In his reports upon experiments performed, Boyle attempted to model how the ideal experimental natural philosopher should behave. He should be dutiful, modest, and willing to repeat experiments again and again, in all sorts of varying and sometimes uncomfortable situations, such as atop very high roofs. The model experimental natural philosopher who appears in the works of Boyle and many others of his time was generally male as here, despite Boyle’s collaboration with women, such as his sister, Lady Ranelagh.
Recommended further reading:
Shapin, Steven and Simon Schaffer. Leviathan and the Air-pump: Hobbes, Boyle, and the Experimental Life. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1985.
Pal, Carol. Republic of Women: Rethinking the Republic of Letters in the Seventeenth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.