Behind a lesbian furore over a famous palaeontologist lies a deeper truth | Tori Herridge and Becky Wragg Sykes
No one knows if Mary Anning had lovers. But what a new film does get right is the vital role women played in her life
The furore over a film portraying the 19th-century palaeontologist Mary Anning as having a female lover probably tells us more about ourselves than it does about historical accuracy onscreen. Francis Lee’s Ammonite might not be a scrupulously backed-up biopic, but it may just hit on the one thing that so many other accounts of Anning, and other early women in science, have missed: the importance of friendships and collaborations.
whose fossil discoveries changed the world, and a modern-day icon for women in science, is once again making news. This time, however, it’s not the ancient creatures she unearthed causing the stir. Kate.
