Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff Mob Never told you. From how Supports
Speaker 1: dot com. Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen
Speaker 1: and I'm Caroline, and today we continue our Women Explorer
Speaker 1: series and for this one, we are going to Antarctica.
Speaker 1: It's real cold. It's so cold, but I felt like
Speaker 1: it was appropriate since this is a summer podcast series,
Speaker 1: so if it's heating up where you are, we're gonna
Speaker 1: cool down with some information on women exploring Antarctica, or
Speaker 1: at least trying to actually first asking if they could
Speaker 1: and then being told they couldn't, but then they do.
Speaker 1: And I just gotta tell you, Caroline that before coming
Speaker 1: into the studio to record this podcast, I was looking
Speaker 1: at our notes for this episode and all I could
Speaker 1: think of was Led Zeppelin's Immigrant song, you know, the
Speaker 1: one that starts off like we come from the land
Speaker 1: of the Ice and sell, And that's my Zeppelin impression. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I can hear the guitars in my head right now
Speaker 1: when the midnight sun and the hot springs flow, but
Speaker 1: there are no hot springs and Antarctica. No, they weren't
Speaker 1: talking about Antarctica, but it just felt, um, it felt appropriate,
Speaker 1: and also I wish that that opening guitar riff could
Speaker 1: be the intro to our podcast, just to make it
Speaker 1: a little more radical. Why is Robert Plant so selfish?
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know. Um, So first of all,
Speaker 1: let's just orient ourselves geographically, because I'm not gonna lie listeners.
Speaker 1: I needed a little bit of a refresher. So Antarctica,
Speaker 1: f y, I we're talking about the Self Pole, and
Speaker 1: it's essentially a continent covered by a massive ice shelf.
Speaker 1: And fun fact, polar bears and penguins never hang out
Speaker 1: together because I know, right, because polar bear are exclusive
Speaker 1: to the Arctic in the North Pole, whereas penguins hanging
Speaker 1: out in Antarctica. So that just like destroyed some some
Speaker 1: fantasies I have about animals, about animal friends. Not yes,
Speaker 1: animal friends, nothing sexual, God, but they hang out with
Speaker 1: seals and walrus is right cool, That's that's fine, Yeah,
Speaker 1: they got cool, cool things to do. And one other
Speaker 1: geographical note is that Antarctica and the Arctic are really
Speaker 1: not very similar at all when it comes to traversing them.
Speaker 1: This was something that explorer Rosie Stancer was describing, um
Speaker 1: because she has trecked both of them because she is
Speaker 1: a tough woman. She says, they're incomparable. They're like little
Speaker 1: sister and big sister. Antarctica is huge and vast and
Speaker 1: it's a big endurance challenge, whereas the Arctic is much
Speaker 1: more precious, cruel, whimsical, and unpredictable. You don't know from
Speaker 1: one day to the next what challenges are going to
Speaker 1: be that day. So let's go to the big sister.
Speaker 1: Let's head to the huge and vast endurance challenge that
Speaker 1: is Antarctica, which is sort of a geographical metaphor for
Speaker 1: women trying to explore Antarctica. Yeah. Um, and it's interesting
Speaker 1: too to think about why you would want to go
Speaker 1: there because it is so cold, and if you are
Speaker 1: an explorer who is or was going to Antarctica, you
Speaker 1: were risking a lot, mainly your life, but also some
Speaker 1: toes because traveling there meant risking frostbite, exhaustion, snowblindness because
Speaker 1: you know it's all white and you've got the sun
Speaker 1: bouncing off of it, so then you've also got your
Speaker 1: snowblind and then your sun burned, and then because you
Speaker 1: can't see, you can fall into a crevasse through the ice.
Speaker 1: And so why would anyone ever go there, well, because
Speaker 1: it's incredible. I mean, that's one thing that you take
Speaker 1: away from almost anyone who has written about going to Antarctica.
Speaker 1: It's like once you once you go to Antarctica, it
Speaker 1: just captivates you. It sucks you in and you they
Speaker 1: I don't know that I've read of anyone who ultimately
Speaker 1: didn't want to go back, except perhaps some of the
Speaker 1: earlier explorers who were wearing a lot of wool because
Speaker 1: they didn't have high tech gear from ari I and
Speaker 1: other outposts. Um so they would wear wool, which meant
Speaker 1: that they had to constantly keep moving because if they
Speaker 1: stayed still too long, the moisture that the wool would
Speaker 1: collect within freeze. Really inconvenient, so inconvenient, but so exciting.
Speaker 1: I mean, to go to a land. Antarctica is the
Speaker 1: one place where no one had been before. It's not
Speaker 1: like going into you know, when when Europeans first you know,
Speaker 1: came across the ocean and we're like, oh, here's other
Speaker 1: people living here in Central America. We're just going to
Speaker 1: claim it. Also it's not named Central America yet. But
Speaker 1: with Antarctica, it was completely deserted, no one was there,
Speaker 1: So what an alluring place to go, and so no
Speaker 1: surprise that nineteen hundred to nine is known as the
Speaker 1: Heroic Era of the Antarctic Explorer, Right, So, I mean
Speaker 1: it's it's the unexplored, mysterious land. It's it's something that
Speaker 1: no one has discovered yet. They know it's there, but
Speaker 1: they don't know is it one continent? Is it one
Speaker 1: sheet device? Are there? Are their polar bears and unicorns?
Speaker 1: They're like, we have to figure out which animals are
Speaker 1: playing together on this continent. But so in this era,
Speaker 1: the Heroic Era of the Antarctic explore, we end up
Speaker 1: getting sixteen major expeditions from eight different countries. And in
Speaker 1: in the middle of that the early nineteen intends there's
Speaker 1: a race for the South Pole, which was eventually won
Speaker 1: by someone from Norway, which is not that surprising. Raoul Amondson,
Speaker 1: who reached it in December nineteen eleven. Yeah, he pulled
Speaker 1: a switcher rou actually in order to accomplish this, he
Speaker 1: told everybody that he was heading to the North Pole.
Speaker 1: But people had already been to the North Pole, so
Speaker 1: he wouldn't have been the first. And so once he
Speaker 1: found out, he was like, Hotel no One, we are
Speaker 1: going to the South Pole, and so he got a
Speaker 1: head start and reached it first. But then in nine
Speaker 1: sort of in true explorer hero form, he actually died
Speaker 1: in a plane crash in the Arctic Ocean. But he
Speaker 1: always said that he wanted to when he died, he
Speaker 1: wanted to die in Antarctica. So he sort of he
Speaker 1: kind of got his wish. I mean, he died in
Speaker 1: a very cold place, very cold place. Yes, it was
Speaker 1: a chilly plunge. But so if all of these heroic
Speaker 1: explorations are going on, I mean, women have always been
Speaker 1: outside in terms of exploration. You know, they're not given
Speaker 1: the proper training, the proper funding, the proper education. They're
Speaker 1: not allowed in the geographical societies. Um, so they've always
Speaker 1: been sort of looking over the edge, like hey, I'd
Speaker 1: like to come to you know. And it makes sense
Speaker 1: because these men are achieving this this fame, this glory,
Speaker 1: this heroism, and they want to be a part of it. Well,
Speaker 1: and there was polar fever because obviously this race for
Speaker 1: the polls was highly publicized. It was very exciting. This
Speaker 1: was like, you know, we now have things like a
Speaker 1: reality show called the Great Race. There were actual Great
Speaker 1: races taking place at the time, and so plenty of
Speaker 1: people wanted to join up, including some women. And there
Speaker 1: was actually a nineteen fourteen letter that some women wrote
Speaker 1: to famed Arctic explorer Ernest Shackleton, who led three Antarctic expeditions,
Speaker 1: and they were begging to join his voyage. They wrote,
Speaker 1: we have been reading all books and articles that have
Speaker 1: been written on dangerous expeditions by brave men to the
Speaker 1: polar regions, and we don't see why men should have
Speaker 1: all the glory and women none, especially when there are
Speaker 1: women just as brave and capable as there are men,
Speaker 1: to which Shackleton said, um, sorry, not sorry, you're not coming.
Speaker 1: It is funny. I mean, we'll talk. We'll talk more
Speaker 1: about in a minute. But it is so funny to
Speaker 1: read about men's like complete just discussed with the idea
Speaker 1: of women being with them on these Antarctic explorations. Well,
Speaker 1: it was particularly this panic over women being in this
Speaker 1: inhospitable climate, the super cold climate, that we wouldn't be
Speaker 1: able to we just would freak out. I guess, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean the uterus, if the uterus is
Speaker 1: exposed to too much cold, it'll freeze, It'll freeze and
Speaker 1: then then you've got a solid uterus floating around making
Speaker 1: you hysterical and pull you down. Yeah. Yeah, it's like
Speaker 1: the weights that were in Victorian women's dresses to kid
Speaker 1: them weighted down when they swam. History. Everyone, history, but
Speaker 1: women did first arrive in Antarctica in the nineteen thirties.
Speaker 1: So on February five, nineteen thirty one, we have Ingrid Christensen,
Speaker 1: no relation from Norway, who was a thirty eight year
Speaker 1: old mother of six, and her companion Matilda Wegger, who
Speaker 1: were the first women on record two have ever seen Antarctica.
Speaker 1: They didn't get off at that point, they didn't touch down,
Speaker 1: but they saw Antarctica and they were the only reason
Speaker 1: they went was because Christensen's husband had the largest deep
Speaker 1: sea whaling fleet in the world at the time, and
Speaker 1: so she was able to hop aboard and come along
Speaker 1: for the journey. Meanwhile, though, in Britain, so in our
Speaker 1: last episode, backtracking just for a minute, we talked about
Speaker 1: land explorers, women exploring the lands both near and far,
Speaker 1: and how Britain was really sort of not excited about
Speaker 1: letting women a explore, but be joined their official geographical
Speaker 1: society that would have given women sort of a leg
Speaker 1: up to legitimize them, so to speak. And so yeah,
Speaker 1: at the same time that Kristensen is kind of hanging
Speaker 1: out with her husband's wailing fleet and taking a gander
Speaker 1: over the ocean and Antarctica, women in Britain were applying
Speaker 1: to go on these missions and they were all rejected
Speaker 1: and it would take, as we will talk about further,
Speaker 1: a very very long time for British women to be invited,
Speaker 1: to be invited by Britain onto these expeditions. They were
Speaker 1: able to sneak around and kind of go with other expeditions.
Speaker 1: But I don't want to get ahead of ourselves because
Speaker 1: next up we have to talk about Caroline Nicholson. She
Speaker 1: was the first woman to set foot on a island
Speaker 1: just off Antarctica. She's often cited as the first woman
Speaker 1: to set foot on the continent of Antarctica, but more
Speaker 1: recent research has found that she was probably she probably
Speaker 1: touched down on Macquarie Island in the sub Antarctic, and
Speaker 1: there's a flagpole that still marks the spot. But nonetheless,
Speaker 1: even though she might not have been on the main continent,
Speaker 1: she still touched her feet down on Macquarie Island, and
Speaker 1: for that accomplishment, there's now Mount Caroline Nicholson on Antarctica. Hey,
Speaker 1: she got a mountain named after her. Yeah, but just
Speaker 1: two years later January thirtie ny seven h Christensen, Ingrid
Speaker 1: Christiansen who we mentioned just a second ago, and her
Speaker 1: daughter Sophie and two other women become the first to
Speaker 1: set foot on the actual continent. Yeah, but as far
Speaker 1: as I know, no mountains. It didn't get a mountain
Speaker 1: in their name. Um. But then jumping forward ten years,
Speaker 1: because yes, in these early well actually not so early,
Speaker 1: in this period of Antarctic exploration, women, the timeline for
Speaker 1: women is a bit scattered because there just aren't many
Speaker 1: who are allowed to go down there, and usually um
Speaker 1: as in the case next up of Edith Throne and
Speaker 1: Jenny Darlington, um, similar to the situation with Ingrid Christensen.
Speaker 1: It thanks to their husbands that they're able to tag along.
Speaker 1: So in we have Edith ron and Jenny Darlington's accompanying
Speaker 1: their husbands becoming the first women to winter on Antarctica.
Speaker 1: And the crew on the ship wasn't necessarily happy about this.
Speaker 1: This was a very arduous journey. I mean at one point, uh,
Speaker 1: Jenny and Edith stopped talking to each other because their
Speaker 1: husbands were fighting, and so in loyalty to their husbands,
Speaker 1: they stopped talking to each other for a little bit.
Speaker 1: And uh, but the fact that there were women on
Speaker 1: board and also obviously later on Antarctica rubbed a lot
Speaker 1: of men the wrong way because it was just assumed
Speaker 1: that they were going to ruin everything. Yeah. Yeah, women,
Speaker 1: you know Jenny who's Canadian, her husband equipped after this journey.
Speaker 1: It's just that there are some things women don't do.
Speaker 1: They don't become pope or president or go down to
Speaker 1: the Antarctic. So well, we're we're down one of those.
Speaker 1: We've been to the Antarctic. Who knows what we're you know,
Speaker 1: we might knock down that president thing pretty soon too,
Speaker 1: who knows, who knows. But so Edith Rone, she's twenty
Speaker 1: eight when she goes down there. She's American. She is
Speaker 1: the first American woman to set foot on the continent.
Speaker 1: And she worked to help the seismologist aboard who was
Speaker 1: keeping track of the tides. And so Edith helped the
Speaker 1: seismologists do all that stuff and served as the trips historian. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and also in recognition of her first as the first
Speaker 1: American woman, she the rone Ice Shelf is named after her.
Speaker 1: And it was interesting because after she comes back from
Speaker 1: this trip, she initially just wants to distance herself as
Speaker 1: much as possible from it because it was a harrowing experience.
Speaker 1: It was very difficult, there was a lot of infighting. Obviously,
Speaker 1: it was cold, and I think it wasn't until the
Speaker 1: nineteen nineties that she even revisited the diaries that she
Speaker 1: kept during that trip because it was so tough and
Speaker 1: she didn't want to go back. But the allure of
Speaker 1: Antarctica is strong, folks, because even though initially she was like,
Speaker 1: I never want to go back again, that was terrible,
Speaker 1: she went back three times and made a name for
Speaker 1: herself going around and lecturing about Antarctica and about you know,
Speaker 1: the significance of her being a woman there. And she
Speaker 1: eventually became president of the Society of Women Geographers as
Speaker 1: well as a member of the Explorers Club. Remember not
Speaker 1: gender desegregated until and she was also a member of
Speaker 1: the American Polar Society. And that expedition, that first expedition
Speaker 1: in was significant because it proved that Antarctica was in
Speaker 1: fact all one continent. Yeah, with penguin, with penguins, but
Speaker 1: no polar beus. Let's cute. What's important? It is important.
Speaker 1: But despite this, women were still not being taken seriously
Speaker 1: as Antarctic explorers. This was a huge obstacle for them,
Speaker 1: much as it was an obstacle in any type of
Speaker 1: exploration that women wanted to pursue. They just weren't taken seriously.
Speaker 1: And the opposition to women going on expeditions was focused
Speaker 1: on women's inferior physical and psychological strength, and this is
Speaker 1: coming from Robin Burns and her book Just Tell Them
Speaker 1: I Survived. It was also focused on the primitive living
Speaker 1: conditions and the possible identitarious psychological effects on men of
Speaker 1: having women in their midst And I think that's so funny,
Speaker 1: because if we are the weak ones psychologically, then why
Speaker 1: are guys so worried about the psychological effects that we
Speaker 1: will have on them? I mean, there were all of
Speaker 1: these like ideologies of gender that people talk about and
Speaker 1: people writing about not wanting women to wreck the illusion
Speaker 1: of the frontiersman, the hero illusion that these are especially
Speaker 1: like in this era right after World War two, men
Speaker 1: going on all male journeys to Antarctica, that that was
Speaker 1: like a going with your battle buddies. That was like
Speaker 1: escaping bad economies at home, or escaping the stresses of
Speaker 1: home and going out with your all male battle buddy
Speaker 1: crew and discovering something awesome and being a hero women
Speaker 1: sort of. They were worried would just destroy that whole
Speaker 1: illusion that they've built up, which was probably the you know,
Speaker 1: the thinking behind that too, was because it would sex
Speaker 1: would ruin everything because when you put you know, you
Speaker 1: have men on essentially like a massive deserted island of sorts,
Speaker 1: and then you toss women on there, then apparently our
Speaker 1: lizard brands are just going to make sure that we
Speaker 1: all just die because we all we can think about
Speaker 1: a sex and then nothing will get accomplished. Yeah, somebody
Speaker 1: wrote I can't remember what it was from, but somebody
Speaker 1: wrote that, you know, I don't want to send women
Speaker 1: down there until there's one woman for every man and
Speaker 1: all of the gender stuff. It's really fascinating when you
Speaker 1: consider two things. The fact that when men were down there,
Speaker 1: you know, largely in that the absence of women, they
Speaker 1: were having to take up the typical you know, female
Speaker 1: domestic duties of cooking and cleaning and sort of housekeeping
Speaker 1: or tent keeping or base keeping, whatever you would call it. Um.
Speaker 1: So they were sort of subverting gender roles in their
Speaker 1: own way, even you know, at the expense of women
Speaker 1: not being allowed on these expeditions. But also when you
Speaker 1: look at the topography today of Antarctica, there are so
Speaker 1: many features named for women. Yeah, there's no problem. I mean,
Speaker 1: like women's names are riddled across this continent with their
Speaker 1: own ice shelf or Mount Caroline Michelson, or even Queen
Speaker 1: Maryland or Marie Birdland. But it's like, in symbolism only
Speaker 1: should we have the female presence here at least during
Speaker 1: this era, in you know, the post World War two
Speaker 1: exploration phase. Yeah, and also during this period you have
Speaker 1: gender being used to sort of reduced the perception of
Speaker 1: the Russian threat. I mean you have to consider that
Speaker 1: Russians were allowing women to participate in all all types
Speaker 1: of expeditions. A Russian woman was the first woman to
Speaker 1: go to space. This also included Antarctic missions. So, uh, this,
Speaker 1: this whole idea of women going Russian women going to
Speaker 1: Antarctica made people in America and Britain basically try to
Speaker 1: make fun of them, calling them softies, saying that, oh,
Speaker 1: they're going on this journey that's supposed to be heroic,
Speaker 1: but they're you know, they're softies. They have carpets and
Speaker 1: dial phones and girls at camp. Yeah, this was something
Speaker 1: that Burns talked of out and just tell them I Survived,
Speaker 1: which is a collection of stories about women in Antarctica,
Speaker 1: and she talks about how in this era, in particular,
Speaker 1: these women who went to Antarctica were almost exclusively referred
Speaker 1: to in the media as girls, And there is this
Speaker 1: notion of the female invasion that she writes lasted and
Speaker 1: press reports well into the nineteen eighties, and it's just
Speaker 1: funny to think of how, um, this intersection of the
Speaker 1: Cold War plus gender plus Antarctic exploration all combines into
Speaker 1: these you know, splashy media stories of oh look at
Speaker 1: those those Soviet reds in Antarctica. Well, we they aren't
Speaker 1: a threat because women hang out with them. But things
Speaker 1: do get better once we get into the swinging sixties,
Speaker 1: we start to see more progress in terms of women's
Speaker 1: scientists being allowed to do work and in our Arctica.
Speaker 1: In nineteen sixty nine, in fact, the first American women
Speaker 1: scientists were sent down to work on the continent, and
Speaker 1: prior to this expedition, though the US Navy, which had
Speaker 1: established the McMurdo Station, which was America's main base on
Speaker 1: Antarctica at the time, refused to transport any women to Antarctica.
Speaker 1: It was really the Navy who put their foot down
Speaker 1: and said, no, no, we're not going to let these
Speaker 1: women loose lips sink ships. Right. Yeah, women not allowed
Speaker 1: on ships, so why would we take them to Antarctica. Yeah,
Speaker 1: But then you have Colin Bull, who was then the
Speaker 1: director of Ohio State University's Institute of Polar Studies, who
Speaker 1: lobbied for years for the Navy to change its policy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and he makes the incredibly good, astute point of the
Speaker 1: fact that there is no difference if you look at
Speaker 1: scientists with their parkison, a woman scientist looks exactly the
Speaker 1: same as a male scientist when they have their partisans.
Speaker 1: So let women go. There's no reason to keep them
Speaker 1: from going. And so finally, in nineteen sixty nine for
Speaker 1: American women, geochemist Lois Jones, Kay Lindsay, geologist Eileen mc savaney,
Speaker 1: and then undergraduate chemistry student Terry Terrell went down to Antarctica.
Speaker 1: And I love Terrell's story of how She was able
Speaker 1: to join up with these other women because again, she
Speaker 1: was an undergraduate student and her boyfriend at the time
Speaker 1: had just gotten back from an Antarctic trip doing some
Speaker 1: sort of stem work down there, and she was bored.
Speaker 1: She was in the lab. All the work she was
Speaker 1: doing felt very monotonous, and she had been hearing about
Speaker 1: these Antarctic trips and she said, I want to go.
Speaker 1: And she heard that Lois Jones was heading up uh,
Speaker 1: you know, all female, because the Navy also insisted that
Speaker 1: would be all female. She was setting up an all
Speaker 1: female expedition, and so she just to Jones's door, knocked
Speaker 1: on it, and Jones was like, oh, well tell me
Speaker 1: what you do. I don't know, We've already got somebody.
Speaker 1: But then that other woman who was going to go
Speaker 1: wasn't able to go, and so Terrell just by leaning
Speaker 1: in kind of, I mean, this is like a great
Speaker 1: example of women. If you want something, you might as
Speaker 1: well ask. Yeah, I mean, And they said that they
Speaker 1: needed a cook and a field assistant. Perfect. She could cook,
Speaker 1: she could be a field assistant. She had lab experience.
Speaker 1: So she ended up going, yeah, you never nine. You
Speaker 1: never know when you knock on a door who knows,
Speaker 1: maybe you'll go to Antarctica. Yeah, I'll no knocking on
Speaker 1: doors for me. Don't want to go where it's cold.
Speaker 1: But it's also funny how the Navy changed its tune
Speaker 1: so quickly once the women are down there, and I
Speaker 1: guess they realized that, oh, okay, this is actually all right.
Speaker 1: Uh all right there they they will survive and things
Speaker 1: have not been completely ruined. So on November twelve, the
Speaker 1: Navy organized a media event making those was for women
Speaker 1: who came down along with New Zealand biologist Pam Young
Speaker 1: and Detroit Free Press science writer Gene Pearson, the first
Speaker 1: women to touch down on the South Pole, that spot
Speaker 1: on the globe. And the way that they ensured that
Speaker 1: was it was pretty much like a one two three jump. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so there would be no woman who was first before
Speaker 1: the others. They all came out of the airplane at
Speaker 1: the same time. It was very, very planned and stage
Speaker 1: but it was a hit. And that same year New
Speaker 1: Zealand became the first nation to appoint a woman to
Speaker 1: a permanent scientific position for Arctic work. And I should
Speaker 1: have seen if it was in fact by all just
Speaker 1: Pam Young, who was that was that woman? I'm not sure.
Speaker 1: I don't have the name in front of me, but hey,
Speaker 1: go New Zealand. So some progress is being made. Nonetheless,
Speaker 1: women remain a minority in Antarctic research well into the
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties. But um, there are some interesting points along
Speaker 1: the way, for instance, in the late nineteen seventies, and
Speaker 1: I want to read more about this, but apparently Argentina
Speaker 1: and Chile, which we're both you know, sending scientists down
Speaker 1: there as well, they flew pregnant women to give birth
Speaker 1: on Antarctica. I guess to test how well the childbirth
Speaker 1: situation happened in the cold, well, I don't I don't
Speaker 1: think it was scientific. I think a lot of it
Speaker 1: was tied to land claims, because the idea of sending
Speaker 1: these women down to give birth automatically created some sort
Speaker 1: of like genealogical birthright claim to the land. Because I think,
Speaker 1: and someone can correct me if I'm wrong, because now
Speaker 1: Antarctica is like it's open season, it's multinational research based,
Speaker 1: it's not claimed by one country. But back at this
Speaker 1: time in history, I think there were a lot of
Speaker 1: people trying to make claims to it, and so the
Speaker 1: more people that they can say, they popped out, and
Speaker 1: they're like, oh, we popped out some kids, so naturally
Speaker 1: we have like this birthright to this section of the earth.
Speaker 1: But think about that those governments were willing to send
Speaker 1: down pregnant women legitimately, I don't want to say like
Speaker 1: at risk population, but think about how those governments sent
Speaker 1: down pregnant women. I mean considering the fact that even
Speaker 1: today doctors advised against women in certain you know, like
Speaker 1: late trimesters, even flying in a plane, much less going
Speaker 1: to Antarctica. They sent them down so as to possibly
Speaker 1: help out with some land grabby situation maybe, but women
Speaker 1: scientists or allowed. Isn't that interesting? That is interesting? But
Speaker 1: pregnant women also aren't a threat, that's true. They're not
Speaker 1: trying to do any science work. God forbids. Interesting. Interesting
Speaker 1: how women and their bodies and their names were used,
Speaker 1: but scientists weren't. Okay, just just interesting, although although it
Speaker 1: was get okay, it was getting okay um. In nineteen four,
Speaker 1: backing up a couple of years, there was marine biologist
Speaker 1: Mary McWhinnie and sister Mary Cohun, a nun, who went
Speaker 1: down for the US to Antarctica. And it was like,
Speaker 1: once these American women started going down. Then you start
Speaker 1: seeing Australian, French and German science teams following suits, sending
Speaker 1: more women, but the one holdout old yeah guys, what Yeah,
Speaker 1: They still weren't super into the idea of women's scientists
Speaker 1: going down there, to the point that female British applicants
Speaker 1: would receive a letter warning them that there were no
Speaker 1: hairdressers or shops on Antarctica. And then I just I
Speaker 1: just flipped the table over and walk out of the
Speaker 1: recording studio because that was, I mean, the relic of
Speaker 1: a bygone air that they might as well have just said,
Speaker 1: women be shopping. Women can't be shopping on Antarctica. Um so,
Speaker 1: but but Britain will catch up eventually, but but not yet.
Speaker 1: Um in the eighties, so we have a couple of
Speaker 1: things happen. Elizabeth Chitman publishes the book Women on Ice,
Speaker 1: which is sort of a one of the earliest, I guess,
Speaker 1: initiatives to really publicize the work of women in Antarctica
Speaker 1: and also talk about the women who had gone down
Speaker 1: and probably not so much of a scientific capacity, like
Speaker 1: Carol and Michelson, who you know, is the first one
Speaker 1: to step down on Macquarie Island. And then a few
Speaker 1: years later, in nine, Australian Diana Patterson becomes the first
Speaker 1: female station leader in Antarctica, which I mean, that's impressive,
Speaker 1: like finally, finally the little woman be the manager. That's great,
Speaker 1: uh finally, um, because you know, station leader is heading
Speaker 1: up a lot of different staff members, people like doctors, scientists,
Speaker 1: meteorological bureau people, radio and communications people, a chef because
Speaker 1: somebody has to make some food. Penguins, penguins, God, who's
Speaker 1: going to control all the penguins. I would really love
Speaker 1: to go to Antarctica to see the penguins. I don't
Speaker 1: want I don't want to just see him. You want
Speaker 1: to hug him. I want to hug him. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't think we can do that. Yeah. And then
Speaker 1: in the nineties though, this is when British listeners all right, thanks,
Speaker 1: there are things they're looking up for you, because there
Speaker 1: was still some waffling over sending women on winter expeditions
Speaker 1: because I mean, I would not want to go to
Speaker 1: Antarctica during the winter. It is dark and it is
Speaker 1: even colder. Um, and so really the over wintering was
Speaker 1: the last big obstacle for women exploring Antarctica. Because it
Speaker 1: was like at first it was like okay, well you
Speaker 1: can come down, you can like touch your feet down
Speaker 1: and then scramble back to the ship. Oh, you can
Speaker 1: come down for the spring or summer, but definitely not
Speaker 1: the winter. But now by this point, obviously in nineties,
Speaker 1: we have women who have spent the winter and survived,
Speaker 1: and they are also in the nineties more women becoming
Speaker 1: serious about Antarctic trekking. Actually just you know, like going
Speaker 1: out and trekking hundreds of miles to say, the South Pole,
Speaker 1: and this kind of similar activity is also happening at
Speaker 1: the North Pole as well, right, and uh, this is
Speaker 1: in January. That's when we get and Bancroft leading the
Speaker 1: American Women's Antarctic Expedition. She arrived at the South Pole
Speaker 1: after covering seven hundred miles in sixty seven days. And
Speaker 1: we talked about Ann in our first introductory episode um
Speaker 1: one of the team members on this expedition, and Alvera
Speaker 1: said she just wanted to prove to herself that she
Speaker 1: didn't have to be a barely big man to make
Speaker 1: this journey. Yeah, that's when she told National Geographic and
Speaker 1: she proved it. She definitely proved it. To herself. In
Speaker 1: the following year, probably prompted by these kinds of a acomplishments,
Speaker 1: two British women over winter and their success finally breaks
Speaker 1: the ice ceiling shall we call it, regarding the British
Speaker 1: team's attitudes towards women being there. Finally, in nineteen four,
Speaker 1: and also that same year, Live Arnisson, which might be
Speaker 1: a familiar name if you listen to our introductory episode
Speaker 1: on this Explorer series, became the first woman to ski
Speaker 1: solo to the South Pole, which was a fifty day
Speaker 1: expedition of seven hundred forty five miles, and a couple
Speaker 1: of years later, one woman who blew me away with
Speaker 1: her story in Jerry Nelson, who's a doctor and she's
Speaker 1: in Antarctica, discovers that she has breast cancer. She performs
Speaker 1: a biopsy on herself and then administers chemotherapy to herself
Speaker 1: while she is on antarctica. Yeah, that's hardcore. Yeah. I mean,
Speaker 1: if they're or any doubt that women could survive in Antarctica,
Speaker 1: the answer is yes. And then some seriously, how you
Speaker 1: self administer a biopsy also is beyond me. That's so incredible.
Speaker 1: But there was another It might have been Robin Burns,
Speaker 1: who wrote the book we referenced earlier. Just tell them
Speaker 1: I survived or someone she was writing about, UM who
Speaker 1: had wanted to go for it to Antarctica for so
Speaker 1: long and then found out while she was in a
Speaker 1: waiting period, found out that she had breast cancer. And
Speaker 1: the one thing she talked about that got her through
Speaker 1: chemotherapy h was the prospect of going to Antarctica, and
Speaker 1: she made it. She ended up making it down there,
Speaker 1: and then getting a little more contemporary. In two thousand one,
Speaker 1: we have Anne Bancroft and Liz Arnisson again teaming up
Speaker 1: now to become the first women to ski across Antarctica. UM.
Speaker 1: But the year before there was actually uh Norwegian born
Speaker 1: sny Be Sorby and you will settle Mark of Greenland
Speaker 1: who had to cancel their planned Antarctic crossing after a
Speaker 1: sponsor dropped out. UM. And I was reading about this
Speaker 1: in National Geographic and an article talking about what we've
Speaker 1: talked about a lot in the series, that need for
Speaker 1: funding because it's not cheap to go and ski across Antarctica. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you can't just pack a sleeping bag and a tent
Speaker 1: and some heavy coats and go. You you need a
Speaker 1: lot of resources to be able to survive down there
Speaker 1: for any length of time. Yeah, you need like a
Speaker 1: really good cell phone service, No kidding. So today, though,
Speaker 1: if we're we're moving up in the years, women compose
Speaker 1: around a quarter to a third of expedition ers, although,
Speaker 1: as we talked about in our intro, that whole funding
Speaker 1: issue can still be quite a challenge. But you have
Speaker 1: people like Rosie Stancer, the one that we quoted at
Speaker 1: the top of the podcast talking about the differences between
Speaker 1: Antarctica and trekking across the Arctic Um. She is planning
Speaker 1: an expedition to the North Pole in in order to
Speaker 1: become the first woman to walk to both poles solo,
Speaker 1: and she is being financed by none other than the
Speaker 1: Prince of Wales. There we go, Britains, There we go,
Speaker 1: making up for lost time. Cool. But I love I
Speaker 1: love how she how she looks at this. I mean,
Speaker 1: she she really liked that isolation. Those solo trips um
Speaker 1: one very adorable story. Uh is She said that I
Speaker 1: had a message from my base camp manager saying that
Speaker 1: the Russians who kept an ice trip over to on
Speaker 1: the other side, we're giving up and going home. Because
Speaker 1: of the appalling weather, all of the ice had broken up.
Speaker 1: I was the only human being left on the entire
Speaker 1: Arctic Ocean, five and a half million square miles of ice,
Speaker 1: all to me, Me, me, myself, me, and I danced
Speaker 1: a little jick. I just thought it was so amazing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And that was her talking about one of her expeditions
Speaker 1: to the North Pole. Um. But then, I mean, this
Speaker 1: woman is tough, and I think which we could say
Speaker 1: of all the women who are doing this kind of
Speaker 1: exploration and also adventuring. In two thousand seven, she had
Speaker 1: to stop just eighty nine nautical miles from the North
Speaker 1: Pole after cutting off two of her own toes due
Speaker 1: to frost bite. Followed by Gang Green Nikes Lady. She
Speaker 1: literally took herself to the limit and it was finally like, well,
Speaker 1: I guess I can't go any farther because this, I mean,
Speaker 1: I lost to toes, no big deal, but this snow
Speaker 1: blind necessarily getting to me the sunburn. Yeah, so but
Speaker 1: something to look forward to though in I'll definitely be
Speaker 1: rooting her on absolutely. And I mean, speaking of the future,
Speaker 1: I mean, there are so many great reasons if you
Speaker 1: can stand the cold, there are so many great reasons
Speaker 1: that scientists and other researchers go to Antarctica. There are
Speaker 1: so many things to be discovered. Yeah, that might be
Speaker 1: a big question. I know it was a big question
Speaker 1: for me at the outset of looking up stuff for
Speaker 1: this episode was well, why would you go to Antarctica
Speaker 1: in the first place? What can you discover in all
Speaker 1: that snow? Well, silly Kristen, so many things. Of course,
Speaker 1: PBS actually did a nice overview of all the different
Speaker 1: kinds of STEM projects happening today UM on Antarctica. Just
Speaker 1: side note, there are four permanent research stations occupied by
Speaker 1: researchers from eighteen nations, So I imagine it's sort of
Speaker 1: like the International Space Station of Antarctica, if that makes
Speaker 1: any sense at all. Um, And it's a major hub,
Speaker 1: no big surprise for climate change research. So one of
Speaker 1: the projects, for instance, is mapping the subglacial gamberts of mountains,
Speaker 1: which could then offer clues into the growth rate of
Speaker 1: the East Antarctic ice sheet, which would then offer clues
Speaker 1: to how ice sheets might respond to climate change. And
Speaker 1: then I don't have to go from you know, explain
Speaker 1: how those kinds of ripple effects could impact us here
Speaker 1: in terms of global water levels, right, and in terms
Speaker 1: of environmental research, the pristine environment in the Antarctic makes
Speaker 1: it a great location to study how pollutants travel through
Speaker 1: the atmosphere. I mean, people have found that mercury, for instance,
Speaker 1: can travel so far and work its way into that
Speaker 1: pristine Antarctic ecosystem. And astronomers can have a great time
Speaker 1: down there because of the dark skies. They stay so
Speaker 1: dark for so long. It's not like there's a whole
Speaker 1: lot of light pollution down in Antarctica. And then marine
Speaker 1: biologists go down to study the remarkable sea creatures that
Speaker 1: manage to survive in cold climate. I mean they've discovered
Speaker 1: organisms that survived nowhere else on the planet, you know,
Speaker 1: that are specifically evolved to stick it out in Antarctic waters.
Speaker 1: And then for astrophysicists, its location at the bottom of
Speaker 1: the globe means that it sits at the perfect spot
Speaker 1: to study the Earth's gravitational and magnetic fields, and on
Speaker 1: and on from there. I mean, for for all of
Speaker 1: the letters in Stem, there is something to learn on Antarctica. Yeah. So, um,
Speaker 1: when you guys go and you explore Antarctica and you
Speaker 1: find the secrets of the universe, Like, write us an
Speaker 1: email or something and tell us how it was, send
Speaker 1: us a photo. Please. I know that there is an
Speaker 1: Antarctic researcher who's a big fan of stuff you missed
Speaker 1: in history class, our sister podcast and uh, she said
Speaker 1: that those podcasts really get her through that. I think
Speaker 1: she was overwintering and just got helped get her through
Speaker 1: those dark, dark days, literally dark. Um. So if there
Speaker 1: are any Antarctic researchers also listening to us, how exciting
Speaker 1: that would be. Yeah, I want I want to hear, Like,
Speaker 1: just write us a book and send it. I just
Speaker 1: want to read everything. Just a book, That's all we asked. Um.
Speaker 1: But this was This was really fun to research though,
Speaker 1: because I think it's a spot that maybe we don't
Speaker 1: think about all that often, and yet is so fraught
Speaker 1: with so many fascinating layers of gender and history and stem. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and penguins warmth. How do you stay warm hugging penguins?
Speaker 1: You hug penguins and they keep you warm. I know,
Speaker 1: I know. Yeah, you can go down there now, Carolina. Well,
Speaker 1: now we want to hear from you. Have you been
Speaker 1: to Antarctica? Are you planning to go or are you
Speaker 1: an Arctic explore I know there has to be somebody
Speaker 1: out there who is, and we really want to hear
Speaker 1: from you. Mom Stuff at how stuff works dot Com
Speaker 1: is our email address. You can also tweet us your
Speaker 1: thoughts at mom Stuff podcast, or send us a message
Speaker 1: over on Facebook, and we've got a couple of messages
Speaker 1: to share with you right now. So I gotta let
Speaker 1: her hear from Emily about raising boys, and I wanted
Speaker 1: to share it just to sort of start a conversation
Speaker 1: among other listeners get some feedback, so I'll dive ahead.
Speaker 1: She writes. The thing that I struggle with is lack
Speaker 1: of good information on how to teach our boys about
Speaker 1: how to be well rounded men instead of just the
Speaker 1: Disney character stereotyped dashing prince who conquers what and whomever
Speaker 1: he chooses. One thing that I've thought a lot about
Speaker 1: is teaching my boys about sexual violence. I know that
Speaker 1: they'll be raised in environment with good role models in
Speaker 1: my husband and me, but I think we need to
Speaker 1: expose them two more. The statistic that really startles me
Speaker 1: is that one in five women will experience sexual assault
Speaker 1: in college, and I wonder what the reverse is. How
Speaker 1: many boys will be the perpetrators of sexual violence. How
Speaker 1: do we end that cycle? I was a victim of
Speaker 1: attempted violence twice in my college years, and until recently
Speaker 1: I thought that was an anomaly. It's startling and sad
Speaker 1: to think that these men probably had well meaning and
Speaker 1: hard working mothers just like myself, but these crimes still occur.
Speaker 1: I'm wondering if you would consider doing a podcast or
Speaker 1: part of a podcast about raising boys in our culture
Speaker 1: and how we might begin the process of changing the
Speaker 1: norm of sexual violence perpetrated by men against women and men.
Speaker 1: And this is something that I've thought about a lot
Speaker 1: as well in terms of I mean the fact that
Speaker 1: we have a lot of male listeners, which makes me
Speaker 1: very happy. Um but I do also think that there
Speaker 1: is a need for inviting more men and boys to
Speaker 1: the table to have these conversations to learn about the
Speaker 1: kinds of things that we talked about a lot on
Speaker 1: the podcast. Um but I really want to hear from
Speaker 1: guys on this. If you have any suggestions on whether
Speaker 1: we should do a podcast like this, what we should
Speaker 1: talk about things that you have found helpful, Please let
Speaker 1: us know. Mom Stuff at how stuff works dot com
Speaker 1: is where you can send us a letter. Alrighty, I
Speaker 1: have a letter here from a j about our single
Speaker 1: dad's Father's Day episode. She says, that's the proud daughter
Speaker 1: of a single dad. I don't hear too much about
Speaker 1: the way I was raised in popular culture, and people
Speaker 1: typically have a lot of questions, namely where was my mom?
Speaker 1: My parents divorced when I was eleven, and for a
Speaker 1: number of reasons, my dad got full custody and my
Speaker 1: mom and I now have a good relationship. Yeah, times,
Speaker 1: it was a little awkward going through puberty with just
Speaker 1: a dad in the house, but who isn't awkward during
Speaker 1: puberty anyway. I love the positive stance you took in
Speaker 1: your podcast and the celebration of mine and all the
Speaker 1: other single dads out there. My dad helped me through
Speaker 1: two ankle surgeries while I was in middle school, went
Speaker 1: to meetings for the high school band boosters, took me
Speaker 1: on a road trip to visit potential colleges, and all
Speaker 1: those other parent things, all while holding down a demanding job.
Speaker 1: My dad and all the other parents going out at alone.
Speaker 1: Men and women are so often unsung heroes, So thanks
Speaker 1: for bringing attention to cool alternative families like mine. Oh
Speaker 1: and one of my favorite things busting stereotypes about kids
Speaker 1: of single parents. I earned my doctorate in psychology three
Speaker 1: years ago at the age of twenty five. Take that, haters.
Speaker 1: So congratulations a J. And thank you for writing him,
Speaker 1: and thanks everyone who's written into us mom stuff at
Speaker 1: how stuff Works is where you can email us and
Speaker 1: for links to all of our social media's, all of
Speaker 1: our blog post, videos, and a five hundred plus podcasts,
Speaker 1: including podcast stores. Is there's one place to go and
Speaker 1: explore It's stuff Mom Never Told You dot com For
Speaker 1: more on this and thousands of other topics. Is it
Speaker 1: how stuff Works dot com