During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the Scientific Revolution, which was the development of new sciences and technology, and The Age of Enlightenment, which was the so called "age of reason", had sparked women's participation in sciences. Ever since Europe was moving towards the modern world, women had been trying to change their social status from regular housework and staying at home to getting better jobs such as teaching and learning science. Although this was a great change for women, there were changing attitudes and views toward them when they had participated in science. Dorothea Erxleben, a German M.D. had appreciated that she learned science, but other people, such as men felt that they she and along with other women are taking away man's superiority role in society. There were defiantly both pros and cons towards women's participation in science. (Document 9).
The Scientific Revolution and The Age of Enlightenment paved the brink of women's success in science. Technologies such as the sextant, which was a tool used for calculating the altitude of objects and the telescope gave women the chance to study astronomy, which was the most popular subject during that time. Women would work rigorously not on housework, but on astronomy. They would advance their knowledge further with the studies of insects and the art of drawing. This would help them understand why the sun changes during the day and the different types of changes insects go through in life. Gottfried Kirch, who was a German astronomer and was the husband of Maria Winkelmann, had agreed with what women have done in the research of science. His wife discovered a comet and he was surprised because she stayed up all night and had the courage to search the skies for stars and comets. The "age of reason" helped women progress their studies because philosophers such as Rene Descartes helped them conduct experiments in an efficient way for studying by providing the Discourse on Method (1637).