By Lara Alhassanieh Staff Writer
“Pretty privilege” is a concept that was recently spotlighted by many women and envied by most of them, but to be a pretty woman is a double-edged sword. People don’t know what to do with a woman who is both beautiful and smart, especially in STEM, a field that tends to be male dominated. Such is the case for Hedy Lamar, the trailblazer of a woman in science and engineering.
It is no secret that we live in a very visual world. A world where looks can overpower what is underneath, and this is notably the case for Hedy Lamarr. Being a famous Hollywood actress, Hedy Lamarr (1914 – 2000) was known for her big-screen films, as mentioned in the National Women’s History Museum. But I bet you are much more likely to know how wifi works than to remember the name of a Hedy Lamarr movie. So why is “actress” the first word that comes up when googling Hedy Lamarr?
Hedy Lamarr, an Austrian-born woman who emigrated to America just before the second world war, pioneered the technology that became the crutch of today’s global age: from WiFi to GPS, and Bluetooth communication systems. At that time, however, her invention of frequency hopping wasn’t taken seriously, as women weren’t seen as inventors or scientists. According to Oxford Research Encyclopedias, the 1940s and 1950s was a period where contributions by women were only deemed necessary “for the duration” of the Second World War. Any woman who challenged these dominant gender norms faced a lot of harsh criticism. Therefore, gender bias cast another shadow over Lamarr’s contributions.
“Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story” is a 2017 documentary based on this starlet’s rich life story. It reveals how in the 1940s, the Hollywood actress who acted by day and drew mechanical and electronic inventions by night, came up with a “secret communication system” to help the Allies beat the Nazis. Moreover, Forbes details that Lamarr filed a patent with the co-inventor George Antheil to protect their invention that allowed radio communications to ‘hop’ from one frequency to another so the Nazis can’t detect them. However, she wound up uncompensated for her invention for the entirety of her life, as every overlooked inventor was during their time. Although the government granted her the patent, she did not see a cent of the multi-billion-dollar industry her idea paved the way for.
One can perceive Hedy Lamarr’s story as a one-in-a-million occurrence, but is it? Is this mix of gender bias, public perception, and legal issues all it takes to draw a veil over the woman behind a $30 billion idea? Like many of the great inventors of their time, Hedy Lamarr ended up badly compensated for her invention, but well compensated for her movies. However, her story begs for us to take another look at ourselves, and rethink our instincts of judging a book by its cover. At the end of the day, the glitz and glamour of Hollywood will fade, but the life opportunities available today are unimaginable without wifi.
A name that finally won the Pioneer Award in 1997 but was never sufficiently reimbursed, Hedy Lamarr is a role model that more women should learn about. A beautiful mind coupled with a glamorous appearance, Kent M. Keith reveals Hedy Lamarr’s character in the documentary, when after all she has been through, she says:
“People are unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered – love them anyway. If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish, alternative motives – do good anyway. The biggest people with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest people with the smallest minds – think big anyway. What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight – build anyway. Give the world the best you have and you’ll be kicked into the teeth – give the world the best you’ve got anyway.”