Watson Describes Rosalind Franklin

Even worse, Maurice continually frustrated Francis by never seeming enthusiastic enough about DNA. He appeared to enjoy slowly understating important arguments. It was not a question of intelligence or common sense Maurice clearly had both; witness his seizing DNA before almost everyone else. It was that Francis felt he could never get the message over to Maurice that you did not move cautiously when you were holding dynamite like DNA. Moreover, it was increasingly difficult to take Maurice's mind off his assistant, Rosalind Franklin.

Not that he was at all in love with Rosy, as we called her from a distance. Just the oppositea1most from the moment she arrived in Maurice's lab, they began to upset each other. Maurice, a beginner in X-ray diffraction work, wanted some professional help and hoped that Rosy, a trained crystallographer, could speed up his research. Rosy, however, did not see the situation this way. She claimed that she had been given DNA for her own problem and would not think of herself as Maurice's assistant.

I suspect that in the beginning Maurice hoped that Rosy would calm down. Yet mere inspection suggested that she would not easily bend. By choice she did not emphasize her feminine qualities. Though her features were strong, she was not unattractive and might have been quite stunning had she taken even a mild interest in clothes. This she did not. There was never lipstick to contrast with her straight black hair, while at the age of thirty-one her dresses showed all the imagination of English bluestocking adolescents. So it was quite easy to imagine her the product of an unsatisfied mother who unduly stressed the desirability of professional careers that it could save bright girls from marriages to dull men. But this was not the case. Her dedicated, austere life could not be thus explained she was the daughter of a solidly comfortable, erudite banking family.

Clearly Rosy had to go or be put in her place. The former was obviously preferable because, given her belligerent moods, it would be very difficult for Maurice to maintain a dominant position that would allow him to think unhindered about DNA. Not that at times he didn't see, some reason for her complaints – King's had two combination rooms, one for men, the other for women, certainly a thing of the past. But he was not responsible, and it was no pleasure to bear the cross for the added barb that the women's combination room remained dingily pokey whereas money had been spent to make life agreeable for him and his friends when they had their morning coffee.

Unfortunately, Maurice could not see any decent way to give Rosy the boot. To start with, she had been given to think that she had a position for several years. Also, there was no denying she had a good brain. If she could only keep her emotions under control, there would be a good chance that she could really help him.

There some sexism here, but Watson is so candid describing everyone in his book.