“Why did I decide to study ants?”
If you watch old movies, especially from the 1940s and ’50s, you see things that, while uncomfortable by today’s standards, were typical of the era. For one thing: smoking. So many characters puffing their brains out, be it on an airplane, in a restaurant, or even in a roomful of children.
Then, there was the portrayal of women, as dictated through the centuries by the patriarchy. Here is the happy little homemaker, queen of her kitchen, wearing a dress, heels, and apron as the dinner she’s making must be on the table when the “man of the house” comes through the door after his hard day at work. Gimme a break!
In my favorite genres of horror and science fiction, women were great at two things: screaming and fainting. Yeah, the guys were always around to protect them while figuring out how to kill the monster, or prevent the alien invasion, or whatever.
Fortunately, there were exceptions to the rule, and some of the best films during that era were ones involving strong, smart women. Whether this was lip service paid by producers, or actresses insisting on more positive character portrayals and fewer stereotypes, I can’t say. In any case, here are a few examples.
JOAN WELDON
Dr. Patricia Blake gets David out of the police station.
One of the best sci-fi/horror films of the era was the 1954 gem, Them! When the aftermath of atomic bomb testing in the New Mexico desert creates deadly, gigantic ants, two PhD myrmecologists (ant experts) from the Department of Agriculture are summoned. Dr. Patricia Medford (Weldon) and her father, Dr. Harold Medford, are on equal footing when it comes to identifying the danger. After cyanide is poured into the nest, she insists on going down into it to make sure no queen ants have hatched, against the objections of the big, tough FBI guy. “This is no place for a woman,” he says. Patricia tells him what he can do with that.
HELENA CARTER
In the 1953 sci/fi classic, Invaders from Mars, a precocious youngster named David MacLean witnesses a flying saucer disappear in a sand pit behind his house. When his otherwise nice parents, among others, begin acting weird and nasty, he tries to tell the cops what he thinks is going on. The chief, also weird and nasty, has him locked up, but an unaffected cop calls the local health department for someone to help the troubled boy. Enter Dr. Patricia Blake (Carter), who believes David’s story, calms him down, and sticks with him throughout the film, even enlisting the help of an astronomer friend. Again, another strong, smart woman.
Stephanie Clayton will have to be patient with her transforming boss.
MARA CORDAY
This fine actress, who is still with us at age 95 (the others are not), gets double billing for a couple of roles. In the 1955 monster film, Tarantula, she plays Stephanie “Steve” Clayton, who arrives at the laboratory of Dr. Gerald Deemer near the small town of Desert Rock, Arizona to be his research assistant. Deemer is an odd duck who is experimenting with making animals larger to anticipate future food shortages. By the time Steve arrives, his tarantula—about the size of a small dog—has escaped out into the desert. By the film’s end it will have grown to the size of the New Orleans Superdome. Until then Steve will handle her tasks professionally, and will deal with the quirky, deteriorating Deemer with grace.
Two years later Ms. Corday co-starred with Jeff Morrow in another monster movie, The Giant Claw, which I recently wrote about. Though an incredibly hokey film, she played her role as a mathematician quite seriously and was involved in all aspects of decision making about how to take the pesky creature down.
These are just a few examples of strong, smart women in movies of this era. One final thought: Dr. Patricia Medford does scream when a nine-foot ant comes over a hill and practically lands on top of her, and Dr. Patricia Blake does scream when an eight-foot green Martian mutant accosts her in the flying saucer, and Stephanie Clayton does scream when the 100-foot tarantula appears at her bedroom window. 
But then, I would scream too—and so would you! 😊