---
title: "Women in Antarctica"
chunk: 3/5
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"
---

Women scientists first began researching Antarctica from ships. The first woman scientist, Maria V. Klenova of the Soviet Union, worked on the ships Ob and Lena just off the Antarctic coastline in 1955 to 1956. Klenova's work helped create the first Antarctic atlas. Women served on Soviet Union ships going to Antarctica after 1963. The first women to visit a US station and the first to fly to Antarctica were Pat Hepinstall and Ruth Kelley, Pan Am flight attendants who spent four hours on the ground at the McMurdo Station on 15 October 1957.
Often women going to Antarctica had to be approved in both official and unofficial ways. An early candidate for becoming one of the first women scientists to go to Antarctica was geologist Dawn Rodley. She had been approved of not only by the expedition sponsor, Colin Bull, but also by the wives of the male team-members. Rodley was set to go in 1958, but the United States Navy, who were in charge of Operation Deep Freeze, refused to take her to Antarctica.
The Navy decided that sending a four-woman team would be acceptable and Bull began to build a team including Lois Jones, Kay Lindsay, Eileen McSaveney and Terry Tickhill. These four women were part of the group who became the first women to visit the South Pole. Jones's team worked mainly in Wright Valley. After their return, Bull found that several of his male friends resented the addition of women and even called him a "traitor".
The first United States all-female team was led by Jones in 1969. Her team, which included the first women to set foot on the South Pole, were used by the navy as a publicity stunt. They were "paraded around" and called "Powderpuff explorers". The first United States woman to step into the Antarctic interior in 1970 was engineer Irene C Peden, who also faced various barriers to her working on the continent. Peden described how a "mythology had been created about the women who'd gone to the coast – that they had been a problem," and that since they had not published their work within the year, they were "heavily criticized." Men in the Navy in charge of approving her trip to Antarctica were "dragging their feet", citing that there were not women's bathrooms available and that without another female companion, she would not be allowed to go. The admiral in charge of transportation to Antarctica suggested that Peden was trying to go there for adventure, or to find a husband, rather than for her research. Despite her setbacks, including not receiving critical equipment in Antarctica, Peden's research on the continent was successful.

The first two U.S. woman to winter at a U.S. Antarctic research station were Mary Alice McWhinnie and Mary Odile Cahoon. Mary Alice was the station science leader (chief scientist) at McMurdo Station in 1974 and Mary Odile was a nun and biologist. United States women in 1978 were still using equipment and arctic clothing designed for men, although "officials said that problem is being quickly remedied." American Ann Peoples became the manager of the Berg Field Center in 1986, becoming the first woman to serve in a "significant leadership role". 
British women had similar problems to the Americans. The director of the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) from 1959 to 1973 was Vivian Fuchs, who "firmly believed that the inclusion of women would disrupt the harmony and scientific productivity of Antarctic stations." British women scientists started working on curating collections as part of the BAS prior to being allowed to visit Antarctica. Women who applied to the BAS were discouraged. A letter from BAS personnel sent to a woman who applied in the 1960s read, "Women wouldn't like it in Antarctica as there are no shops and no hairdresser." The first BAS woman to go to Antarctica was Janet Thomson in 1983 who described the ban on women as a "rather improper segregation." Women were still effectively barred from using UK bases and logistics in 1987. Women didn't overwinter at the Halley Research Station until 1996, forty years after the British station was established.
Argentina sent four women scientists, biologist Irene Bernasconi, bacteriologist María Adela Caría, biologist Elena Martinez Fontes and algae expert Carmen Pujals, to Antarctica in 1968. They were the first group of female scientists to conduct research in Antarctica. Bernasconi was the first woman to lead an Antarctic expedition. She was aged 72 at the time. Later, in 1978, Argentina sent a pregnant woman, Silvia Morello de Palma, to the Esperanza Base to give birth and to "use the baby to stake [their] territorial claims" to Antarctica.
Once Australia opened up travel to Antarctica for women, Elizabeth Chipman, who first worked as a typist at Casey Station in 1976, chronicled all of the women to travel there up to 1984. Chipman worked to find the names of all women who had ever been to or even near Antarctica and eventually donated 19 folio boxes of her research to the National Library of Australia.

== Women gain ground ==