Women haven't been doing science for nearly as long as men have, thus the only female names that spring to mind are Dr. Curie et al. However, there are currently many female profs making great contributions was will likely one day be recognized. I say this because the biology courses I took in undergrad were about 70% female--- and that was four years ago. the trend continued in my grad chem classes. The only class where the ratios were reversed were the upper level physics courses I took for fun (a chemist can never know too much physics!). I never had any issues with this, and in fact met current boyfriend in a sophmore level physics class. Perhaps this is due to my being willing to embrass myself in front of the prof in the pursuit of knowlage. My lab partner in organic chem (a girl) was unwilling to talk to the prof even one-on-one, and certianly never raised her hand in lecture (she made me ask all the questions, since I never minded making a fool of myself).

While it is true that there are more men with a "genius-level" IQ (~140 and up, I think), there are more women than men with what I'll call a "smarty-pants" IQ (120 - 140). Sciene, particularly in biology and medicine (although I hesitate to call medicine a science), needs these middle-level smart folks more than it needs the heads-in-the-clouds, Einstein-level geniuses who do no tend to do well in the lab (in fact it is usually contidered unlucky to have a theorist in the lab while you are running an experiment. I think this is due to have simple fact that they tend to have lower hand to eye coordination and will break the glassware.