Women in Antarctica

There may have been women in Antarctica, exploring the regions around Antarctica for many centuries. The most celebrated "first" for women was in 1935 when Caroline Mikkelsen became the first woman to set foot on one of Antarctica's islands.^[1] Early male explorers, such as Richard Byrd, named areas of Antarctica after wives and female heads of state.^[2] As Antarctica moved from a place of exploration and conquest to a scientific frontier, women worked to be included in the sciences. The first countries to have female scientists working in Antarctica were the Soviet Union, South Africa and Argentina.^[3][4][5]

Besides exploring and working as scientists, women have also played supportive roles as wives, fund-raisers, publicists, historians, curators and administrators of organizations and services that support Antarctic operations.^[6] Many early women on Antarctica were the wives of explorers.^[7] Some women worked with Antarctica from afar, crafting policies for a place they had never seen.^[2] Women who wished to have larger roles in Antarctica and on the continent itself had to "overcome gendered assumptions about the ice and surmount bureaucratic inertia".^[8] As women began to break into fields in Antarctica, they found that it could be difficult to compete against men who already had the "expeditioner experience" needed for permanent science positions.^[9] Women who were qualified for expeditions or jobs in Antarctica were less likely to be selected than men, even after a 1995 study by Jane Mocellin showed that women cope better than men with the Antarctic environment.^[10]