According to philosopher/historian Laura Snyder, this claim is not true. The word scientist was coined over a debate on whether "natural philosophers" was accurate/narrow enough of a term to describe what they were doing. In answer to a challenge by poet coleridge, Whewell came up with the term scientist - 'If philosophers is too wide and lofty a term then, by analogy with artist, we may form scientist. In other words, snobbish philosophers who worked with their minds looked down on these "scientists" who worked with their hands and wanted to differentiate themselves from scientists.

Here is her wonderful TED talk describing the history of 'scientist'. It's interesting how since then, the reputation of scientist has risen and philosophers have dropped. Now philosophers and everyone else from economists and political 'scientists' want to be called scientists.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jc_-Y9rDN2g

We are told that in war, truth is the first casualty. Sadly this is true for the culture war as almost everything peddle during this war is half-truths or outright lies. The worrisome part is that so much of media and tech is involved in the disinformation. For anything remotely cultural, I know if it's in wikipedia, the nytimes or posted here, it's most likely bullshit. But nevertheless the bullshit must flow.

[from the article]

"That women should face such an Everestine climb toward inclusion and equality is a piece of curious and rather cruel cultural irony, for the very word “scientist” didn’t always have the overwhelmingly male connotations it has had in recent history. In fact, it was a coined for a woman — the Victorian polymath Mary Somerville"

The above is pretty much all cultural propaganda.

1. Women didn't face everestine climb. Especially privileged wealthy white women like somerville. Sure she had some hurdles, but nothing her privilege couldn't overcome. Somerville had it easier than 90% of men and 95% of women.

2. Scientist always had an overwhelmingly male connotation because scientists are/were overwhelmingly male. Not saying it should be this way or not, but just stating reality.

3. It was indeed not fact, that the term scientist, was coined for a woman.

I doubt the author or the site will correct their lies. I doubt wikipedia will fix their site. And I doubt this is the last we'll see of this here.

Edit: Of course these "warriors" are now distracting with straw man comments. The first 3 minutes of Laura Synder's ted talk explains the origins of scientist. It's not that long of a watch. If you think she's lying or mistaken, then feel free to comment on that. But I see no reason why she would lie and all the evidence, including the one's the naysayers are posting seems to show she is right.