This article is a personal reflection about the context and determining aspects that have caused the exclusion of women from the scientific sphere, from the viewpoint of cultural history.

The traditional exclusion of women from the public sphere, from education, politics, art and culture, as well as women's confinement to the domestic realm, have –little by little– undergone steady change since the Enlightenment, with the liberalisation of society and women's progressive admittance to public