Invention Guides

Why is it mostly men that make scientific discoveries and inventions?

It seems like all the great inventors and scientists (like Edison, Marconi, Da Vinci, Newton, Einstein, Wright Bros, Stevenson) were men. Of course women are smart and capable, but why is it so few pioneer discoveries and breakthrough inventions?

Public Comments

1. Because they weren't really allowed to learn .
2. Study the history of women and their oppression over the years. They didn't have the freedom of men to study and make discoveries! Only recently did they get the right to vote! I'd also study the women involved in the lives of the great scientists. Also study Madame Curie.
3. Uhmm, who was it that discovered radiation and applied it to make X-rays . . . oh ya Marie Curie! I think you need to do a little more resaerch and take into account that alot of the things that lay people are aware of were discovered two hundred years ago; when male dominated society criminalized female education.
4. im telling u wot no1 wants to hear. women are in fact smarter.. i mean smart. . but they don't like to work, lol . the thing actually is that men are better at focusing in one thing (predator) so they don't get distracted, women on the other hand are better at doing many things at the same time (raising the children ,cooking, etc) so both gendre are different but women are better. jk this i've said sounds patronizing, but i'm a feminist one has to realise that intelligence doesn't only consist in being able to do long equations for a long time. u also have to think that women, back then, were ignorant by force (no education for them huh?) so there's the reason why men, who were educated, could come up with gr8 things. let's wait a century and see wot women find out nowadays they are entitled to education
5. through history they were not educated or encouraged in such pursuits. Plus I think more men on average are interested in spending time in a lab bent over test tubes. Of course many women are, but I think they prefer to do more social things. How many women do you know that sit and play alone with toy trains? I know LOTS of men who do.
6. Because it hasn't been till very recently when women were allowed to learn anything in those types of fields. There are still more men than women in the scientific industry, in another 100 years or less the list you gave should include a lot more women. Remember, women were barely allowed to go to college when my grandmother was of age (I'm 24). Even then, they were expected to go to college to find a man, not a career. We are just now starting to see the the first generations of women who have proper educations. You could have asked the same only change women to African Americans, it's not because either group is less intelligent. It's because they have been suppressed from that line of work until very recently.
7. Well, the thing was that only men went to school back in the day, and women weren't allowed for much schooling. Usually, you would see both young boys and girls going to school at a young age, but as they got older, only the boys went into Physics, Philosophy, and all those other complex classes.
8. It is because women allowed the men to take the credit especially during the lifetimes of those you have mentioned, because men were then the 'bread winners' and the wife stayed 'dutifully' at home.
9. Men are smarter..lol
10. Most scientific discoveries and inventions are the result of mistakes. Since men seldom ask for directions they are more likely wander around and stumble onto new things like penicillin.