INTRODUCTION

Science education promotes critical thinking about science and society (^{Hodson, 2010}; ^{El Jamal & Guerra, 2020}; ^{El Jamal, 2021}). This critical perspective, based here on Hodson and ^{Wong (2017)}, and ^{Rudolph and Horibe (2016}), suggests that it is necessary to go beyond science teaching strategies aimed solely at learning scientific concepts, moving towards teaching connected with contemporary political issues, such as those related to women’s participation in science. Therefore, this research defends a more politicized approach to science education that considers the relationship between the exploitation/domination of subjugated groups and science to provide a critical perspective on the relationship between science and patriarchy and sociopolitical action (^{Hodson, 2010}; ^{El Jamal, 2021}).

The results of the bibliographic research performed by Prado and Rodrigues (2019) and ^{El Jamal and Guerra (2020}) motivated the present research and this look at science education. Prado and Rodrigues (2019) and ^{El Jamal and Guerra (2020)} analyzed how the participation of women in the History of Science (HoS) is addressed in journals aimed at teaching chemistry. Even focusing on different journals and in different decades, the two surveys identify few references to the participation of women in science. The results of El Jamal and Guerra (2020) show that of the 51 articles that highlight the work or trajectories of scientists, only 11 refer to a female scientist. Also, Marie Curie is a recurring name. She is highlighted as the first and only woman in many facts surrounding the history of science and an actual example to encourage young women to interact with the world of Science (^{Owens, 2009}; El Jamal & Guerra, 2020).

These results recall ^{Schiebinger’s (2001}; 1989) defense that using examples of exceptional women to encourage women’s participation in science is insufficient. This path ends with suggesting that incentives for women are enough to reverse the problem of their low representation in science, ignoring the disproportionate number of women scientists compared to the number of women who would seek to do science but are outside the field. Schiebinger (2001) also indicates that these exceptional examples do not reveal how the absence of women in science is related to patriarchy, nor how changes in the structure of scientific institutions are necessary for the situation to change.

Marie ^{Curie, for example, won the Nobel Prize in 1905} and 1911, but that did not open doors for women in HoS. This fact is evident in her recidivism and the absence - or in the deferral - of other women in the bibliographic research carried out by Prado and Rodrigues (2019) and by ^{El Jamal and Guerra (2020}). Nevertheless, the Nobel Prize and other factors in Marie Curie’s trajectory gave the scientist notoriety even outside the academic world. For example, she was featured in media in the early 20th century, which contributed to the consolidation of her image (^{Quinn, 1997}).

Reflecting on this, the present authors suggest that Marie Curie is a “visible” woman in science, and her visibility signals, in an analogous way, the invisibility of other women. Therefore, it is essential to discuss what can be learned from these examples of exceptional women in science. Connected to this, the recurring example of Marie Curie, identified by Prado and Rodrigues (2019) and by ^{El Jamal and Guerra (2020}), suggests that this case is present in science education and that Brazilian teachers and students know the scientist well. This notoriety led to using her career as an example to examine her exceptionality since discussing Marie Curie’s visibility can reveal the necessary conditions for female scientists to participate in scientific practices. Conversely, it can suggest that the absence of these conditions excludes a vast majority of women historically from science. Therefore, the present study was conducted in light of the historiographical aspect of the Cultural History of Science (CHoS) on the Marie Curie case to answer the following question: what were the conditions that enabled Marie Curie to participate in science, and how can understanding these conditions guide science education that promotes discussions about the low numbers of female examples in HoS?

The CHoS historiographical lens, discussed in the next section, considers scientific practice as one category of analysis, understanding science as culture (^{Pimentel, 2010}). This historiographical lens was chosen to reflect the contextual and local conditions for Madame Curie’s success by focusing on the scientific practices that were part of her trajectory and the elaboration of radioactivity. In general, introducing students to issues about women in the history of science needs to combine social, historical, and cultural factors with an understanding of the nature of science and scientific work through the theoretical lens of the CHoS (^{Moura & Guerra, 2016}).

The article is divided into four sections that respond to the proposed objective. The first section describes the theoretical foundation of CHoS and how this historiographical lens helps us establish relationships between science and patriarchy. The second section will investigate some historiographical aspects of Marie Curie’s trajectory, the elaboration of radioactivity, and the relationships between the scientific practices of institutionalization, circulation of knowledge, and experimentation. The third section discusses the results of this investigation and how these results can inspire pathways in science education aimed at training students who are critical of science and patriarchy. Finally, articulations between the Marie Curie case and science education in Brazil are identified. The article concludes with some final remarks.

PATRIARCHY AND CULTURAL HISTORY OF SCIENCE IN EDUCATION

In science education, ^{Brickhouse (2000}; ¹⁹⁹⁴) and ^{Carlone et al. (2015}) suggest that questions regarding the participation of women in science are related to how women’s identities overlap (or not) with scientific identities. The work of ^{Carlone et al. (2015)} suggests that women feeling represented by individuals who do science and women recognizing themselves as scientific people are elements that influence choices for a scientific career. In these works, identity is recognized as something fundamental to understanding the participation of women in science. However, as ^{Harding (2015}) highlights, the limited presence of women in science is also a result of the structural issues in which science is historically co-produced.

These questions, combined with a perspective on science education that proposes critical understandings of science and society (^{El Jamal, 2021}), led to the historiographical choice of the CHoS for the research on the Marie Curie case. According to ^{Pimentel (2010}), the historiography of CHoS is derived from the New Cultural History in the 1980s. It disregards exclusively textual historical narratives focusing on individual scientists and theories in favor of more dynamic history, including contextual and cultural conditions and places for the production of science, more specifically, for the study of scientific practices.

The sources with which CHoS works vary, such as scientific and newspaper articles, letters, diaries, scientific expedition reports, scientific images, and documents from scientific institutions. The cultural historian of science studies scientific practices from these diverse sources, which are understood here as a web of actions, negotiations, and social relations that constitute science and sustain scientific activity (^{Burke, 2008}). Experimental practices, medical practices, observation practices, dissemination practices, and migration practices are all components to describe scientists’ behavior, their context, and forms of knowledge production (^{Pimentel, 2010}).

Forms of production and communication of scientific knowledge, its means of representation, and the social and cultural context of its production are all significant when it comes to the area of scientific practice. Therefore, the CHoS includes recurring themes within cultural and social studies (^{Burke, 2008}), enabling the option of analyzing scientific practices and intermingling themes, such as themes of gender, body and sexuality, race and ethnicity, and history and memory (^{Pimentel, 2010}).

This historiographical line allows discussion of the participation of women in the development of science. Furthermore, the CHoS helps understand that science and society co-produce each other. Thus, CHoS supports that science was built under a patriarchal structure, revealed in an epistemology that carries a contaminated view of gender, reflected in the invisibility of women in the field (^{Harding, 2015}; ^{Nyhart, 2016}).

To establish the relationship between science and patriarchy through the lens of CHoS, it is also necessary to argue about the regime of patriarchy. According to ^{Saffioti (2015}), patriarchy is the regime of domination/exploitation of women by men. According to ^{Cordeiro (2020}), the family is the sociological pillar of patriarchy since, within the family, members are co-opted to perform social roles within the patriarchal society. However, patriarchy spreads across the family, society, and the state. Furthermore, despite focusing on the difference between the sexes, patriarchy also encompasses issues of race and class in political relations; that is, women are in a condition of domination/exploitation whether by gender, race, or class (^{Saffioti, 2015}). This exploitation happens because loose ties between patriarchy, racism, and capitalism, the triad that the author calls substructures in the global structure, create contradictions in the historically constructed reality.

According to ^{Saffioti (2015}), patriarchy is the longest-lived political system in humanity, covering the most recent six or seven millennia of history. Despite being long-lived, patriarchy has morphed throughout history as power structures changed and intensified. According to ^{Saffioti (2015)}, “in fact, like other social phenomena, patriarchy is also undergoing permanent transformation” (p.48). Patriarchy, a regime co-opted by the capitalist regime, circulates widely and ideologically, perpetuating it over the years (^{Cordeiro, 2020}). Furthermore, although the subordination of women to men manifests in different ways according to time and place, “[...] the nature of the phenomenon, however, is the same. It presents the legitimacy that its naturalization attributes to it” (^{Saffioti, 2015}, p.107). Thus, the Marie Curie case and the absence of other women in science can be understood as reflections of the continuously maintained patriarchy.

In patriarchy, economic inequality between men and women widens with the institutionalization of education, and women are excluded from the beginning of this process (^{Cordeiro, 2020}). In Europe, women only had broad access to higher education from the end of the 19th century onwards (^{Schiebinger, 2001}). Women’s lack of freedom was maintained and persisted with the advance of capitalism, causing women’s civil and economic inequality concerning men (^{Saffioti, 2015}). Female education was a form of women’s emancipation since attachment to a man’s authority was essential for the wife’s survival.

In this sense, there is an inseparable relationship between patriarchy and the world of work (^{Saffioti, 2015}; ^{Federici, 2019}). The predominance of private activities was allocated to the family sphere and public activities to the state sphere. With the sexual division of labor, women were held responsible for work in the private sphere, while men for work in the public sphere. ^{Saffioti (2015)} explains that a society based on a patriarchal regime constructs male and female genders with roles assigned to each one, in the public and private spheres, respectively.

This relationship of patriarchy with the world of work reflects women’s participation in science. ^{Schiebinger (2001}; ¹⁹⁸⁹) points out that in the 19th century sexual characteristics took on a new meaning in determining who would or would not do science. In this same context, what ^{Schiebinger (2001)} calls the “professionalization of science” takes place in Europe. The professionalization of science is concomitant with the polarization of the public and domestic spheres, placing work in science within universities, industries, and academies of science. While the family remains in the private domestic sphere, science has migrated to the public sphere. If women participated in science throughout the 18th century in Europe, they did so at home (^{Opitz, 2016}; ^{Schiebinger, 2001}).

The entry of science into public spaces in the 19th century made it difficult for women to access science since broad access to universities, laboratories, and other scientific institutions had many restrictions (^{Schiebinger, 2001}). Among the difficulties, the main one involved the work of social reproduction, which was out of step with the institutionalization of education and science (^{Schiebinger, 2001}). Moreover, with science in the public sphere, women faced many obstacles to participating in scientific practices because gender made them responsible for the private sphere. Marie Curie at the University of Paris-Sorbonne is among the few women who were seated in European universities in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The study of scientific practices in light of CHoS can help introduce the theme of women in science to science education, understanding science as a co-product of a patriarchal society (^{Harding, 2015}). Studying scientific practices as cultural practices can reveal how science was constructed and to whose benefit or detriment (^{Nyhart, 2016}). Discussions about how political, social, cultural, and economic factors can align themselves in the domination/exploitation of women in science are made possible (Harding, 2015; ^{Saffioti, 2015}).

The historiography of the CHoS is, therefore, a political choice, in the sense that this approach does not lend itself to boastful discourses, and the individual scientist is not central but proposes to analyze the scientist’s surroundings based on the ongoing study of scientific practices. The next section returns to the discussion of the CHoS through reporting the results of historical research on the trajectory of Marie Curie. With this, we will discuss some conditions that led women to recognition, that is, to visibility as scientists in a patriarchal society.

The historiographical contribution of the CHoS suggested a microhistorical study, focusing on the analysis of scientific practices established during the emergence of radioactivity in Marie Curie’s trajectory. From the works of ^{Pugliese (2012}) and ^{Quinn (1997}) on Curie herself and of ^{Martins (1998a}; ^1998b) on radioactivity, the historical episode is examined. This panorama and recognizing that the scientist lived and worked in France suggested a list of three practices in that context: the institutionalization of female education in France, the circulation of people and knowledge, and experimentation. After defining the scientific practices to be explored, primary sources were gathered, such as the speeches of Marie Curie and Pierre Curie receiving the Nobel Prizes in 1903 and 1911, the articles published by Marie Curie and Henri Bequerel, and Madame Curie’s diary reproduced in the work of Monteiro (2019). In addition to the works of Pugliese, Quinn, and Martins, secondary sources were gathered, such as the works of ^{Weisz (1983}), ^{Picard (2010}), ^{Moulinier (2002}), ^{Sigrist (2009}), and ^{Mayeur (2007}) to study the institutionalization of female education in France. Finally, the works of ^{Livingstone (2003}), ^{Fyfe (2016}), ^{Opitz (2016}), and ^{Kirby (2016}) were used to synthesize the circulation of people and knowledge and experimentation.

The question and microhistorical outlook that guided the research led to discussions of the patriarchy and the participation of women in science, based exclusively on the Marie Curie case. Thus, based on the analyzed sources, it is impossible to compare the training of one scientist and that of South American women in their context. However, by focusing on this one particular context, the established power relationships can be addressed more precisely and patriarchy and science more generally.

SCIENTIFIC PRACTICES AND THE CASE OF MARIE CURIE

This section addresses the research on the Marie Curie case in light of the historiographical lens of the CHoS, from three subsections that deal with practices relevant to the research question: the institutionalization of female education in France, circulation of scientific knowledge, and experimentation.

NECESSARY CONDITIONS FOR WOMEN IN SCIENCE BASED ON THE MARIE CURIE CASE

The research on the Marie Curie case was constructed from the historiographical perspective of the CHoS. As a result, this section will discuss questions that identify some of the conditions that allowed female scientists to participate in science and how these conditions reflect the motives behind low numbers of females in science and, thus, build support for the research objective.

Marie Curie’s visibility - and the invisibility of other women in science - can be expressed in a series of facts. Curie was the first woman who graduated in science with a degree in Physics, Chemistry, and Natural History (P.C.N) when in general, women studying in France studied the humanities. She was also the first professor to work in a laboratory at the Sorbonne, the first woman in science to be awarded a Nobel Prize, the first and only person to receive two Nobel Prizes in different categories until the year 2021, and the only woman to have a daughter who is also a Nobel laureate in the scientific field. The historic nature of this very recently relevant accomplishment highlights both her visibility and the invisibility of other diverse women in science.

Suggesting that a careful examination of the history of science would not reveal gender equity, ^{El Jamal and Guerra (2020}) posed a question: if scientific reasoning is a competence that everyone can achieve, then why do women seem to be outside the HoS? Other women from the 19th and 20th centuries did not become visible in the HoS, not for lack of effort or merit, but because the conditions were not there. The absence of scientific events involving women indicates that many of them were left out of science due to the unfavorable conditions of the patriarchy and the insurmountable obstacles of gender, race, or class to doing science.

Unlike many women, Marie Curie entered the academic environment and succeeded, facing obstacles to participating in scientific practices. However, minimal and favorable conditions were necessary to overcome some of these obstacles. Therefore, she should not be seen as privileged but as a woman who managed to do science - which many women still could not do - because the conditions were right. Therefore, this case suggests that these conditions must be expanded to reverse the low numbers of women in science.

On the one hand, there were obstacles placed by the patriarchy along her trajectory. On the other hand, some conditions allowed her to overcome these obstacles to a degree. The first obstacle was the institutionalization of female education, clandestine in Poland and incipient in France. Among favorable conditions, she had the opportunity to migrate to a scientific production center and remain there, in the French capital, despite the high housing costs (^{Perrot, 2006}; ^{Picard, 2010}; ^{Weisz, 1983}). A second obstacle was the gender inequality among peers in the scientific environment, specifically not being allowed to publish in the Academy of Science. She overcame this obstacle by marrying a scientist, obtaining French nationality, and achieving a family-academic balance for herself and her daughter Irène Curie (^{Pugliese, 2012}). Marie Curie was in France, a global center for the proliferation of scientific knowledge, alongside Pierre Curie, and researching a topic of interest to the scientific community, making successful relationships. A third obstacle was reproduction: the need and the difficulty of reconciling the jobs of scientist and mother, given the insalubrity of her first laboratory. However, Marie Curie was able to occupy the public spaces of scientific work with the help of nannies, which allowed her to spend time outside the work of reproduction. While she relied on nannies to help her take care of her daughters, possibilities for work outside the home expanded, and she dedicated herself for years to experiments on the separation of polonium and radium.

In addition to working somewhat outside the sexual division of labor, Curie had a family of professors who encouraged and supported her scientific career. According to ^{Avraamidou (2019}), most students who choose to do science come from families from more privileged socioeconomic classes and with more significant cultural capital, allowing broad access to science, knowledge, museums, and libraries. However, as in Marie Curie’s context, science was aimed at the French elite of the 19th century, and the French higher education system was peripheral to the majority of the population (^{Weisz, 1983}; ^{Terrall, 1995}; ^{Picard, 2010}).

Participating in scientific practices and staying in science requires favorable material conditions, like funding and time to dedicate to research (^{Schiebinger, 2001}; ^{Avraamidou, 2019}). According to ^{Saffioti (2015}), the contradictions of patriarchy do not operate only in the category of gender, race, or class but in the loose connections between the three (^{Saffioti, 2015}). In this sense, the visibility of people in science seems to be related to the contradictions of social class, race, and gender. Analyzing these contradictions helps contextualize the obstacles that Curie had to face to become visible and understand that the other women in science lack visibility because they lack these same conditions necessary to overcome these obstacles.

Unlike Marie Curie, other women in the history of science participated in scientific work within their domestic spaces and did not have the opportunity to engage in academic circles and dedicate themselves to science. ^{Opitz (2016}), for example, reports on the German Agnes Pockels (1862-1935). She experimented with surface films in the 1900s in her kitchen while carrying out household responsibilities related to care for the elderly and, therefore, Agnes did not have a trajectory that would make her visible. Other examples suggested by ^{Schiebinger (2001}) are the case of Margaret Huggins (wife of British astronomer William Huggins), Edith Clements (wife of ecologist Frederic Clements), and Mileva Maric (wife of Albert Einstein). They silently contributed to their husbands’ careers without finding a space for action in the public spheres.

Greater visibility in the academic and scientific space comes from access to a prestigious university, which guarantees fruitful institutional relationships and conditions for experimentation. Moreover, these relationships could be maintained with Curie being a mother because, with the help of other women, she did not have to dedicate 100% of her time to reproduction/domestic work. Having help with housework and childcare allowed her to work outside the home for many years, becoming visible in the scientific field. However, this flexibility is not possible for all women who study science, even in the 21st century, indicating that this is an essential factor in understanding Curie’s visibility and, at the same time, the invisibility of many other women in that and other contexts. Furthermore, women scientists must have the material conditions to dedicate themselves to their careers, referring to multi-year scholarships. This patriarchy-capitalism contradiction reduces the participation of women in science (^{Schiebinger, 2001}; ^{Saffioti, 2015}).

Marie Curie’s presence at the Faculty of Science in Paris and her experimental device demonstrated immense importance and a milestone in women’s history, especially in France (^{Pugliese, 2012}). However, even after the Marie Curie case, few women are visible in science because success in science depends on various interdependent factors, including access to education and prestigious scientific institutions (^{Schiebinger, 2001}). Furthermore, in capitalist and patriarchal societies, the division of labor between job and home, and the academic career clock versus the biological clock, have deep historical roots, being an obstacle to women’s entry into scientific professions (^{Schiebinger, 2001}).

These considerations about the conditions that made Marie Curie visible in the history of science and explained some of the difficulties of women in scientific careers must be introduced in science education that is intended to be more politicized, as proposed by ^{Hodson (2010}), ^{Rudolph, and Horibe (2016}), Hodson and Wong (2017), and ^{El Jamal (2021}). According to ^{Hodson (2010)}, science education should encourage the critical rationality of subjects, forming “the basis for the type of social action that reforms society and its practices” (p.199). This analysis is presented here under the historiographical lens of the CHoS because studying scientific practices produces evidence of the central point: without the time and resources, including access to and permanence in knowledge centers, eventual migrations, and gender equality, it is impossible to do science. By understanding this, male and female students can be more critical and engage in sociopolitical actions to improve conditions for women in society.

As discussed in institutionalizing female education in France, the Franco-Prussian war was fundamental for the entry of international students into the country. However, feminist movements in France and worldwide played a crucial role in women entering universities (^{Perrot, 2006}). ^{Perrot (2006)} states that the French feminist movement was late and notes late access of French women to the right to suffrage, compared to Anglo-Saxon countries. Despite this delay, it is clear that the feminist movement was evident in different struggles of women in France in the 19th and 20th centuries. Therefore, despite the entry of women into French higher education following the political contingencies of the Third Republic, female education was also closely related to the history and movement of women in the country.

According to ^{Schiebinger (2001}), women entered careers in science only after the women’s movement of the 1870s and 1880s propelled them to universities. Moreover, as they were admitted to graduate schools, they entered doctoral programs, which in the 19th and 20th centuries was already a prerequisite for serious dedication to science. Unfortunately, the process of women entering university was beset with many difficulties.

^{Perrot (2006}) suggests that the 19th century was marked by the sexual division of labor based on biological sex differences. The division between public and private changed over time and was strongly present in the 19th century, a liberal century characterized by the double exclusion of proletarians and women from political spaces (^{Perrot, 2006}). In France, concomitant with the sexual division of labor was the increasing responsibility of women for the role of housewife. In this sense, Marie Curie conquered an unusual space for women.

Modern 19^th century France was characterized by the confinement and guardianship of women¹. However, despite this accentuation of patriarchy, a women’s movement began in the country. The sharp division between the public and private spheres in this century and the unfavorable conditions of women served as motivation for the incipient birth of a feminist movement in the early 20th century.

At the end of the 19th century, French universities had an admission policy to attract young foreigners from economically underdeveloped countries. Like Marie Curie, immigrants faced high housing prices in crowded cities. Then, in 1848, Parisians demanded the suspension of housing payments, and women were a group that was present in opposition against the capital’s high prices (^{Perrot, 2006}). In the same year, women spoke out against religious congregations, priests, and convents, which, until then, were responsible for female education (Perrot, 2006). In general terms, despite the difficulties women face as a result of patriarchy, Perrot (1995) suggests that women have been the protagonists in changing the role of women, especially at the turn of the 19th to the 20th century. According to ^{Perrot (1995)}, the desire to balance paid work (guaranteeing independence) and motherhood are present in 19th century France. In this same perspective, ^{Schiebinger (2001}) emphasizes that women’s history in science and society was not one of the victorious advances, but of cycles of advance and retreat, accompanied by the political context and social movements, which are always necessary for social transformations in history and scientific practices.

LINKS BETWEEN NECESSARY CONDITIONS FOR WOMEN IN SCIENCE AND SCIENCE EDUCATION IN BRAZIL

The micro-history supported by the CHoS, presented here in this article, demonstrates particularities in science production and the necessary conditions to produce science. Despite being a case of a French woman, discussion about Madame Curie’s working conditions can be introduced into science education in Brazil to improve understanding of the relationship between science and patriarchy in favor of sociopolitical action.

In Brazil, statistical data are provided by the 2019 Brazilian higher education census². The Census reveals that of the 3.6 million students who enter higher education, 84.6% are in private institutions, 64% of the degree courses are in private institutions, and 72.2% of the students enrolled in the degrees are women. These results show that most of the Brazilian population who attend higher education are in private institutions and that degrees are predominantly sought by women.

Concerning women’s work and education, according to gender statistics and social indicators identified by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE)³ in 2018, there is a minority in the country with complete higher education. They are 23.5% white women, 10.4% black or mixed-race women¹⁴, 20.7% white men, and 7.0% black or mixed-race men. Furthermore, the time dedicated to caring for people or household chores is 18.1 hours per week for women, longer for black or mixed-race than for white women, and 10.5 hours per week for men in total. The average monthly income from all jobs for women is 1764 reais (about USD$355) and for men is 2306 reais (about USD$438). Bárbara Cobo, coordinator of Population and Social Indicators at , concludes that women are more educated than men, but this is still not reflected in the labor market because women choose occupations with a more flexible working day to reconcile work with the burden of household chores. On the condition of women in economic structures, participation in productive activities, and access to resources, Bárbara Cobo adds that inequalities in the labor market can only be resolved through an integrated daycare policy since one of the main factors for women to leave the formal school system or the job market is domestic work.

These data suggest that conditions do not favor women’s participation in professions that require extensive training time, total dedication, and material resources, such as work in the scientific field. This assertion agrees with ^{Hodson (2010}) when the author points to teaching and learning that prepare young people for sociopolitical actions. Therefore, education strategies that question the low representation of women in science need to promote understanding of the historical conditions of female participation in science, arguing that such conditions can be changed.

Therefore, science teaching needs to follow a more politicized approach, whereby students can establish relationships between the exploitation/domination of vulnerable groups and science, realizing the position in the world they occupy. According to ^{Hodson (2010}), there is no motivation for sociopolitical action without critical awareness of their world positions. Motivation for sociopolitical action also comes from knowing how and why others made sociopolitical changes with personal goals in mind for building a world and community (^{Hodson, 2010}).

The historical example of Marie Curie under the historiographical lens of the CHoS shows that to be part of the scientific enterprise, women need favorable conditions. As these conditions are denied to most women, social movements are fundamental in demanding, for example, broad access to education, remuneration for female reproductive work, or policies that release women from responsibility for such work. In France, for example, it was only a decade later that French women provoked changes in laws that gave men sexual rights over women, as in the Napoleonic Penal Code (^{Saffioti, 2015}). Likewise, the struggle for better conditions for women in Brazil depends on the movement of Brazilian women themselves.

History reveals that the great causes, especially beneficial to the discriminated contingents and almost everyone else, were successful, despite being led by small minorities. And Brazilian women have plenty of reasons to oppose the machismo present in all social institutions (^{Saffioti, 2015}, p.49)

Approaching the Marie Curie case through the CHoS is a pathway to politicized science education. However, discussing the necessary conditions for women in science can motivate Brazilian students to collective sociopolitical actions, such as anti-patriarchal social movements.

FINAL CONSIDERATIONS

The present research sought to explore conditions that allowed Marie Curie to participate in science and how understanding these conditions creates opportunities in education for critical discussion about low female participation in science.

The discussions presented are based on the difficulties of using patriarchy to justify low women’s representation in the history of science. Among the difficulties are the consolidation of a predominant sexist epistemology in science, gender inequality, the assumed social roles for women, female responsibility for domestic and reproductive work, lack of access to education, and lack of material resources for staying in science (^{Federici, 2019}; ^{Harding, 2015}; ^{Saffioti, 2015}; ^{Schiebinger, 2001}; ¹⁹⁸⁹).

Highlighting Marie Curie’s success in the literature agrees with the work of ^{Brickhouse (2000}; ¹⁹⁹⁴) and ^{Carlone et al. (2015}), who advocate recognizing students with scientific identities to inspire more women to do science. However, the present results suggest that just introducing examples of women in the history of science is insufficient to increase female representation. The Marie Curie case demonstrates that visibility in the area depends on favorable conditions to participate in scientific practices and, therefore, to have more women in science, these structural conditions must be improved.

The disproportionality between men and women in HoS questions the absence of a vast majority of women in science without turning an individual case into a triumphant example. According to ^{Schiebinger (2001}; ¹⁹⁸⁹), works that only mention notable figures do not question the difficulties that prevent most women from entering scientific professions. Therefore, a critical education strategy would presuppose an understanding of power relationships in the process of science construction. This understanding facilitates discussions about how the structure of scientific institutions and patriarchy needs to change so that more women can enter and remain in scientific careers (^{Schiebinger, 2001}).

The present research adds depth to the case of a woman in science, recurrent in the literature, with questions about patriarchy. Discussions in science classes about low female participation in science careers would improve understanding of science, confront persistent patriarchal attitudes, and promote sociopolitical actions in an education strategy guided by contemporary political issues for social transformations.