There is a great deal of contemporary pressure to examine why women are not going into science, to encourage them to do so, and, among a growing band of feminist scholars, to question and challenge the long male-centred structuring and domination of the ethos of science. Deep cultural forces survive that continue to locate most women in the profession’s lower ranks; the place of women in science leadership and policymaking in Australia is conspicuously small, while the very architecture of science and its invisible colleges and networks appear to perpetuate the expectation that science is a masculine world. How has this scenario developed in Australia? What part have woman played in the society and community of science? How widespread has their participation been? And what, in a sweep across a century or more, are the inhibitors that have kept women out of ‘mainstream’ science? This paper examines the background in Australia.