Women: scientific observers or actors?

For a very long time, women did not have access to secondary or university education. In 1880 women were allowed to attend lectures at Université de Bruxelles, but had to remain in a corner of the auditorium and could not aspire to a degree. The first degrees awarded to women were in philosophy and then in law. Marie Popelin was the first woman to be awarded a degree in law on 12 July 1888. After the First World War, the scientific disciplines gradually opened up to women.

However, access to university studies and degrees does not mean that female scientists are on an equal footing with their male colleagues. The Solvay Conferences on Physics and on Chemistry furnish many examples of the gender inequality that continues to permeate the scientific community as a whole.