Born: 1610 (circa), France
Died: 1680
Country most active: France
Also known as: NA
The following is excerpted from Infinite Women creator Allison Tyra’s book Uncredited: Women’s Overlooked, Misattributed, and Stolen Work.
Because respectability is often tied up with religion, the driving factors become internal as well as external—women are not just worried about what others will think, but whether they are committing a moral offence against a church or higher power. In the introduction to her book, La Chymie Charitable et Facile, en Faveur des Dames (Easy Chemistry for Women), 1600s chemist Marie Meurdrac described an “inner struggle” between the feminine ideal of a woman as “silent, listen and learn, without displaying…knowledge.” Fortunately, she came to the conclusion that “it would be a sin against Charity to hide the knowledge that God has given me, which may be of benefit to the world.”