---
title: "Women in Antarctica"
chunk: 4/5
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_Antarctica"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:04:25.983025+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

The National Science Foundation (NSF) started long-range planning in 1978, looking towards facilities that could accommodate a population made up of 25% women. In the 1979–1980 season, there were only 43 women on the continent. By 1981, there were nearly one woman for every ten men in Antarctica. In 1983, the ratio was back to 20 men for every woman. In the 1980s, Susan Solomon's research in Antarctica on the ozone layer and the "ozone hole" causes her to gain "fame and acclaim."
In Spain, Josefina Castellví, helped coordinate and also participated in her country's expedition to Antarctica in 1984. Later, after a Spanish base was constructed in 1988, Castellví was put in charge after the leader, Antoni Ballester, had a stroke.
The first female station leader on Antarctica was Australian, Diana Patterson, head of Mawson Station in 1989. The first woman station leader in charge of an American Antarctic station was LT Trina Baldwin, CEC, USN (Civil Engineer Corps, United States Navy). The first all-female overwintering group was from Germany and spent the 1990–1991 winter at Georg von Neumayer. The first German female station leader and medical doctor was Monika Puskeppeleit. In 1991 In-Young Ahn was the first female leader of an Asian research station (King Sejong Station) and the first South Korean woman to step onto Antarctica.
There were approximately 180 women in Antarctica during the 1990–1991 season. Women from several different countries were regular members of overwintering teams by 1992. The first all-women expedition reached the South Pole in 1993. Diana Patterson, the first female station leader on Antarctica, saw change coming in 1995. She felt that many of the sexist views of the past had given way so that women were judged not by the fact that they were women, but "by how well you did your job."
During the 1994 austral winter, women managed all three of the American Antarctic stations: Janet Phillips at Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, Karen Schwall at McMurdo Station and Ann Peoples at Palmer Station.
Social scientist, Robin Burns, studied the social structures of Antarctica in the 1995–1996 season. She found that while many earlier women struggled, there was more acceptance of women in Antarctica during the 1995 - 1996 season. One of the station managers, Ann Peoples, felt that a tipping point had been reached during the 1990s and that life for women on Antarctica became more normal. There were still men in Antarctica who were not afraid to voice their opinion that women should not "be on the ice," but many others enjoyed having "women as colleagues and friends." Women around this time began to feel like it was "taken for granted now that women go to the Antarctic."
Studies done in the early 2000s showed that women's inclusion in Antarctic groups were beneficial overall. In the early 2000s, Robin Burns had found that female scientists who enjoyed their experience in Antarctica, were the ones who were able to finish their scientific work and to complete their projects.

== Recent history ==

American Lynne Cox swam a mile in Antarctic water in 2003.
In 2005, writer Gretchen Legler described how there were many more women in Antarctica that year and that some were lesbians. International Women's Day in 2012 saw more than fifty women celebrating in Antarctica and who made up 70% of the International Antarctic Expedition. In 2013, when the Netherlands opened their first Antarctic Lab, Corina Brussaard was there to help set it up.
Homeward Bound was a 10-year program designed to encourage women's participation in science and planned to send the first large (78 member) all-women expedition to Antarctica in 2016. The first group, consisting of 76 women, arrived in Antarctica for three weeks in December 2016. Fabian Dattner and Jess Melbourne-Thomas founded the project and the Dattner Grant provided funding. Each participant contributed $15,000 to the project. Homeward bound included businesswomen and scientists who look at climate change and women's leadership. The plan was to create a network of 1,000 women who would become leaders in the sciences. The first voyage departed South America in December 2016
An all-woman team of United Kingdom Army soldiers, called Exercise Ice Maiden, started recruiting members in 2015 to cross the continent under their own power in 2017. It intended to study women's performance in the extreme antarctic summer environment. A team of six women completed the journey in 62 days after starting on 20 November 2017.
Currently, women make up 55% of membership in the Association of Polar Early Career Scientists (APECS). In 2016, nearly a third of all researchers at the South Pole were women. The Australian Antarctic Program (AAP) makes a "conscious effort to recruit women."
A social media network has recently been created, "Women in Polar Science". It aims to connect women working in the Arctic and Antarctic sciences and provides them with a platform to share and exchange knowledge, experiences and opportunities.