Emily McDougal - Women Fight Gender Roles, Traveling to Antarctica

Summary: In the past, women have been demoralized from traveling to Antarctica because of the common joke that a person must have a beard to do research in the continent. Until 1969, the United States did not even allow women to work in Antarctica . However, the Homeward Bound 2016 set sail on December 2, which is the largest female voyage to Antarctica. The voyage included 76 women. This is the beginning of a 10 year mission to help women become more involved in leading and influencing the world in ways that have not been seen before. This amazing process was conceptualized by Fabian Dattner, an Australian leadership activist who wanted to see women traveling to Antarctica and created a science program to make this possible. The incredibly eager women who were involved went through over a year of training to develop their leadership skills and plans. The women sailed from Argentina, and arrived at several different bases on the continent after 2 and a half weeks. The women have already been blown away by the beauty of Antarctica and how much study can be done there. There are plans for a second group of all females to travel to the continent in February 2018.

Analysis: This article was written on March 5, 2017, by Katy Scott, to tell the amazing story of these women traveling to Antarctica for revolutionary science. I hadn't heard about this story before, but I'm blown away by the courage of these women to do something that's so different and unprecedented. This voyage will change the face of what women can do, and will set an example for expeditions in the future. This is so important because it shows the power of these women and their story.

Synthesis: A significant woman scientist, Maria V. Klenova, worked on ships outside of the Antarctic coastline from 1955 to 1956. She contributed to the first Antarctic atlas.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/05/world/homeward-bound-antarctica/index.html