An Unfortunate Precedent: James Watson, Craig Venter, and the Ongoing Epidemic of Misogyny in Science

            Sexism, discrimination, microaggresion; whatever you want to call it, the field of science as we know it has long been tainted by the actions of men in power. One 2012 study from the Social Studies of Science journal detailed overwhelming “continuing subtle forms of discrimination [in healthcare science] that largely go unnoticed” through interviews with 42 healthcare scientists, both men and women, noting that “the discourses constituting masculinity and femininity typically reinforce interpretations that men are more suited to high-level posts than women” (Bevan & Learmonth, 2012). More informal accounts are simply variations on the same theme; that is, of women being told they “could only have been awarded a PhD if I had slept with my committee” or of men claiming “three things happen when [women] are in the lab: You fall in love with them, they fall in love with you, and when you criticize them, they cry” (Scientific American).

            This embarrassing characteristic of modern science is hardly rumor; instead, it is more of an open secret than anything else. Because of this, I was dismayed to find more of the same subtle misogyny hiding within James Shreeve’s The Genome War.

            Perhaps the worst offender – or, at least the least repentant – of sexist scientific practices is none other than James Watson himself. “His” discovery of the double helical form of DNA is summarized in The Genome War: Watson and his partner Francis Crick “did not care much” for Rosalind Franklin, the woman who produced the first X-ray photograph of DNA and brazenly stole her work for their own research, which would win them the Nobel Prize in 1962. Shreeve recounts this with his signature dry wit: “Science was considered a man’s world in postwar England, and a sharp, stubborn-minded woman who did not bring tea to the gents or spread open her lab notes at their request was a bit of a bother” (Shreeve, 37).

            But the offenses don’t stop there. Craig Venter himself is all kinds of brash, so it’s really no surprise that he’s a huge misogynist. On his first wife: “‘I wanted sex…she wanted her green card” (Shreeve, 74). With his second wife, Claire Fraser: “He used her as a sounding board for his big, future-sized ideas…she would just tell him [his idea was bad]. He would get angry, they would fight, and she’d end up in tears” (Shreeve, 77). Eventually she would just tell him what he wanted to hear, something that Shreeve seems to brush aside as just a quirky characteristic of Venter’s personality but what could, when taking into account Venter’s other behaviors in regards to his wife, be taken as an early sign of emotional abuse. And Shreeve, unintentionally or not, gives us a peek into these “other behaviors.” Venter, among other things, “made a mess of their finances” (77) and embarrassed his wife at a party by telling a story about when “President Clinton hadn’t been able to keep his eyes off her cleavage” (“‘Craig, would you stop?’” Claire replied.) (165).

            It’s not just Watson and Venter, though. Many of the other (male) scientists Shreeve writes about make crass comments about women, exclude them from their work in the lab, and in general see them as nothing more than wives and girlfriends, there to accompany their husbands to parties and wait for them to come home from a long day of work and boast about their findings. It’s worth noting that we only see these people through Shreeve’s words, not their own, but from his perspective or not, we see a lot of men who are sure they are doing something great. The only problem is they’re doing that without much regard for anyone but themselves, least of all the women in their lives.

            It’s a hard read because of this. For as much good as we got out of the Human Genome Project and the work of Craig Venter, a large portion of the research was conducted by men with ambition, genius, and outdated values. It’s a story that repeats itself over and over in the scientific community. And while overt sexism is no longer as prevalent as it was when James Watson could reap the rewards of Rosalind Franklin’s research, it isn’t yet entirely gone. Perhaps that can be the big project for the next wave of scientists.

            The Genome War is occasionally self-aware when it comes to these issues, or at least the women in it are. Reflecting on asking volunteers if they would be interested in donating DNA, we get this quote from Venter:

“I asked one extremely well known lady whether she would consider donating…When I explained how the samples were taken, she almost fell off her seat laughing. ‘This is typical,’ she said. ‘The men get to whack off and the women get stuck with a needle’” (218).

In science, it seems that’s just the way it is.

Bevan, V., & Learmonth, M. (2012). ‘I wouldn’t say it’s sexism, except that … It’s all these little subtle things’: Healthcare scientists’ accounts of gender in healthcare science laboratories. Social Studies of Science, 43(1), 136-158. doi:10.1177/0306312712460606

Shipman, P. L. (2015). Taking the long view on sexism in science. American Scientist, 103(6), 392. doi:10.1511/2015.117.392

Shreeve, J. (2005). The genome war: How Craig Venter tried to capture the code of life and save the world. New York: Ballantine Books.