Review by Choice Review
Glater is an accomplished, albeit somewhat unknown, botanist who in the course of telling her autobiography has much to say about what it was like to be a woman and a scientist in the early to mid-1900s, before the impact of the feminist movement. Her tale is absorbing and powerfully candid; she recognizes that society discriminated against her because she was a woman, because she was a Jew, and to some extent because she was the daughter of poor Russian immigrants. She also recognizes that she brought to this set of circumstances a personality that sometimes worked to her advantage, sometimes not. The result is a fascinating, instructive, and moving account of a life that embraced two marriages, two divorces, two daughters, and several careers in science, to which her contributions were significant. There are some photographs of the author, her family, and her one mentor (male). Because it is so vivid in detail and covers a period during which very few women dared to aspire to be scientists, this is an invaluable contribution to historical, sociological, and women's studies. General readers; undergraduates through faculty. M. H. Chaplin; Wellesley College
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
Glater never intended to make a lifelong study of sexual politics. Rather, her interests lay in botany. But her autobiography tells us a good deal more about fighting male bias than about probing the secrets of plant biology. Attempting to carve out a career as a scientist during the 1950s, Glater watched again and again as positions and recognition went to less-capable male colleagues, while she received little more than unwanted sexual advances and suggestions that she get married and stay home. But Glater persevered, completing her doctorate with distinction and subsequently publishing groundbreaking research on plant responses to air pollution. Yet she fell far short of her dreams, frustrated by male prejudice in academe and by her own self-destructive choices in marriage. Remarkably, Glater concludes her narrative, not with bitterness, but with hope--hope that in the future society can open the door of scientific opportunity much wider for talented women. Candid and poignant, this volume deserves attention from any reader trying to understand the emotional price paid by feminist pioneers. --Bryce Christensen
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
Review by Booklist Review
