Women Who Could...and Did

Lives of 26 Exemplary Artists and Scientists

By: Karma Kitaj Ph.D.

Narrated by: Paige Allison

Length: 9 hrs and 35 mins

Publisher's summary

Based on candid interviews with prominent artists and scientists over age 65, this audiobook provides inspiration, support, and guidance for young women entering careers, for midcareer changers, and for women reentering the workplace after time off to rear children.

Parents, guidance and career counselors, and gender studies professors will find this book invaluable in providing women with role models who share their life stories with humor, compassion, and zest.

The author conceived of this project while a visiting research scholar at Wellesley Centers for Women in the 1990s. The stories were so compelling that she decided they must be made available to the general public rather than merely to an academic audience. The audiobook is based on extensive interviews with highly successful women scientists and artists who were ages 65 to 95 when the author met them. It is comprised of five sections:

• History of women and work from the early part of the twentieth century until now
• Lives through time--traces the women's stories from their formative years through the times they realized their highest achievements
• Common themes found in their stories
• "Lives in context" presents in-depth stories of four of the women
• "Looking ahead" offers insights about what the reader can learn from the stories of these exemplary women.

Download the accompanying reference guide.

©2002 Karma Kitaj (P)2015 Karma Kitaj

Great overview of influential women in STEAM

I loved getting to know new "paper mentors" through this book. As a woman working at the intersection of art and science, it was refreshing to hear my own story mirrored in these narratives.

Engrossing

Karma Kitaj chose twenty-six successful women who made their mark in the early twentieth century when the roles of women in most fields were more limited than they are today. She writes about the factors that contributed to their success and the hurdles they had to overcome. These women were all prominent in their fields of science, art, music, education. I was most interested in the science women particularly the two in physics and the physician that won the Nobel Prize.

The book is well written and informative. I enjoy learning how people over come challenges and use their gifts to success in their professions and Kitaj provided me with interesting examples.

I understand Kitaj turn her academic studies into work readable by the average reader. The book is narrated by Paige Allison.