Women in astronomy

American Astronomy Association, The History of Women in Astronomy, http // cannon.sfsu.edu/ gmarcy/cswa/history/history.html. See also, Lake Alton Public Observatory, Women in Astronomy, http //www.twsu.edu/ obswww/wia.html... 

John Lankford and Ricky Slavings, in their studies of women in astronomy, added In evaluating women [for astronomy], male scientists tended to focus on their [women s] ability to do routine work. Indeed, some recommendations read as if they were descriptions of machines. 17 Yet the women in this chapter did not see their work as dull and routine — to them, the research was the exciting focus of their lives.18... 

Deborah Crocke and Sethanne Howard, The University of Alabama Department of Physics and Astronomy, 4000 Years of Women in Science Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, http // www.astr.ua.edu/4000W S/GAPOSCHKIN.html... 

Lankford, J. and Slavings, R. L. (1990). Gender and science Women in American astronomy, 1859-1940. Physics Today 43 58-65. 

After graduation, Cannon returned to her home in Dover. At times she expressed unhappiness and dissatisfaction with her life in Dover, however. When her mother died in 1894, she took a job at Wellesley as instructor in the physics department. At the same time, she was accepted as a "special student" in astronomy at Radcliffe College, which was then the women s arm of Harvard College. Two years later she accepted a position on the staff at the Harvard Observatory, a post she held for the rest of her life. 

Like most other women of the time, Cannon found that career advancement in the field of science did not come as easily as it did for her male counterparts. For example, she did not receive a permanent appointment at Harvard until 1938, after 42 years of service with the university, at which time she was made William C. Boyd professor of astronomy. She did make a number of important gender breakthroughs, however She was the first woman to be elected an officer of the American Astronomical Society, the first woman to receive an honorary doctorate from Oxford University (1925), the first woman to be awarded the Draper Gold Medal of the National Academy of Sciences (1931), and the first woman to receive a doctorate in astronomy from Gronigen University (1921). 

In this chapter I ve mentioned U.S. astronomers Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin and Annie J. Cannon. These are just two of numerous women who contributed immensely to the field of astronomy. Table 3.2 lists several more. 

The question arises as to why women were attracted to, and flourished in, the field of biochemistry. It could be argued that biochemistry appealed to women scientists by its relevance to the understanding of living processes however, there were other fields in which women scientists clustered and gained recognition, such as crystallography,5 radioactivity,3 and astronomy.6... 

Though there were fewer women science students at late 19th-century Oxford than at Cambridge or the London colleges, women were certainly to be found in mineralogy and astronomy at Oxford, as Janet Howarth noted Research-oriented professors... 

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