In honor of Women’s day falling in March, I thought it very fitting to talk about Marie Curie for this week’s blog. We know Ms. Curie for her incredible accomplishments in science that propelled us forward as a race even though the price that she had to pay was her own life. It is due to her hard work and many sacrifices that we are able to use radiation in medical technology today. Alongside discovering radium and polonium, she is also the only person to win two Nobel prizes in different fields. She was the first female professor at the Sorbonne in Paris, part of the Physics Solvay council as well as the Academy of medicine in her time. All in all, she was a very accomplished woman.
She also had beliefs deeply personal to her that I believe still apply to the world today. Ms. Curie faced plenty of discrimination during her time as a physicist and chemist. Not many women had the privilege of working in such male dominated fields. However, even beyond that, she contributed to the advancement of feminist ideas in sciences. It is at this point, dear reader, that you must remember feminism by its definition, means “equality within genders” and not “females are superior”. By promoting feminism, Marie Curie was able to advocate that women deserved the same opportunities as men in stem fields.
Even now, decades after Marie Curie’s time, her story forces us to confront the uncomfortable truth: progress does not happen passively. It is pushed forward and fought for by people who are willing to endure resistance to change, doubt, and in Ms. Curie’s case— personal loss. While it is easy to look back and remember her for her accomplishments and hard work, we must also remember her for all the things that she had to fight for quietly. It is disheartening, to think that even after all these decades, many women face the same mistreatment and judgment that she had to face. Her legacy challenges us to ask ourselves whether we are simply benefiting from the doors she helped open, or actively working to keep them open for others. In that sense, honoring her on International Women’s Day should go beyond admiration—it should inspire action, awareness, and a continued commitment to the very ideals she stood for.