As one of you pointed out, and this clip conclusively proves, Mr. Wizard knew that girls as well as boys could be interested in science—and not just the sort involving the chemistry of cooking. In fact, for all but the first year of the show's run from 1951 to 1965, Mr. Wizard alternated between girl and boy assistants. By 1955, more than 100,000 boys and girls had signed up for membership in one of 5000 chapters of the Mr. Wizard Science Club. Bravo, Mr. Wizard!

Dr. Gladys Hobby was a Vassar graduate who received her M.D. at Columbia. In 1952, Woman's Home Companion described how she "tended thousands of flasks—as solicitous about her molds as an anxious mother might be about a sick infant." The same article also noted that chemicals were compounded during drug company research "in the hope that they will have valuable properties—just as an experimental cook will invent a new cake in the hope it will taste good." In other words, whipping up a batch of cupcakes gave you practically all the background you needed to be a girl scientist. "How do you make out in the kitchen?" Seventeen asked readers in 1951. "A good chemist needs the kind of imagination, ingenuity and patience that makes a good cook."

No cooking skills? A career in science might still be for you. "One scientist (male) said to us [Seventeen magazine again], 'Women in science? Yes, I think they're fine. You should see the deft way those girls handle animals in the laboratory.' Another one (also male) assured us women's ability for minute work came in handy on many an experiment." Nimble-fingered girls could juggle those lab rats and clean test tubes like nobody's business. Oh, wait, you didn't want to actually be in charge did you?