The Inner Crack of Women in Science

There is an inner crack that runs through women’s journeys in science—a silent fissure, impossible to ignore. It’s the tremor before raising your hand in class, the hesitation before asking a question in a seminar, the sudden feeling of being out of place when surrounded by colleagues who seem so effortlessly confident. But as Leonard Cohen once wrote, “There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.” That crack does not represent failure—it is the place where beauty and resilience grow.

This tension echoes powerfully in the TV series Geek Girl, based on Holly Smale’s 2013 novel of the same name. Harriet, the awkward book-obsessed teen thrust unexpectedly into the fashion world, is not a scientist—but her story resonates with countless women who juggle intelligence and vulnerability. She is told, again and again, that she must be something else. Sound familiar? In science, too, women are often expected to fit a mold not designed for them.

From the Netflix original series Geek Girl (2024).

But here’s the question: can we find beauty in these fractures? Can we, geek girls, embrace the truth that intelligence, awkwardness, and charm are not opposites at all—but different shades of the same beauty? Spoiler alert: yes, we can or, this is what I usually think. And sometimes, we can even laugh about it.

The Inner Crack of Women in Science

Being a woman in science has historically meant living in contradiction. You can be brilliant, but you must constantly prove it. You can have insights, but someone else might take credit. The “inner crack” comes not from weakness, but from the friction between who you are and what institutions expect you to pretend to be.

Think of Rosalind Franklin, whose X-ray photographs revealed the double helix structure of DNA. Watson and Crick received the Nobel Prize. She didn’t (Maddox, 2002), although she has been one of the main contributors of the story. Franklin represents countless women who illuminated the path of discovery yet were denied recognition, or were given a partial medal. If Rosalind Franklin had been in a sitcom, she would’ve been the genius character who makes the plot twist possible—only to be left out of the end credits.

Even Nobel laureate Marie Curie faced suspicion and ostracism, as though two Nobel Prizes were still not enough to “prove” her talent. Rita Levi-Montalcini, in Italy, improvised experiments in her bedroom during World War II, showing that science can bloom through determination even under oppressive conditions. Dr. Montalcini will always be in my heart, she is one of the reasons I got deeply inspired by science and medicine. One of my final exams was precisely on her and her thoughts on the importance of finding balance in life, passion and science as a woman.

Evelyn Fox Keller (1985) famously argued that science is not neutral, but shaped by personal stories and emotions. From my perspective as a geek girl, the so-called “fragility” is not a flaw—it is a lens. That little crack teaches us to see science in a more human, more creative way.

Do people underestimate us? Yes. But sometimes, it’s funny.

Geek Girls and Identity: Awkward, Brilliant, Beautiful

Enter Geek Girl. Harriet, our clumsy, too-honest, too-smart-for-her-own-good protagonist, is catapulted into the hyper-critical world of fashion. The parallel with science is striking. Both worlds have invisible rules and unspoken codes, and both can make women feel like permanent outsiders.

Harriet struggles with her “geekiness.” She apologizes, she trips, she says the wrong thing. But here’s the twist: those very quirks are what make her so radiant. Isn’t that exactly the lesson women scientists live every day? That beauty isn’t about hiding your intelligence, your quirks, your passions, but embracing them?

Being a geek girl means never quite fitting the stereotype, but that’s what makes us shine. We are beautiful precisely because we don’t erase who we are. Harriet doesn’t transform into someone else—she learns that clumsiness can be charming, and that brains are magnetic.

This resonates with the mathematicians of Hidden Figures (2016). Katherine Johnson and her colleagues not only had to solve astrophysical problems, but also survive constant attempts at invisibility. And yet, their intelligence was undeniable—it was beauty in its purest form, the beauty of logic breaking barriers.

And let’s be honest: sometimes being a geek girl is hilarious. Like me, talking to myself so many times!

Left to right: Chien-Shiung Wu, Marie Curie, Rosalind Franklin.

Can Science Be Beautiful? (Spoiler: Yes, and Funny Too)

Science and beauty don’t always appear together in people’s minds. Mathematics? Sure. A dress pattern? Clearly. But beauty in equations or chemistry? At first, people hesitate. Yet if you have ever solved a complex problem, seen an experiment finally succeed, or looked at a nebula through a telescope, you know. Science is beautiful.

Primo Levi’s The Periodic Table (1975) showed that chemistry can be lyrical, transforming elements into characters. Janna Levin, in A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines (2006), wrote a novel where mathematics and existential questioning dance together. These works remind us that the precision of science can rise to the level of poetry. Cinema amplifies this truth. In Contact (1997), Ellie Arroway experiences scientific discovery as awe, almost a spiritual event. In Interstellar (2014), black holes and time dilation are not just equations but visions, feelings, even tears. Beauty pulses inside formulas and theories, waiting to be recognized.

As geek girls, we feel this daily. When an experiment finally works, the joy is indescribable—it’s almost comic. So yes, the world has long told us geek girls that brains cancel beauty. But here’s the truth: our laughter, our socks that don’t match, our intense focus, our awkwardness, our passion—they are beautiful because they are ours.

The inner crack of women in science is not a fatal flaw—it is the mark of resilience. Through that fissure, light enters: empathy, creativity, daring. It is the same crack that Harriet in Geek Girl struggles with, and the one all geek girls know—the struggle to remain our quirky selves while navigating systems that keep telling us to change.

And yet, the lesson is liberating: geek girls are beautiful. Beautiful precisely because we refuse to erase our love for knowledge. Beautiful because our laughter, our codes, our clumsy wins and late-night debates are part of the brilliance. Beauty is not in conforming—it is in embracing the crack, the vulnerability, the human side of science. So next time someone doubts whether geek girls can be beautiful, we shall smile, maybe laugh too, and say:

“Watch us light up the lab… in our mismatched socks.”