Science
The year is 1891, and the trains hiss with steam and soot as a young Polish woman steps off in Paris, clutching dreams too large for Warsaw to contain. Maria Skłodowska—soon to be known as Marie Curie—has arrived in a world not yet ready for her brilliance. And still, she insists on shining.
In another world, in another time, a professor sits in a sterile laboratory, watching a young woman fumble with lab equipment too big for her hands. She’s bright, focused. But she pauses, shakes her wrist, mutters that the knobs were clearly made for someone else—someone taller, broader. Someone male.
Marie’s story doesn’t begin with glory, but with defiance. In Russian-occupied Poland, she’s denied the right to attend university—because she’s a woman. But rebellion lives in the details: in her moonlit studies at the Flying University, where knowledge is smuggled like contraband, passed hand-to-hand between women who refuse to accept invisibility. It’s in these secret classrooms that her story takes root, not just as a scientist, but as a woman learning to outwit erasure.
She trades Warsaw’s gray alleys for the Sorbonne’s cold stone halls. There, she learns French and physics in the same breath, enduring hunger and loneliness with a resolve that borders on holy. “The world of science, which I was at last permitted to know in all liberty,” she would write later—a line that reads less like celebration and more like mourning for the years lost to silence.
Even when she discovers polonium and radium alongside her husband Pierre, the world still tries to dim her light. Her name is struck from the original list of Nobel nominees. It’s only Pierre’s protest that ensures she’s recognized. And when he dies—suddenly, tragically—Marie is left alone to carry the weight of two minds. She becomes the first female professor at the Sorbonne. Then, the first person, of any gender, to win two Nobel Prizes in different fields. Yet the French Academy of Sciences rejects her. Immigrant. Woman. Widow. Too many adjectives.
But Marie doesn’t ask for approval—she asks for results. In the trenches of World War I, she deploys “little Curies”—mobile x-ray units—staffed by women she trains herself. She doesn’t just break glass ceilings; she replaces them with skylights.
And still, she dies from the very thing she loved. Her body, quietly unraveling from radiation exposure. Her notebooks remain radioactive to this day—a metaphor too perfect to ignore. Her brilliance, her danger. Her glow.
But this isn’t just her story.
This is also about the woman in the engineering lab, the only one in her team. She remembers her first day: ten percent women. By her third year, it’s seven. By graduation, five. They drop like electrons escaping unstable orbits—not because they’re not good enough, but because the lab wasn’t built for them.
It’s about the little girl who excels in science, until she hears, again and again, that math is “hard,” that boys are “naturally better at it.” She begins to believe it. That belief settles in her bones like lead. She chooses literature instead.
It’s about every woman who walked into a classroom and scanned for someone—anyone—who looked like her. And found no one.
These aren’t just anecdotes. They are data points in a pattern as old as radium.
Women in STEM have made undeniable gains. In biology and chemistry, their numbers rise. But physics, computer science, and engineering still echo with absence. The issue isn’t capability—it’s culture. Tools aren’t designed for smaller hands. Role models are scarce. Bias, subtle and insidious, casts women as too emotional, too soft, too motherly, too ambitious. A paradox of too much and not enough.
Even the mind becomes a battlefield. Imposter syndrome whispers, “You don’t belong here,” even when their test scores scream otherwise. So many brilliant women leave—not for lack of talent, but for lack of welcome. The pipeline leaks, and no one fixes it. Instead, we ask: “Where did they all go?”
They didn’t go. We let them slip away.
This loss isn’t just moral—it’s mathematical. Homogenous teams build flawed systems. Cars crash-test on male dummies. Voice recognition software ignores higher-pitched voices. Medicine reacts differently in female bodies—but where’s the data? Inclusion isn’t charity. It’s survival.
Marie once said, “Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood.” But fear thrives in absence. When women are missing from science, the unknown grows darker. Their presence is a lamp held high. A spectrum of perspectives brings not just fairness, but foresight.
So how do we turn the tide?
We start early. We praise effort, not “natural talent.” We show girls that curiosity is not a trait of gender, but of spirit. We fund mentorships, design flexible tenure paths, provide child care, and promote collaboration over competition. We talk about failure—and how it’s not the opposite of success, but its precondition.
We train boys to be allies, not gatekeepers. We remind institutions that diversity isn’t a favor—it’s a function of excellence.
Most importantly, we tell stories. Of Marie. Of every woman who followed. Of those who dared to enter rooms they weren’t invited into—and stayed.
Because when a girl sees herself in a story, she starts to write her own.
Then we go back to think of the girl in the lab again. Her gloves too big, her shoulders squared. She laughs in frustration, but doesn’t quit. She’s not Marie Curie, not yet—but she’s glowing. Quietly. Persistently.
There are numerous young women out there—those still choosing between love and legacy, between family and fieldwork, between who they are and who the world thinks they should be. And with hope the next Marie Curie isn’t famous for being first—but for being one of many.
This glow—the unyielding light of curiosity, resistance, and hope—isn’t just a memory. It’s a movement.
And when we finally build a lab big enough for all minds, the world glows a little brighter.
By: REYFER B. GIERGOS
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