Chapter 1. Our story begins with the early-twentieth-century advent of the electrical arc as a means of illumination, and with the invention of the incandescent light bulb. For the arc, we have to thank Michael Faraday and, more specifically, the great British inventor, William Grove. For the incandescent bulb, we need to thank a few key scientists and inventors, including Thomas Edison and Joseph Swan. They were certainly not the only people who contributed to this great event in human progress. The discovery and development of electricity to light our lives is a vast and intricate web of invention and scientific discovery. It is also a story that has never been told from a feminist point of view. I thought about this while I watched Faraday's portrait in the Royal Institution. He is tall, gaunt, and wearing a white laboratory coat. For an unpracticed eye, he might appear a bit like a mad scientist. Faraday, though, was a scientist, not a mad scientist. I came to think about Faraday and the electricity story at a time when I felt very unfulfilled in a life full of science. At the time, I was in graduate school, trying to figure out what to do with my life. It was not going well. As I pondered this, I realized I was in the same spot Thomas Edison and Joseph Swan were, many years ago, wondering if their light bulbs would sell. As I reflected on their struggles, I saw that in many ways I was in the same situation: hoping to find something that would be fulfilling, something that would excite my heart as well as my mind. In the previous chapters, I described this period when I was trying to figure out what to do with my life. Here I want to explain why we think about these science questions from a feminist standpoint. Feminists are concerned with giving women and girls opportunity and equal access to the tools of liberation, such as education, work, and creativity. We also seek to transform the culture. In a patriarchal culture, our lives are shaped by many forces, including economic, social, and political forces, as well as religious and popular culture. I had written a book called _Not in Our Lifetimes: The Future of Feminism_ , and I realized as I worked on the book that I had never really used the word _feminism_ in a book. Why? Well, most of the books I had read were written by men, and were about men's and boys' struggles. If we look at the history of gender, however, the fight for equal rights has been led primarily by women and girls. We must make room for the struggles and contributions of women, while also recognizing that all of us, men and women, share the task of creating a better society. But that society has not yet been created, and so the fight for equality continues. Most of the great struggles for social change have been led by women, but men were there to help out, as were children and other marginalized groups. If we can look at the progress made by people of color, or those who have been differently abled, and to see the progress made by the LGBTQ community, then we can see the commonality of struggle. I don't believe we should ever think that women and girls have a uniquely hard row to hoe, especially because this story demonstrates how hard it is for anyone, and especially men, to make real progress on gender issues. But I also see that the struggle in which I was engaged is a part of the struggle of all human beings. We all have the right to the means of liberation, and that struggle for justice and empowerment extends to all of humanity. We think about our lives and the progress we make and make mistakes and suffer when trying to change, not just for ourselves, but for others. Like women, all men have a difficult path to follow. We are all struggling to get to the end. We don't find it easy to be equal or happy. It is always easy to look backward and think that we have made progress in our world, but there are always reminders that we have a long way to go. It is helpful to look at those who have come before us to see how they worked through their challenges. We use history to take comfort in the notion that we are making progress in our lives as well. We are all faced with hard things in our lives. We don't always feel successful, and we sometimes wonder how we'll get to the end of the road. The story of the science and technology of electricity is one of struggle and victory. It is not that men don't have those stories, but the history of the struggle and the stories from people who have struggled for equal rights are not told as often. Many of these people were inspired by the struggle for equality in the United States. I have written a book that explores the work and ideas of a few women who lived in the United States over the last four hundred years. Their lives stand as a beacon for people who might be struggling, and also for those who struggle to maintain their struggle. Their lives remind me of my own, and they remind me that there is no end to our journey, but that we can learn from each other. When I think about these women who were part of the struggle for equal rights, I think about women like Francesca Grifalconi and Sofia Kovalevsky, the two women who I mentioned in the beginning of the book. Francesca Grifalconi was a great scientist who discovered the chemical basis of all living things. Sofia Kovalevsky was a pioneer in the study of the brain, which would become one of the major focuses of modern research. Their lives and work remind me of the struggles and triumphs of women like myself and my mother, the great feminist philosopher and political activist Kate Millett, who was the editor of _Ms._ magazine, and other women who struggled and were successful in breaking through barriers, taking on a wide range of challenges in their lives, and doing their work and making their mark. I also think of the struggles of women like Frida Kahlo, who is featured in the book _Luchando por un México: Los Cinco Grandes en la vida_. As an artist, Frida Kahlo struggled against being pigeonholed, as well as against a world that tried to erase her art. When we look at the lives of these people, we see the paths they followed, we see the struggles they faced, and we see the challenges they overcame. To quote Shakespeare, we are "never too old to learn." There are always new and exciting lessons to learn in our lives. We always have new ways to look at the challenges of our lives. It is important to be creative in the way you think about challenges. In the process, we can be both active and passive. You must struggle. But also, you must allow your struggle to lead you to places where you can find the lessons that you are meant to learn. You need to work hard, to work with others, and to work in order to get the job done, but you can't work so hard that you never pause to reflect and think about what is happening and why. I think it is important to remind ourselves how lucky we are to have a chance to be alive, and that it is a great gift to have a world that we can explore. We should also think about those who have been oppressed in our culture. We need to make room for their voices. We are fighting for equal opportunities, but our culture makes it so that men are not encouraged to speak about these issues. My experience in women's studies has taught me that when we study issues of equality, it is a struggle. I used to work with the boys' studies group, and they were more vocal than any other group in the college. Many of them struggled against a world of men who treated them as second-class citizens, even though they were perfectly able to live a full life. When I started work at City College of New York, I was dismayed at the lack of interest by the students in a women's studies course. They would talk about what they saw on television, but they never said they were looking for more information about women's studies. I used to see similar things at my job. My male colleagues didn't talk about issues that had to do with the difference between men and women. Some of them even said things that would harm women. This does not mean that there were not some very progressive men in my life. There were also men who were the least qualified but had all of the opportunities because they were men. At the same time, when I was in graduate school, I saw that even the women would sometimes talk in a way that was disrespectful to people they didn't see as as smart. There were times when it seemed as though they would talk as if we were not fully human. I see the same thing in other areas of life. I see that children are often treated badly because they are female or male. This doesn't mean that we don't have to fight for equality. It means we have to fight for ourselves, against those who have harmed us, and against those who make us feel less important because we are women, or because we are a particular type of person. This is a key message of this book: we must always look to the future and find ways to take care of ourselves and the people who come after us. In the words of our sister Marian Wright Edelman, we must speak out when we see those who are unjust. It is part of our responsibility to change the culture, and we must look