72 Scientific American, December 2021
In 1981, as a young scientist, I applied for my dream job as a
geologist with the British Antarctic Survey. As a child, I had
adored snow and ice. Winter was my favorite season (and still is).
My most cherished book was Wilson A. Bentley’s atlas of snow-
flake photographs, and I avidly read the accounts by Robert Fal-
con Scott and Ernest Shackleton of their Antarctic expeditions.
As a teenager, I enjoyed hiking and camping. I studied earth sci-
ence in college, and when I graduated with top honors from a
premier university in Britain, it did not seem like a stretch to
apply for a job as a geologist in a cold and snowy place.
The Survey promptly rejected me via a curt and slightly defen-
sive letter. I could not be considered for that position—or, indeed,
for any scientific position—because I was a woman.
The letter explained the rationale: Survey geologists had to
sleep in tents. It did not explain why this was disqualifying for
a woman. Perhaps they believed that a “lady geologist” (a com-
mon phrase at the time) could not use a tent. Or perhaps the Sur-
vey could not imagine hiring enough women to share a shelter.
So despite my qualifications—and despite the fact that I had slept
in tents many times—my application would not be reviewed.
Fast-forward to the present, and it may seem that things have
not improved much. Women still struggle to be fully recognized
in science. The top tiers of institutions are still populated primar-
ily by men, typically white men. Harassment and hostility remain
common. In a 2020 Nature survey of postdoctoral researchers,
four out of 10 reported gender discrimination; 90 percent of those
people were female. It is not just women who face big hurdles. It
is young scientists broadly. And right now, on top of institution-
al challenges, scientists increasingly have to contend with pub-
lic and government hostility—at times even harassment—when
they work on socially contested subjects such as environmental
science, the effectiveness of gun control and public health.
But inclusivity has gotten better in one scientific area, and be -
cause 2021 has been so brutal, I decided to try to close out this
year by highlighting that field: polar science, the very discipline
that once kept me out. Outright exclusion is gone, and scores of
women are making major contributions.
Caroline Gleich, a ski mountaineer and climate activist lead-
ing an Antarctic expedition this month, has compiled a brief list
of women active in cryospheric science today. She came up with
more than two dozen. They include Alison Banwell, who studies
ice-shelf stability, crucial for anticipating climate-induced sea-
level rise; Indrani Das, who works with ice-penetrating radar to
understand ice sheets; Cécile Agosta, who is using stable isotopes
to understand climate variability in Antarctica; and many more.
Several of these women are making extensive efforts to support
others: Oregon State University’s Erin Pettit, for example, uses
field experience to build confidence among underprivileged wom-
en considering science careers. And of course, there are women
who paved the way, such as Ellen Mosley-Thompson, who in the
1980s pioneered the use of ice cores in climate reconstruction.
It is striking that many in the current generation of women
polar scientists are working on the stability of ice shelves and
sheets. This is one of the most important areas of research at the
moment because it speaks directly to the impacts of climate
change. If the great ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica start
to disintegrate rapidly, they could add many additional meters
of sea-level rise globally. Rapid ice-sheet disintegration is a fright-
ening scenario. Once it starts, it will probably be impossible to
stop, and people will have very little time to adapt. Women are
not working at the margins of climate science; they are working
to answer one of its central and most consequential questions.
None of this is to assume that all is well in Antarctic science.
I’m sure that women doing research in that region—like wom-
en in all areas—continue to face many challenges. But it is to
say that 40 years after the British Antarctic Survey refused to
consider my application, women are now in the mainstream of
polar science. So far as I know, nobody worries about them sleep-
ing in tents.Illustration by Joana NevesNaomi Oreskes is a professor of the history of science
at Harvard University. She is author of Why Trust Science?
(Princeton University Press, 2019) and co-author
of Discerning Experts (University of Chicago, 2019).OBSERVATORY
KEEPING AN EYE ON SCIENCE
Women on Ice
Once shut out of Antarctic research,
female scientists now are doing
vital work
By Naomi Oreskes
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