Taboos, stowaways, and chief scientists: A brief history of women in oceanography

Abstract

Before the mid-to-late twentieth century, women were not welcome on research vessels conducting oceanographic research. Thus, women interested in oceanography in the early twentieth century had to make their mark in ways that did not rely on doing oceanographic fieldwork. Three American women oceanographers made huge impacts in the field prior to the ban of women on ships being lifted in the 1960s: Mary Sears, Elizabeth T. Bunce, and Marie Tharp. Their contributions to oceanography in the first half of the twentieth century helped advance the science, as well as to provide role models for the next generation of women who wanted to be oceanographers. Participation of women in oceanography in the late twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first century is assessed using the lists provided by the Deep-Sea Drilling Project, the Ocean Drilling Program, the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program, and the International Ocean Discovery Program Initial Reports volumes that are publicly available online. Each participant of the shipboard scientific party was evaluated to be male or female, based on the person’s first name. Participation of women over the nearly fifty-year history of this ocean drilling program has increased from an average of 10% to 32% by early 2017, with women serving 45 times as co-chiefs on expeditions. Visibility of women working in oceanography is improving. The stories of women like Marie Tharp are told on the Internet and in books for both children and adults. More of these stories need to be told. Today, women hold important positions within academia and professional organizations, proving that women can play an important role in the discipline, acting as advocates for their science and their gender.

Gender Equity in Oceanography

“…In the first half of the twentieth century, small numbers of women participated in seagoing oceanography in both Britain (Hendry et al 2020) and the United States (Day 1999), mostly for short coastal expeditions. By contrast, in the Soviet Union, marine geologist Maria Klenova was leading oceanographic research expeditions in the Arctic in the 1920s (Beniest 2020, Kalemeneva & Lajus 2018, Lewandowski 2018 owing to strong support for the participation of women in oceanography from the head of the State Oceanographic Institute (Kalemeneva & Lajus 2018). In the United States, women's access to seagoing oceanography became more restricted during and after World War II, with policy changes such as a formal ban on women on ships at Scripps Oceanographic Institution attributed by Day (1999) and Oreskes (2000) to the increased relationship between Scripps and the US Navy, with similar restrictions at Lamont Geological Observatory and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) (Bonatti & Crane 2012).…”

“…In the United States, changes to institutional policies preventing women from participating in seagoing research were precipitated by the 1963 Scripps expedition on the R/V Argo, joined by two Soviet scientists, one of whom was a woman, geophysicist Elena Lubimova (Bonatti & Crane 2012). Scripps allowed women to go to sea from then on, as did WHOI [Elizabeth (Betty) Bunce was chief scientist on several WHOI cruises in the 1960s and 1970s; Lewandowski 2018], and Lamont permitted women on ships for the first time in 1965 (Bell et al 2005). In Britain, microbiologist Betty Kirtley was the first woman from the National Institute of Oceanography to join a seagoing expedition, on the Discovery III in 1963 (Hendry et al 2020), and women oceanographers in (West) Germany were finally allowed at sea in 1974 (Bonatti & Crane 2012).…”

“…Women have been able to pursue an education in oceanography for longer than they have been able to go to sea: Statistician Rosa Lee was employed at the Marine Biological Association in the United Kingdom in the early 1900s (Hendry et al 2020); Easter Ellen Cupp, the first woman to receive a PhD from Scripps, was awarded her degree in 1934 (Day 1999); and Mary Sears received her PhD from Radcliffe College in 1933 (Lewandowski 2018). However, their employment was often impeded by gender-biased rules; for example, Rosa Lee's civil service employment was terminated upon marriage (Hendry et al 2020), and Ellen Cupp was dismissed from employment at Scripps by director Harald Sverdrup, most likely because she was a woman (Day 1999).…”

“…Despite these obstacles to women's participation in oceanography, particularly at sea, several women did make important contributions to US oceanography from shore, including June Pattullo, the first US woman to receive a PhD in physical oceanography, followed by Mary Robinson, who led the bathythermograph unit at Scripps (Oreskes 2000); biological oceanographer and Oceanographer of the Navy Mary Sears; and cartographer Marie Tharpe at Lamont, who produced the first ocean bathymetry maps showing the rift valley of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge (Lewandowski 2018). However, the work of these women was often undervalued compared with that of their male colleagues and counterparts.…”