SOURCE: Gardiner, Linda. “Women in Science.” In French Women and the Age of Enlightenment, edited by Samia I. Spencer, pp. 181-93. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984.

In this essay, Gardiner employs du Châtelet's career as a case study for understanding the potential for women in science during the eighteenth century.

The role of women in science in eighteenth-century France is an almost totally unexplored field. Indeed, the topic itself is hardly defined. What to include in addressing it, therefore, is initially unclear. Should one try to reconstruct the scientific training available to French women in the period? Should one look at the “fashions” in science that led some of them to take an interest in various branches of the subject at different times during the century? Should one study the biographies of some specific women who had a more than passing interest in the subject? Or should one...