In the years around 1900, more women were benefiting from a university education and using it as a pathway to acquiring research expertise and contributing to the development of scientific knowledge. Although numbers were small compared with men, it is clear that the idea of a female researcher was no longer an oddity. As illustrated by biographies and an analysis of three fictional texts featuring a female scientist, the increasing visibility of women did little to challenge the masculine colouring of science. A dissonance can be identified between femininity and science, even in settings sympathetic to a woman's scientific activities. Particular unease is discernible when women are placed within the material culture of the laboratory. The problem of a woman embodying scientific authority, especially at a time when science was professionalising and institutionalising, adds an additional layer of complexity to discussions about women, science and education in these years.