Check out RITC's interview with author Wendy J. Murphy, JD., author of Oh No He Didn't! Brilliant Women and the Men Who Took Credit for Their Work
Murphys's book his book tells the stories of women whose inventions, discoveries, and creations were credited to men—women like Zelda Fitzgerald, the novelist, painter, and playwright who was more than F. Scott’s wife, and Margaret Knight, who invented the flat-bottomed paper bag but saw the patent go to a man who stole off to the Patent Office with her idea. By telling the stories of the brilliant women artists, inventors, scientists, architects, and mathematicians who were denied their due, Oh No He Didn’t! will help all women tackle obstacles and create a kinship of understanding that will inspire and transcend generations.
Check out Author Murphy's interview below and enter for your chance to win a signed copy of Oh No He Didn't! https://tinyurl.com/yt8npx5f
Interview:
1. What made you write a book about men who took credit for women’s work?
I read a story online about a woman this had happened to (I forget which woman it was, but I did include her in my book). I wanted to read a book that collected similar stories, but when I went to look for one, I discovered that there was no such book. I decided to write one simply because I thought it was important that such stories be told, and I thought I could add something meaningful by incorporating my legal expertise in women’s rights by talking about why this happens disproportionately to women. Helping people understand why men take credit for
women’s work was as important to me as telling the women’s stories.
2. How did you do research for your book? Some aspects of the research were easy in that I could search online and find many places where the women’s stories had been told. But there was very little on a few of the women, so I went to the Schlesinger Library and called libraries in the towns where the women had lived or worked
to see if I could uncover more information. Had I written about only a few of the women, I would have done more research and written longer chapters, but I wanted to include as many women’s stories as possible, in part to show the similarities of their plagiaristic experiences despite that they lived at different times and in different countries and suffered injustices in vastly different disciplines.
3. Do you have another profession besides writing? I do: I am an attorney and law professor specializing in violence against women and children, and women’s rights generally. I also direct the Women’s and Children’s Advocacy Project at New England Law | Boston. As an academic and practicing attorney, I have the good fortune of
being able to represent real women and children in real cases, while using their cases to try to make new law through the judicial appellate process. I also write scholarly papers as a way of helping to educate people about the law in terms of where women stand and what needs to change—especially on matters of constitutional rights, civil rights, and systemic problems. Women are terribly underserved in our legal system, primarily because they still do not have basic legal equality, which means they are not entitled to equal treatment under any laws or by any government official. They might be treated equally, and many times they are, but it is not a legal requirement yet under our Constitution. This is causing women to suffer harm in all areas of life, but because women have always been unequal in America, we are all acclimated to the norm of treating women unfairly. I wrote this book to widen society’s lens on how we look at
women’s issues so we can see the unfairness more clearly—and take more effective steps to fix things.
4. Do you snack while writing? I do—not all the time, but I find that chewing can help me focus. I think this might mean that I have ADHD or something like that. I used to chew Milk Duds once in a while, but the last time I did that, my crown fell out, so I stick with carrots now!
5. Which was the hardest chapter to write? Two chapters were particularly challenging, for different reasons. My chapter on Ada Harris was difficult because I just couldn’t find very much. The way her invention was stolen was ignored by many people over the years. The little I could find taught me a bit about her life as an anti-
racism activist and community service leader, but it was very limited. I surmised by the lack of information that Ada was humble and didn’t think it was important to complain about how her invention was stolen. Maybe she did complain but nobody listened because she was female and Black, thus was doubly easy to ignore. I hope my book inspires someone to dig harder to find out more about Ada. The other chapter that I found very difficult to write is the one on Mileva Maric Einstein—the first wife of Albert Einstein. It was difficult because I had to teach myself a lot of science to communicate information effectively to a lay audience, and because there is a lot of
controversy around exactly what role Mileva played in Albert’s work. A genius in her own right, Mileva indisputably participated in the development of Albert’s work and ideas, yet it wasn’t until fairly recently that people even started talking about this because some of the most compelling evidence was contained in letters Albert wrote to Mileva about their work together, and they were kept secret until the 1980s. It is still somewhat heretical to describe Mileva as a contributor to Albert’s work, but I do make that argument. People want to cling to their deeply held ideas about how important Albert Einstein is, but they need to open their minds to the very real possibility that Albert was extra brilliant because he was effectively working with two very smart brains.
6. In your book, you refer to the women by their first names. Some might say this is
demeaning. I intentionally refer to the women by their first names as a mini-protest against the fact that women’s last names are almost always forced upon them by their husbands or fathers. It was important to me to liberate these women from men in a literary sense as I wrote about how they were harmed by men in their work.
7. What is your next project? I have been a lawyer for a long time, and lawyers have a writing style that doesn’t lend itself to creative writing. To the contrary, my brain is hard-wired to write unemotional, “just the facts, ma’am” sentences and to be logical and deductive. I want to break free from my lawyer brain by forcing myself to write in a way that takes me way out of my comfort zone, if only to exercise my brain and challenge myself. I might try my hand at fiction—maybe a short story to see what
it feels like. I took a writing class recently and found myself becoming emotional after class. When I mentioned this to the others in the group, they smiled. For most of them, writing is always emotional. I am excited about the challenge and curious to see if I can develop skills.
8. What is your favorite dessert? At the moment I am obsessed with strawberries and whipped cream. I am a bit of a whipped cream snob, so I prefer homemade with organic, grass-fed cream, but I will also eat Cabot brand. My friends tease me because when we go out to eat, I order a dish of whipped cream for dessert and give it a rating. Very few places get a 10.
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