It's World Space Week! My mission this morning is space books by women - old ones, new ones, maybe even imaginary ones. #Space4Women #WSW2020

My first book for World Space Week: The Description of a New World, Called The Blazing-World, by Margaret Cavendish, published in 1666. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blazing_World #wsw2020 #Space4Women

Margaret Cavendish (1623-1673) was an English philosopher, scientist and writer, who published under her own name when women weren't even supposed to write or think. The Blazing World was one of the earliest works of science fiction. #WSW2020 #Space4Women

More about Cavendish and the Blazing World soon, but as an aside, how we describe and talk about women in science and space matters. Giving them names and pictures, and choosing adjectives carefully, makes a difference. #Space4Women

Margaret Cavendish's The Blazing World is online thanks to @gutenberg_org - read it here: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/51783/51783-h/51783-h.htm #space4women

The Blazing World isn't in space, exactly, but it's another world attached to Earth at the North Pole. Our heroine becomes queen of this world, and interrogates its inhabitants - fish-men, bear-men, crab-men and many others, about cosmology, astronomy and much more #Space4Women

OK maybe I made the crab-men up.

While Margaret Cavendish is perhaps best known for the Blazing World today, it wasn't her main work. It was actually a companion piece to Observations upon Experimental Philosophy, in which she took on the bastions of the Royal Academy. #Space4Women

'For, what benefit would it be to me, if I should put forth a work, which by reason of its obscure and hard notions, could not be understood?'

Margaret Cavendish was a trailblazer in science communication too! (Observations Upon Experimental Philosophy, 1666) #Space4Women

Because women were denied education, they were assumed to be stupid, and this was used as a reason to deny them education. The patriarchy is not logical! This is what Margaret Cavendish had to say about it in 1666. #space4Women

Let's dip into the Blazing World. Here is a statement about Cavendish's epistemology:
'Many, both of your modern and ancient Philosophers ... endeavour to go beyond Sense and Reason, which makes them commit absurdities; for no corporeal Creature can go beyond Sense and Reason'.

Margaret Cavendish made the Blazing World a peaceful one, rejecting the values of conquest, and invited the reader to come and share it, or make their own worlds! #Space4Women

In the Blazing World, Cavendish goes through all the theories of what the Sun was. Most thought it a stone, but she hypothesised that it was 'a Globous fluid body, and had a swift Circular motion'. #Space4Women

I encourage you to explore more of Margaret Cavendish! Here is the Blazing World: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/51783/51783-h/51783-h.htm
The Philosophical Letters: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/53679 
The Grounds of Natural Philosophy: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/58404 
#Space4Women #WomenInSTEM