microscopic world, but she was also a self-taught naturalist, an acclaimed author, and an astronomer in a time when women were mostly banned from professional science. This is the story of Mary Ward. She published a significant amount of work, all while raising eight children. She also holds the unfortunate, morbid distinction of being the first person in the world known to have been killed in a motor vehicle accident.

Sources

https://www.herstory.ie/news/2020/2/11/mary-ward

https://www.lindahall.org/about/news/scientist-of-the-day/mary-ward/

https://www.whipplelib.hps.cam.ac.uk/special/exhibitions-and-displays/microscopy-in-print/microscopy-books-ward

https://exhibits.library.duke.edu/exhibits/show/2024sciencewomen/women/mward

https://www.lindahall.org/about/news/scientist-of-the-day/mary-ward-2/

https://cobbdefense.com/first-car-accident-history/

https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/100347-first-road-traffic-death

https://offalyhistoryblog.com/2019/08/30/mary-ward-artist-naturalist-and-astronomer-a-woman-for-our-time/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15949449/