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Purpose – To discover and unravel the contribution of women to innovation and invention. This chapter builds upon a book published in 2003, called, Ingenious Women. The purpose of the book was to discover the invisible women inventors and patent holders operating between 1637, when the first patent was awarded to a woman, and the outbreak of war in 1914. For the purpose of this essay, the time frame has been extended to the present.

Methodology – Historical patents are used as the main research base, supported by searches of other relevant databases, directories and specialist archives (census records, registered designs, company records, museum collections) as well as specialist literature.

Findings – The research illustrates that women and men were often part of a wide network of discoverers and innovators and were able, by using the latest technologies and materials available, to resolve problems both large and small.

Research limitations/implications – This categorisation on patent databases or directories and searches were by female first names or by object type. his categorisation highlights the historical assumption that women are not inventors. Although this search method highlighted hundreds of women, there must be many still undiscovered.

Practical implications – Not all the ideas went into production and some have now become obsolete. Others continue to be produced and have formed the basis of successful companies. Many women became entrepreneurs and developed businesses based on their inventions and some, as widows, successfully ran their deceased husbands' companies.

Social implication – The women in this hidden history often had to navigate a path through social attitudes and legislative frameworks. They are all an example to women today that anyone, regardless of gender, can be innovative and entrepreneurial. What is crucial is that the ideas being developed are unique and have a purpose.

Whether like the sociologist, Herbert Marcuse, or the novelist Simone de Beauvoir, we see technology primarily as a means of human enslavement and destruction, or whether, like Adam Smith, we see it primarily as a liberating promethean force, we are all involved in its advance. (Freeman, 1974, p. 15)The initial idea informing this first ISBE Book Series was sparked by the proliferation of policy and research focused upon (a) the minority status held by women in scientific activities and discoveries around the world, (b) identifying and addressing some persisting personal, professional and institutional barriers that have continued to prevent women from entry and progression within the scientific fields and (c) attempting, but without much success, to find solutions to fix the leaks in the various joints of the so-called science, engineering, technology and mathematics (STEM) pipeline in order to remedy the current situation.

Over the past two decades, pro bono has become increasingly integrated into the structure of large law firms across the United States. The institutionalization of pro bono should conceivably have important consequences on firm practices, but few studies have examined this relationship directly. In this study, I examine the effect of formal pro bono programs on firm-level pro bono commitment. Through a cross-sectional analysis of large law firms, I find that a variety of pro bono policies – such as the presence of a coordinator and having a formal written policy – positively affects how much time a firm commits to pro bono work. In addition, I find that the content of a firm's pro bono policy can also affect pro bono commitment. This effect remains after controlling for organizational slack (economic performance and firm size) and firm diversity. These findings have implications for issues of access to justice and organizational theory.

In this chapter we reinvigorate socialization as a theoretical framework for studying gender and sexuality, and we do so by focusing attention on the sexual socialization of young children. We provide an overview of the literature on the sexual socialization of young children. We discuss why researchers should be interested in childhood sexuality, and the role of parents, peers and schools, and the media in sexual socialization. We also address three overarching issues: methodology, the hegemony of heterosexuality, and child sexual abuse. Throughout, we suggest and organize some of the empirical questions that form a research agenda for those interested in this topic.