Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

Chemist Elizabeth Zott is not your average woman. In fact, Elizabeth Zott would be the first to point out that there is no such thing.

But it’s the early 1960s and her all-male team at Hastings Research Institute take a very unscientific view of equality. Forced to resign, she reluctantly signs on as the host of a cooking show, Supper at Six. But her revolutionary approach to cooking, fuelled by scientific and rational commentary, grabs the attention of a nation. And soon a legion of overlooked housewives find themselves daring to change the status quo. One molecule at a time.

Lessons in Chemistry has been all over Bookstagram in the last year or so and I can certainly see why. It’s readable, has relatable characters, and follows a character who has the courage to struggle through hardship for the greater good of those around her.

Essentially Elizabeth’s function in the book is to bring a twenty-first century perspective to a 1960s setting. She points out, and defies, all sorts of accepted societal roles as far as gender stereotypes are concerned. She questions why a woman’s place should be in the home, why women can’t be scientists, why men are paid more than women for the same job, why a woman’s principal worth is in how she looks.

Some of the examples of sexism at times feel a little shoehorned in when you think too carefully about it. But each of them is realistic in itself. The point is that sexism does not manifest itself only in obvious gestures or rules. Much of the time it’s the cumulation of lots of small actions or thought processes that many people, especially in the 1960s, would hardly notice, let alone question. That’s when it takes someone like Elizabeth to step in and overtly point it out.

To be honest I have no idea if things were as bad as all that in the 1960s but I do think that it takes a bold individual to kick up a fuss for issues like this to be brought to the foreground. To make a policy change, though, it does unfortunately still seem that a member of the ‘privileged’ group (in this case men) needs to be on board, fighting the corner of the ‘oppressed’ group (in this case women) because the world will not take the ‘oppressed’ group seriously. In Lessons in Chemistry, although Elizabeth is the one initiating all these changes, men are still largely in charge of the various institutions with which she is associated and she is still somewhat at the mercy of their decisions.

For her fellow women, though, she is a role model and a leader, saying out loud – and publicly – the thoughts they are unable to articulate or are afraid to say for fear of rocking the societal boat.

All in all this is an impressive debut novel by Garmus. She has created a character whose courage is inspiring to many. Elizabeth is single-minded to a fault when it comes to pursuing what she believes is right and fair but the open-mindedness of her belief that everyone should be allowed to pursue their potential rings true for many readers. The world needs people like Elizabeth to challenge prejudices where we become so used to them that we cannot see past them.