The contributions of women for the construction of the periodic table of the chemical elements
Lise Meitner (1878-1968), Ida Noddack (1896-1978), Berta Karlik
(1904-1990) e Marguerite Perey (1909-1975), History of Women in Science, Gender
and Science, Collective Biography, Periodic Table of Chemical Elements.
The present work discusses the contributions of women scientists to the construction of
the periodic table. It fills existing gaps in the History of Science concerning the
visibility and recognition of their discoveries. The year 2019 was chosen by the United
Nations - UN as the international year of the periodic table, coinciding with 150 years
of the discovery of the periodicity of the elements by Dmitri Mendeleev (1834-1907).
With this, periodicals dedicated themselves to publishing the history of the development
of the periodic table. However, it is clear that many male scientists are cited as
collaborators, but the contributions of women are little explored. According to the
bibliographic survey, more than forty women scientists contributed to building the
periodic table by discovering new elements and/or their properties. We will approach in
this work the contributions of four scientists: Lise Meitner (1878-1968), Ida Noddack
(1896-1978), Berta Karlik (1904-1990), and Marguerite Perey (1909-1975). A
collective biography based on the life history of these women, considering gender as a
category of analysis, is intended to give visibility to their academic trajectories and
contributions to the construction of the periodic table. Finally, through the crossed
histories of these scientists, it was possible to identify and reflect on the various
oppressions they suffered that consequently became obstacles throughout their careers,
such as racial and gender discrimination, the Matilda effect, territorial, hierarchical, and
institutional segregation.