Innovation Inspiration: Mother of Invention, Katrine Marçal
Why did it take us 5,000 years to put wheels on a suitcase? How did bras help us land on the moon? What would the world of innovation look like if women’s ideas were valued as much as men’s?
Katrine Marcal’s book Mother of Invention: How Good Ideas Get Ignored in an Economy Built for Men is an essential read for any innovator. Marcal, a financial journalist based in Sweden, has crafted a readable and fascinating look at the history of women in innovation–and especially how they have been ignored. If you want to make your innovation work more equitable–for women, for racial minorities, for users in the Global South, for anyone marginalised–Mother of Invention is an essential read.
One of the biggest strengths of Marcal’s work is her strength as a storyteller, and how she can make vital scientific and economic arguments through the stories of women who made brilliant discoveries, or whose needs led to innovations finally becoming a reality. Did you know that Bertha Benz, wife of Carl Benz, conducted the first-ever test drive? In 1888, she drove her husband’s “Motorwagen” (the invention of which was financed with her dowry) fifty miles, from Mannheim to Pforzheim. Along the way, she ran into a variety of struggles–which she solved by purchasing fuel additives from a local pharmacy, visiting a cobbler to fashion the first brake linings out of leather, and clearing a clogged fuel line with a hatpin. Her crucial troubleshooting helped Carl to improve his invention and thus changed transportation forever. But until recently, Bertha’s discoveries were barely acknowledged by Mercedes-Benz or the automotive industry in general.
And it doesn’t stop there. The space race in the 1960s was fueled by female mathematicians–“human computers”--who calculated rocket trajectories essential to space exploration. Their work went unappreciated, and the function of their work meant early computers were often sold with how many “girl-hours” they could replace. NASA struggled for years to find engineering firms that could create highly sophisticated spacesuits for the Apollo missions. Until they realised that many companies had already figured out how to make garments that included wire and latex, retained their shape, and were comfortable to wear–and thus Playtex, the bra manufacturer, helped to design and produce the first American spacesuits.
The fantastic storytelling throughout Marcal’s book exposes the long shadow of sexism in the world of innovation, and how it continues even in today’s supposedly-egalitarian society. Women-led businesses still receive less venture capital, and women are still underrepresented on boards and other leadership committees. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted how many “essential workers” are female–because jobs that can’t be done from home, such as elder care and cleaning, remain low-paid, female-dominated fields.
Marcal is one to watch in regards to financial and scientific writing–her debut, Who Cooked Adam Smith’s Dinner?, looks at unpaid care work across the world–and Mother of Invention is a clear demonstration not just of the power of the crowd, but how all crowds can be strengthened with the ideas of the marginalised.
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