[It's not that he's asking something he oughtn't. The question is innocuous enough, and she'd certainly invited the topic. But still Rosalind stares for just a moment, honestly taken aback by it, because it's so wildly different from what she knows.

Was that not the case back home? he asks, like it's a little unthinkable. Like he's so used to women in the sciences. It's just the same as the natives here; she'd murmured something along the same lines and received the oddest look in return, and god, but it's a thrilling feeling.

It's a little grief-inducing too, oddly enough, but she keeps that to herself.]

It wasn't seen as a particularly feminine career choice. Women weren't encouraged to chase after it.

[That's a laugh. She'd had to fight tooth and nail to stay in her career, and even then,
it'd been a hard-won thing. Madam Lutece, never doctor, never doctor, she'd been so upset all those years ago--]

You can imagine my pleasure at the change here.