Talk:Dorothy Hodgkin
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Name?
I thought she was known as Dorothy Hodgkin - did she use the name "Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin"? DavidFarmbrough (talk) 11:44, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
Does this answer your question David? "Dorothy Mary Hodgkin, OM, FRS (12 May 1910 – 29 July 1994) was a British founder of protein crystallography; prior to her marriage, she was known as Dorothy Mary Crowfoot."
nitramrekcap 91.110.244.42 (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 18:45, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
I propose that we move this page to "Dorothy Hodgkin", unless someone can demonstrate that she was usually known as Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin. As far as I know, she was (and is) most commonly known as Dorothy Hodgkin. The custom for British women of her era was to drop one's maiden name entirely on marriage, replacing it by the husband's name. So no, Nitramrekcap, it doesn't answer the question: for her, "Dorothy Hodgkin" would have been the usual nomenclature.
For example, the Royal Society (the UK's top scientific society) has a well-known fellowship named after her, and it's called the Dorothy Hodgkin Fellowship (http://royalsociety.org/funding.asp?id=1122). Granted, this is only one example of usage, but it's rather an authoritative one.
No one should get too upset about this, as there's a redirect in place anyway. 86.1.197.116 (talk) 00:04, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
It is fine to call the article "Dorothy Hodgkin" and, as the preceding commentator notes, there's a redirect in place.
At the same time, in scientific circles it is correct to refer to Dorothy following the usual convention because, like many women, she published important work before and after she married. This elementary fact of her career becomes unnecessarily confused if the conventional name Crowfoot Hodgkin (no hyphen!) is not used.
Furthermore, the plain alternative "Dorothy Hodgkin" was imposed by the university authorities rather late in the day—Dorothy's children were all born by then!—and neither Dorothy nor her husband Thomas, both 1930s radicals in their views, wanted her to be recognised only by his surname and as "British housewife wins Nobel Prize", to quote a now infamous newspaper article of the time. That answers a reference above to the convention of the time Dorothy and Thomas did not respect or follow such a convention as a wife dropping her surname on marriage (and see below, Nomenclature).
John Crowfoot (talk) 08:23, 22 March 2017 (UTC)
== What age did dorothy hodgkin start working on cholosterol?
Well she started working in 1937 on cholesterol.
—it didn't say this as a question category,but on a spot on the bottom talking about lectures, why is one italicized and the other ones are all having parentheses? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.32.2.125 (talk) 16:41, 12 May 2014 (UTC)
External links
The following link needs to be updated because Peoples Archive has now been moved to a new website called Web of Stories:
- The People's Archive interview [1]
The correct link to the Web of Stories website (http://webofstories.com) should be:
- Dorothy Hodgkin video at Web of Stories
Fitzrovia calling (talk) 09:46, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
Cholesteryl Iodide
Cholesteryl iodide is in the class of compounds known as cholesterols, right? It seems odd to call it a 'cholesteryl'... the compound class should be changed to 'cholesterol', unless I'm wrong here. Nessa Carson (talk) 00:32, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
Revert of vandalism
Indeed, ClueBot is quite right that the previous edit was pure vandalism - one appreciates the speed and accuracy of diagnosis. It could be claimed, though, that this paragraph may need a little toning down of the superlatives. Dcrjsr (talk) 03:01, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
Nomenclature
"Hodgkin published as Dorothy Crowfoot until 1949, when she was persuaded by Hans Clarke’s secretary to use her married name on her chapter in The Chemistry of Penicillin. Thereafter she always published as Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin." (Georgina Ferry, biographer of Dorothy Hodgkin.)
2.27.131.70 (talk) 00:22, 17 February 2014 (UTC)
Citations
Added a citation needed after the phrase "She always consulted him concerning important problems and decisions." Onesong (talk) 13:26, 12 May 2014 (UTC)onesong
Cause of death?
I've never heard of "cardiac stroke". The reference says she died of a stroke. So "cardiac" should be removed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.165.159.230 (talk) 14:15, 12 May 2014 (UTC)
Traveled together in two cars?
I'm trying to understand the significance of the following passage in the current revision:
According to the late Dr. Beryl Oughton, later Rimmer, they all travelled together in two cars [emphasis mine] once Dorothy Hodgkin announced to them that they were off to Cambridge to see the model of the structure of DNA.
Is there some special significance to the two cars? Since there is no citation, it's hard to figure it out. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.103.35.18 (talk) 18:02, 12 May 2014 (UTC)
Semi-protected edit request on 12 May 2014
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This sentence is currently in the section about her social life: She always consulted him concerning important problems and decisions. I find it incredibly sexist. Would it be in there if she were male instead? Furthermore it's wrong -- did she talk with him about her affairs with Sage? I doubt it. My advice is delete it. JimFoit (talk) 18:37, 12 May 2014 (UTC)
Not done: NOTCENSORED means that content isn't deleted just because you find it sexist. IJUSTDONTLIKEIT means that content won't be deleted just because you don't like it either. — {{U|Technical 13}} (t • e • c) 20:05, 12 May 2014 (UTC)
Semi-protected edit request on 12 May 2014
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173.79.225.20 (talk) 22:52, 12 May 2014 (UTC)
- Not done This source http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1199948/ confirms the name spelling as it is currently in the article. Safiel (talk) 22:58, 12 May 2014 (UTC)
Find-A-Grave
ADD:
2.27.146.89 (talk) 10:28, 13 May 2014 (UTC)
contribution
I would like to propose that in her “education and research” section she developed a passion for archaeology from her dad and chemistry from a family friend which lead her to attend courses about crystallography to where she began her research1. She studied glass tesserae which involved analyzing small pieces used in mosaics which made her a perfect fit to analyze x-ray crystallography because she analyzed the small dimensions produced from the crystals. Also something that stood out to me as a WGS scholar was the fact that she was given a scholarship from Somerville College to do research for them1. Most women were not offered scholarships because they were given men and I feel like this would add to divert the stereotype against women in STEM fields. These small contributions can add to her educational background as a representative for women in the sciences.
References
- ^ "Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin - Biographical." Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin - Biographical. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Oct. 2014.
Kfitzp04 (talk) 21:10, 4 November 2014 (UTC)Kfitzp04
Her mentoring and lack of information
I believe there should be a mention of her mentoring other biochemistry students She played a very important part in the mentoring of Margaret Thatcher. A very important part of her scientific career was placed in her mentorship of others, her way of extending the research she devoted her life to. Another thing that is lacking is more information on her early life. The 6 sentences given don’t give an inside look into her life. For example, why did she choose chemistry? It states that her mother had an impact in her decision to study chemistry but doesn’t explain why or how. As a biochemist myself, why she decided to become a biochemist is something that is very intriguing. For example, the Nobel Prize Website states that her interest in chemistry was expanded by a family friend, Dr. A. F. Joseph, who provided chemicals for her to work with at the age of ten. She was also allowed to participate in chemistry lessons with the boys at school, something that was not very common in the 1920s. (Nobel Prize)
It may also be worth noting that she started her educational career studying both chemistry and archaeology, like her father, but her childhood love of chemistry took over when she began her research.
"Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin - Biographical". Nobelprize.org. Nobel Media AB 2014. Web. 19 Oct 2014. <http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/1964/hodgkin-bio.html> Albrch (talk) 04:03, 5 November 2014 (UTC)
Just read this and, accordingly, will add in a reference to "Uncle" Joseph who was an official scientist based in Sudan. Thanks for the reminder! John Crowfoot (talk) 06:12, 23 August 2017 (UTC)
External links modified
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No Marxist
I have removed the Category "British Marxist".
Dorothy was radical in her views, but never a member of the Communist Party and did not adopt Marxism as a valid interpretation of social issues, or a convincing prognosis of social development. For her the pre-eminent values were internationalism, especially concerning the natural sciences and cooperation across borders, and work to reduce conflict between nations and the risk of thermonuclear war. John Crowfoot (talk) 18:16, 1 April 2017 (UTC)
Brothers?
"As a consequence of the war Molly lost all her four brothers ...".
There is no other mention of brothers in this article. Neither the Wikipedia page about her mother or the one about her father mention any sons.
If there were four brothers, who died "as a consequence of the war", these four men would presumably have been of fighting age, and thus considerably older than their four sisters, who were infants at the time of the war. This might be plausible, if they were half brothers from one or other parents' earlier relationship, but there is no mention of any such thing in either article about Dorothy's father or mother.
So, what's the story about the brothers? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.64.142.162 (talk) 23:00, 21 August 2017 (UTC)
This refers to Molly Crowfoot, nee Hood, not to Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin. Perhaps it can be made clearer, but even in the sentence you quote it seems pretty clear to me. The four men were Dorothy's uncles on her mother's side.
If you've changed anything in the main text because of this mis-reading, can you change it back again, please?
John Crowfoot (talk) 00:35, 22 August 2017 (UTC)
OK, thanks. I didn't change anything. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.64.142.162 (talk) 04:57, 23 August 2017 (UTC)
"Call me Dorothy"
One of the first things that struck Margaret Roberts when she joined Dorothy Hodgkin's lab was its refreshing informality. Its distinguished head asked all the students whom she taught to call her by her first name.
This principle has now been extended to the Wikipedia page about her.
To call her by her surname "Hodgkin" sounds unbearably pompous, however appropriate it may be for other figures of equivalent stature. A look at Dorothy dressed formally as Chancellor of Bristol University is clear confirmation of this distinction.
This also does a little to overcome the discrepancy between the scientist known to the academic community as Dorothy Crowfoot (1937-1949) and then Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin (1949-1964) and the public figure Dorothy Hodgkin of her later years.
That is not what is important here, however. It is the very style and character of the quiet-spoken individual behind all these activities.
John Crowfoot (talk) 06:12, 22 August 2017 (UTC)
Early life, 1910-1928 - providing in-lin citations and sources
The information in this section is available in the Wiki pages for Dorothy's father and mother; it can also be found in Georgina Ferry's comprehensive biography of my aunt. GF also wrote the entry for Dorothy in the latest edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica.
When time allows I shall provide in-lin citations for the statements made here.
If anyone is again confused about brothers, sons and names, my mother was Dorothy's younger sister Elisabeth - with an s, not a z - and she, unlike Dorothy, "kept her maiden name".
John Crowfoot (talk) 06:09, 23 August 2017 (UTC)
Apology: change of reference from Dorothy to Hodgkin without discussion
I came to this page while researching the discovery of the structure of vitamin B12: it immediately struck me as sexist and disrespectful to refer to this eminent scientist by here first name "Dorothy": no other wikipedia article refers to the person by their first name that I am aware of (I checked the article on Albert Einstein: no reference to him as "Albert" in that article). I thus changed many (I see I missed several) first names in the article to "Hodgkin". Then I read this Talk Page and discovered that a relative, John Crowfoot, has weighed in that he prefers her to be referred to as Dorothy; that he views referring to her as Hodgkin is disrespectful and incompatible with the style and the character of the individual.
What we have here seems to be the sincere and heartfelt wish of a family member vs wikipedia manual of style. It was certainly inappropriate for me to make the changes I did, and I will revert them, except where I changed "Dorothy" to "she", without discussion and consensus here first. But I am hopeful such a discussion will ensue as to which should prevail, the wishes of a family member or consistency in referring to eminent scientists by their last name in Wikipedia articles. (The use of the name "Hodgkin" in the Lead existed before my edits). IiKkEe (talk) 10:00, 8 April 2018 (UTC)
- That's no problem. It's more than just a family preference, however.
- My aunt's students in Oxford over many years all remarked and remembered how informally she behaved in her dealings with them. She preferred to be on first-name terms and did not bother with distinctions of rank, such as Doctor or Professor. At that time, in particular, it was a different way of running a lab and doing science. Referring to my aunt in her role as a scientist and tutor as "Dorothy", therefore, is more appropriate than the stiff (and sexless) "Hodgkin", a surname that was, in any case, generally not applied to her in that isolated fashion.
- A great many of the more committed students became part of an extended family, both in Oxford when they were studying there and, more importantly, later when Dorothy began to travel widely. Her striking informality and modesty were noted by a young Margaret Roberts(later, as Margaret Thatcher, the UK's first female prime minister) when she was, for a few years, Dorothy's student. This aspect of Dorothy's character and approach to her work and to others is well documented in Georgina Ferry's biography. John Crowfoot (talk) 11:02, 8 April 2018 (UTC)
Thank you for your prompt and gracious response to my apology. I will have a compromise to propose to you here shortly. REgardsIiKkEe (talk) 17:15, 8 April 2018 (UTC)
- I'm curious what advice Wiki gives about the use of surnames: to judge by our present experience this doesn't cover the issue of married women in a very satisfactory way.
- As for the use of plain "Hodgkin" that is problematic in several ways. There is, for instance, another British scientist called Hodgkin (Alan) who has won the Nobel Prize -- a cousin of Dorothy's husband Thomas. There are quite a few academic Hodgkins, in fact, in and around Oxford.
- What's the alternative?
- Using Dorothy's maiden name of Crowfoot is not satisfactory, obviously. Her own preferred formal name "Crowfoot Hodgkin" (no hyphen!) is a bit cumbersome, except on her later scientific papers, naturally (or on the plaque recently erected at 94 Woodstock Road).
- I would suggest that "Dorothy" is used up until the post-war period when she formally became "Crowfoot Hodgkin", several years after her marriage and her three children were born. "Hodgkin" can be used thereafter but not insistently and not to the extent that it overshadows someone who always preferred to keep simple and direct relations with those she dealt with. John Crowfoot (talk) 17:37, 8 April 2018 (UTC)
- I've worked halfway through the article, implementing the kind of Dorothy / Hodgkin wording that seems logical (especially before she married and even after). There remains the latter half of the article where Dorothy and Hodgkin should alternate.
- Why? Because unlike some (many) important figures she never became pompous or formal and distant as she grew older, but preserved the principles and style of behaviour by which she had always lived - see her parting address to the students at Bristol University where she was Chancellor for a number of years. John Crowfoot (talk) 17:49, 8 April 2018 (UTC)
I propose a compromise: that the article use either "she" or "Dorothy Hodgkin" throughout: this will avoid using either "Dorothy" or "Hodgkin" alone, each of which could imply disrespect to some for different reasons as discussed. Further, both "she" and "Dorothy Hodgkin" comply with wikipedia guidelines. If you concur, I will edit the article accordingly. If you are unsure, please allow me to make the changes and if you don't like the way the article reads, I will revert the changes, restore the article to before my name changes, and await comments from others until a consensus is reached. Please note wikipedia policy calls for no further editing until an agreement is reached, only reversion to before either of us started editing. Regards, IiKkEe (talk) 18:14, 8 April 2018 (UTC) I don't think, with all respect, that resolves the issue. Calling this great woman and scientist "Dorothy" in her earlier years seems quite reasonable -- she was ahead of her time, and since the 1960s, thank God, university lecturers and the like do not call their students by their surnames, either in the USA, I believe, nor in the UK. "Dr Hodgkin" is possible -- and has to sound better than "Hodgkin" whicvh is both sexless and reminiscent of English public schools and stuffy, stiff old-fashioned relationships. If you look at any official document, however -- the Nobel Prize citation, any scientific paper of which she was an author or co-author since the late 1940s -- she was always referred to in her later life as "Crowfoot Hodgkin". "Dr Crowfoot Hodgkin" might, therefore, be more accurate. Just to bury a tiresome suspicion some may harbour about this long discussion. This is all about what my aunt wanted to be called throughout her life, and has NOTHING to do with any aggrandisement from the Crowfoot side of her family. One of the greatest, abiding influences, after all, was her mother Molly, who was a Hood, not a Crowfoot. (See Lisa Tuttle's book on Women and their Heroines -- it's cited in the article.) John Crowfoot (talk) 16:37, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
- WP:SURNAME is very clear and the reasons presented here are not reasonable ones to depart from that. John Crowfoot please see your talk page. Jytdog (talk) 20:23, 8 April 2018 (UTC)
- John Crowfoot, I came here because of a [note posted] on the Women's History Project and because you asked for input from women. I am one of the primary contributors to the WikiProject Women in Red. I read the comments here as well as those posted by Jytdog on your talk page. The points you make actually effect many women's articles and yet there are no "guidelines" that specifically address how to treat women. There are two essays on the topic. WiR Primer and Wikipedia:Writing about women. First and foremost the MOS and COI are guidelines and there are exceptions to them. The policy Ignore all Rules, for one. ;) As to your specific concerns, name changes are a problem, effecting not only how one writes an article, but whether women are credited with all of their published works. At WiR, our primer states that one follows the sourcing (of the time, not later revisions), so if she was born Crowfoot, she should be called that in the statements referring to that event. If she published as Crowfoot, those articles should reflect that name; as should any period of her life in which the documentation refers to her as such. As for referring to her by her first name, don't. A simple statement that she preferred to be addressed by her first name and that her informality was a known mark of her character, if that is documented in sourcing, is sufficient. While she may have preferred it with acquaintances, it would be wholly inappropriate for someone who did not know her, (as writers and readers of an encyclopedia are) to refer to her by her given name, as it assumes a familiarity and infantilizes her to the general public, playing on systemic biases, which may be not even be perceived. Regardless of whether there are others with the surname, when one is reading an article about her, they are unlikely to misunderstand that the instance of Smith, in an article about Bessie Smith, is not referring to Will Smith, who the article is not about. If there are instances when it is confusing, say a husband and wife team who work together, then the solution is to add first names and then refer to the other people by first name. You are free to ignore my 2 cents, as you like. :) SusunW (talk) 15:02, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
- Dear Susun -- what you say is helpful. Up to a point. And I do hope that discussion around this particular individual may feed into wider consideration of the currently available Guidelines.
- These days women keep their surnames and there is less of a problem with that. In the 1920s and 1930s, it was a different matter, of course. Dorothy (that's her public name -- in the family we called her something else, btw!) had to fight those battles and one of her lifetime friends and colleagues, the Austrian Jewish refugee Max Perutz, has a wonderful description of hearing and seeing her for the first time as a radiant and heavily pregnant "Miss Crowfoot", delivering a lecture to the old men of the Royal Society (England's equivalent of an Academy of Sciences).
- Do read the actual article about my aunt because it documents how she lost the battle to remain Dorothy Crowfoot("today I lost my maiden name") and was forced to become "Crowfoot Hodgkin", almost ten years after her marriage, and following the birth of all her three children. There is nothing anti-Hodgkin in these comments, incidentally: Dorothy's husband Thomas Hodgkin was as keen as anyone that she should be able to remain "Dorothy Crowfoot".
- Lastly, Dr Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin, OM, FRS, Nobel laureate, would be amazed at the suggestion that describing her as "Dorothy" could infantilise her.
- She had little patience with the term "role model" and, politely but firmly, would reject the notion that being called or described as "Dorothy" (see her authorised biography) could possibly diminish her as a person or a woman. I can ask my three Hodgkin cousins for their view (and shall do so, in fact), but I feel sure they would concur, as would her one surviving sister.John Crowfoot (talk) 16:37, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
- John Crowfoot, actually these days women do not keep their surnames. There is no uniformity on naming conventions, though it is more common for women to hyphenate both surnames, or keep a "professional" name and a "social name"—just as difficult to document women's history, IMO. The big picture is that women have routinely been minimized by failure to treat them as equal professionals. While her personal preference should be noted, the appearance to the world at large, by referring to her by her first name is that she is deserving of less respect. An encyclopedia as broad as Wikipedia addresses global cultures, thus our response to combat systemic biases must evaluate the implications of elevating personal preference over neutral policies aimed at diminishing discrimination. SusunW (talk) 17:13, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
- I have fixed the threading here, and left a note at John Crowfoot's talk page about it Jytdog (talk) 18:36, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
- SusunW I decided to leave this discussion for a while, because I was being subjected to a form of harassment by Mr Jytdog. He sent me, in succession, 12 messages and did not wait for a reply before writing again. That's both bad manners, in my book, and incompetent. Express yourself clearly once and then give other people time to reply. They may be busy and, unlike you, only spend short amounts of time on Wikipedia.
- She had little patience with the term "role model" and, politely but firmly, would reject the notion that being called or described as "Dorothy" (see her authorised biography) could possibly diminish her as a person or a woman. I can ask my three Hodgkin cousins for their view (and shall do so, in fact), but I feel sure they would concur, as would her one surviving sister.John Crowfoot (talk) 16:37, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
He seemed to imagine, for instance, that there is automatically a Conflict of Interest because I am writing about my aunt. Either your rule on the matter is badly expressed or he hasn't used some common sense in interpreting it. I would say there is a POTENTIAL Conflict of Interest in such a situation, but that not all families are automatically amicable bodies. That's a charming but surely naive assumption. Indeed, given our very different views about the Soviet Union, I did not agree with my mother's elder sister in certain respects. I disapproved, for instance, of the meeting of the Pugwash Conference which she headed in a Poland then under martial law. Certain aspects of her behaviour in the eastern bloc need to be openly questioned and those issues are raised and preserved in the article as I edited it.
As concerns naming people.
In our progressive family none of the children addressed their mothers' sisters as "Aunt". They were all called by their first names and these were, moreover, the pet names they had for each other since childhood. The scientist Dorothy M. Crowfoot Hodgkin (DMCH), therefore, was neither "Aunt" nor "Dorothy" to me or my other cousins.
It would have been improper, IMO, to publicly call my aunt by her pet name within the family -- that would have been "infantilisation", as you termed it. To her students of the time, e.g. Margaret Thatcher (nee Roberts), it was an unheard of familiarity to be encouraged to call her "Dorothy". If your rules won't allow it, then that's a pity. Any decent biography of DMCH records this unusual behaviour on her part, and the reaction of colleagues and students to her approachability. (I bear my mother's "maiden" name because she never married, if anyone has the wit and intelligence to query my blood relationship to DMCH.)
At some point, I fully intend to look at the discussion points you mention about referring to women and appropriate descriptions of their career and status. I'm glad there is awareness of this so far unresolved issue on Wikipedia.
John Crowfoot (talk) 01:05, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
New edits
In 2019 I agreed to post notice, on the Talk page of any article, my intention to edit, if those edits were potentially numerous. This is such a notice. I also agreed to restrict edits to roughly 10 per day in order to give those who have contributed to the article in the past the opportunity to review my edits, and revert those with which they disagreed. My request is that they follow the BRD principle, and revert any of my edits one at a time, not wholesale as a group; and with an explicit explanation (something other than "Disruptive edit", "Not helpful", or "Not an improvement"). If I disagree with the reversion, then I can take the edit to this Talk page and discuss it with the objector in a respectful manner; and others can join in if they wish. I have begun. Regards, IiKkEe (talk) 09:24, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
Recent edits
On April 1 I began the first of 25 edits. I welcome scrutiny of these edits, especially by major contributors in the past such as John Crowfoot. If there are any reversions, I would appreciate their being done one at a time with an explanation. Regards, IiKkEe (talk) 16:50, 6 April 2020 (UTC)
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