Women Doing Science in Antarctica
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The first two eras of human presence in Antarctica are known as the heroic and the exploratory. In 1947 a new ‘era of science’ began, and in 1957/8, 55 research stations were established with scientists from twelve nations, including Australia, as part of the International Geophysical Year. There are now 16 nations with active Antarctic scientific programs, while 33 states have signed the Antarctic Treaty.
From the beginning of Antarctic research women scientists longed to participate.
Eight years after the first scientific bases were established, they began to
fulfil that dream, though it has been a very hard struggle to gain acceptance
for Antarctic service, to progress from shipboard to summer projects and finally
to overwinter. They are still a minority there at all times, except when the
Germans allowed a team of nine female scientists to run Georg von Neumayer
station in 1990.
The pathbreakers
The first female scientists were ship based. Eminent professor and member of the
Council for Antarctic Research of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Maria V. Klenova,
a marine geologist, was the first, working aboard the Russian vessels Ob and
Lena and at Mirny base, in the summer of 1955–56. Her work contributed to the
first Antarctic atlas. V.S. Korotkevich, hydrobiologist, and L.M. Nikolaeva were
aboard the Ob the following summer, Korotkevich returning in 1962–3. Elizabeth
Chipman’s Women on the Ice (Melbourne University Press, 1986) is an excellent
history of women’s pioneering roles.
Four
women travelled to Macquarie Island with the Australian National Antarctic
Research Expeditions (ANARE) in December 1959 (Isobel Bennett, marine biologist,
who died in January 2008 at the age of 98; Mary Gilham, UK botanist; Susan
Ingham, biological secretary, and Hope Macpherson, intertidal ecologist).
Bennett and Macpherson returned the following summer, together with Ann Savours
(historian, UK) and Elise Wollaston (botanist). Female scientists have
participated annually in Australian National Antarctic research expeditions
(ANARE) since 1962/3.
Turning to other nations, two French women spent the 1961–2 summer on the Iles
Kerguelen: geophysicist Jeanne Baguette and engineer specialising in the
ionosphere, Genéviève Pillet, who returned in 1964–5 and 1967–8. In 1962–3
another French engineer, Christiane Gillet, spent the first of many summers in
Antarctica. As head of the technical bureau of the Expéditions Polaires Français,
she has been responsible for provision and maintenance of technical equipment
and machinery for the science programs at the stations.
Four female American scientists were on board the USNS research vessel Eltanin
for the first time in 1962–3: Mary Alice McWhinnie, an established biologist,
and Phyllis Marcinak, E. Figetti and F.D. Frelen. After five more seasons, in
1974 Dr McWhinnie, together with Sister Mary Odile Cahoon, became the first
wintering females on the continent. As Chief Scientist at McMurdo, Dr McWhinnie
was also the first woman in charge of that station. She was preceded on the
continent, however, by four experienced Argentinean scientists in the summer of
1968–9: Professors Irene Bernasconi (marine biologist), Adela Caria
(microbiologist), Elena Martínez Fonte (marine biologist) and Carmen Pujals
(botanist). The first female scientist at McMurdo, psychologist Christine
Muller-Schwarze, in 1969, observed penguin behaviour.
Pam Young was the first New Zealand scientist to work on the continent, in
1969–70 as field assistant for her husband, while the first New Zealand woman to
undertake her own program was geologist Rosemary Askin, arriving in Victoria
Land in 1970–1 at age 21. She continues her Antarctic work today, as does fellow
New Zealand geologist Margaret Bradshaw, whose first season was in 1975–6 along
with Ann Chapman, biologist, and Barbara Spurr, limnologist.
There is a good story about the first six women to visit the South Pole in November 1969. They linked hands to step off the plane simultaneously. Five were scientists, including New Zealander Pam Young, the four Americans comprising the first all-female team (Lois Jones, first female scientific team leader, Eileen McSaveney, Kay Lindsay and Terry Tickhill), plus journalist Jean Pearson. Finally, in 1979 medical doctor Michele Raney became the first woman to winter at South Pole station.
The first three Australian women to visit the continent were Elizabeth Chipman
(information officer), Jutta Hösel (official photographer) and Shelagh Robinson
(welfare officer), in 1975–6. With them was British doctor Zoë Gardner, first
woman to winter on an Australian station (1976, Macquarie Island). The first
Australian woman to spend a summer on the continent was a doctor, Jeannie
Ledingham (Cape Denison, 1977–8). The first Australian female scientist to
conduct a land-based scientific program on the Antarctic continent was biologist
Elizabeth Kerry, in 1978–79. She traveled to many locations around and remote
from Casey Station, collecting soil, moss and lichen samples to isolate and
identify fungi as part of her study of the natural fungal flora of Antarctica.
Then in 1981 Louise Holliday, also a doctor, was the first woman to winter at an
Australian continental station (Davis).
Women in Antarctic science today
From this beginning, women scientists now play a leading role both nationally and internationally in a number of the diverse fields of science in Antarctica. Women from 17 nations are now principal investigators for projects in fields such as atmospheric dynamics, glaciology, geology,terrestrial biology, marine biology, oceanography and human impacts, and contribute to many of the key climate change investigations.
In structural geology, women are working on plate tectonics and plate boundaries
(Joann Stock; Anne Trehu), seismic monitoring (Estella Weigelt, a member of
the1990 all-female German team) and the study of the earth’s magnetic field.
This led Carol Raymond from marine geophysics to the Jet Propulsion Laboratories
and the Dawn mission to Mars. Ursula Marvin is also in space research after
field studies collecting meteorites in Antarctica. She chairs the committee that
allocates Antarctic meteorite samples to laboratories internationally, and
participated in the geological mapping of Ganymede.
Another geological pioneer is Janet Thomson.Following four reconnaissance
expeditions, she compiled and published maps as BAS Mapping geologist,
establishing and managing their Mapping and Geographic Information Centre
(MAGIC), 1989–2002. She considers her overriding achievement was encouraging
people to collaborate on projects leading to publications.
Susan Solomon, a US atmospheric chemist, found key evidence of ozone
destruction. Australian Patricia Selkirk is a multidisciplinary scientist. She
was the first researcher to value the sub-Antarctic region as the outer edge of
the Antarctic Zone in monitoring climate change. Her research has ranged from
landscape-level geomorphology and vegetation history, through to organism-level
studies of plant reproduction and sub-cellular genetics. This research has
formed much of the foundation for sub-Antarctic plant biology. This alongside
science advocacy, and mentoring of younger scientists, especially women, was
recognised by the award of the Australian Antarctic medal, as was the sustained
work on penguin monitoring by veterinary biologist Judith Clarke. British
glaciologist Elizabeth Morris, palaeoclimatologist Jane Francis and New Zealand
geologist Margaret Bradshaw have won Queen’s polar medals and five British women
have won the British Antarctic Survey Fuchs medal in recognition of outstanding
devotion to the Survey’s interests. US glaciologist Julie Palais, who studied
snow, and ice mass balance, is now Antarctic Glaciology Program Director at the
US National Science Foundation.
The Southern Ocean is subject to intensive study today, especially
investigations of the implications of climate change for living organisms.
Margaret Clayton, Loes Gerringa, Liliana Quartino, Maria van Leeuwe and Irene
Schloss all work on aspects of ultra-violet B effects on ocean communities.
Maria van Leeuwe and Anita Buma are doing pioneering work on iron-biota
interactions, and oxidative stress on phytoplankton from solar ultra violet
radiation. Angelika Brandt is involved in scientific planning of the ANDEEP
expeditions (ANtarctic Benthic DEEP-Sea Biodiversity: colonisation history and
recent community patterns) and coordinates biological sciences within the
Antarctic Research Program of the German Science Foundation.
Antarctic freshwater aquatic systems have attracted some high-level female
scientists. Johanna Laybourn-Parry has 16 years of Antarctic experience. Her
projects have focused on carbon cycling in the freshwater and saline lakes.
Currently she works on bacterial and molecular diversity, and the role of
viruses in the Vestfold Hills saline lakes. Eleanor Bell also works in this
field.
Tracey Rogers has led programs for 15 years on the life history and population
ecology of the Antarctic leopard seal. As an apex predator, changes in these
populations reflect changes within the ecosystem. In basic research, Marina
Dorozhkina has worked for several summers investigating the composition of
micro-flora (pollen and spores). The role of Antarctic yeasts in the
accumulation and mobilisation of nutrients in polar desert food webs is Laurie
Connell’s long-term study.
The responses to environmental stress of plants as well as fauna are an integral
to the study of the impact of climate change. Botanist Sharon Robinson leads a
group working from the molecular to the ecological levels. Aspects of this
ecosystem interest are shared with Mary Skotnicki, and work on vegetation
monitoring using remote sensing also involves Cath Lovelock. Following her
earlier multidisciplinary work on the origins and evolution of six endemic,
isolated sub-Antarctic island plants species, plant ecophysiologist Françoise
Hennion is now investigating the effects of temperature variations on early
plant growth.
These are just a few examples of the work that women are pursuing in Antarctic
science. As a key powerhouse for global weather, their work is part of the
crucial monitoring and investigation of climate change. And while the admission
of women to some national programs has been slow, especially to stay over
winter, they are probably as well represented there now as they are in their
disciplines at home. They have also participated in all roles carried out in
Antarctica, from doctor and station leader to diesel mechanic, plumber,
carpenter and communications officer.
My interest in this field
My interest in women in Antarctica began many years earlier, when I farewelled
physicist David Ellyard for a year at Mawson (1966). Not knowing that women had
already participated in summer voyages, I half-jokingly said that I wanted to
go, too, to see the reactions of the men to having a woman there! My longing to
see the Continent had been stimulated in childhood, as for many of the women
with whom I’ve spoken and no doubt many men, too, through tales of the
explorers, enticing National Geographic photo-essays, and in my case, a serial
on the ABC Children’s Hour. But as an experimental psychologist specialising in
visual perception, then a diplomat, and later a social scientist and comparative
educationist, I certainly didn’t have the skills required of an expeditioner. As
I record in the introduction to my book, Just Tell them I Survived!” Women in
Antarctica (Allen & Unwin, 2001) turning 50 was an occasion for sorting out
dreams from possibilities. Antarctica seemed even further away but perhaps I
could get close to women who’d been, by doing an interview study. Louise
Crossley told me of a 1993 conference on the topic. And my colleagues in
Education at La Trobe University were so astounded by my Antarctic interest,
they supported my application for research funds for the study (thanks both to
the Australian Research Council and the Australian Antarctic Foundation). The
first interview took place in Cairns in June 1994.
I interviewed 132 women, from the first four summerers through to the late
1990s. I wanted to make some comparison with the expeditions of other nations as
well as private expeditions, including Liv Arnesen who skied solo to the South
Pole. Some Australian women had participated in expeditions of other nations,
too. Then in 2005 I was asked to write an entry on women as explorers and
pioneers for a Cambridge-based encyclopaedia of the Antarctic, and that
stimulated me to contact a large number of women around the world who have
become Antarctic scientists, though I have so far only met one of them
face-to-face.
The best part of the first study was the interviews — meeting women in a variety
of settings, around Australia and overseas. The efforts some made to reach me
were terrific, and I was offered hospitality overnight, met kids and pets,