While other men discriminated Goodall for her feminine, youthful demeanor, Louis Leakey believed that women would be better than men at studying primates.
INABILITY TO LOOK PAST GENDER
"She had done such an amazing thing that people just couldn't believe it. Some of it was sexist. She was an attractive, young woman- '[People wondered] how could she be a successful scientist and an attractive woman at the same time?'... One of the reasons why I wrote my book is because I felt that people were talking too much about her glamour and not enough about her science and what she has really accomplished." {National Geographic Society, 1963}
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"I was more struck by the people who were old and famous and I'd heard of... Only in those days we called [unmarried female] people 'girls'... She seemed like a nice girl." |
AN EXCEPTION:
LEAKEY'S PARADOXICAL EYE FOR PASSION
Louis Leakey had confidence that women were better equipped to study primates than men.
"THE TRIMATES"
Pioneers of Primatology
Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, & Birute Galdikas
"He [Louis Leakey] wanted someone with a mind uncluttered and unbiased by theory, who would make the study for no other reason than a real desire for knowledge" Click through to learn more about who "The Trimates" were and what they studied.
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Learn more about how primatology has transformed into a modern science given Goodall's contributions.