' No, we cannot give the job to this woman. She is too young and tender, the strain of the field work would be too much for her.' - Anonymous, 1990

On the final day of the week in which we heralded International Women's Day I felt this would be the perfect time to praise the women in science who are so often forgotten and to relive their, often amazing, stories. While many female geologists now are well known, and many geological societies worldwide are presided over by women (last year the president of the GSL was Lynne Frostick, a noted sedimentologist), there are many more who are now unable to tell their own stories.

In Victorian Britain the very idea of women doing serious science (except botany) was widely ridiculed, and women often worked as 'assistants' and family members, forgoing all acknowledgement of their work in order to further science for the greater good. Although Etheldred Bennett is heralded as the first woman in geology in the UK Mary Anning is probably England's best known woman in geology. The fossil hunter who followed her father up and down the clffs of Lyme Regis and discovered the Ichthyosaur struggled for years to have her discoveries  recognised as her own. 

Mary Anning in the field with her dog

Since she didn't keep a diary and was unable to publish any scientific papers there is very little known about the life of Mary Anning, unlike the male geologists of her time who couldn't wait to pen their biographies. When in 1824, she visited the Geological Society of London a noble woman Lady Harriet Sivester expressed complete disbelief at the gumption of this young, underprivileged and uneducated girl; ". . . the extraordinary thing in this young woman is that she has made herself so thoroughly acquainted with the science that the moment she finds any bones she knows to what tribe they belong. It is certainly a wonderful instance of divine favour - that this poor, ignorant girl should be so blessed, for by reading and application she has arrived to that degree of knowledge as to be in the habit of writing and talking with professors and other clever men on the subject, ". At least Lady Silvester appreciated that Miss Anning had worked hard for her knowledge.

In the US another hard working, and extremely determined young girl carved her place as the First Lady of Geology. Florence Bascom (July 14, 1862 – June 18, 1945) had to enrol in her father's college to gain a degree and was greatly influenced by her father’s friend, a geology professor at Ohio State University, Bascom became increasingly interested in geology and was eventually awarded the opportunity to study for a PhD. However, as the photo below shows field gear may have changed since the 1800's but the determination of women to even the gender gap in science still remains.  Bascom was only allowed to gain her PhD on the condition she sit behind a screen during classes so as not to disrupt male students (yes...really..!) 

Florence Bascom in the field with a compass- a different Geological fashion to now!

She was the first woman to be hired by the USGS and was eventually awarded the honor of four stars in the first edition of American Men of Science, an accolade which showed the men in her field at least accepted her as one of their own. An expert in mineralogy and petrography (and the youngest daughter of a suffragette) her legacy was to build a women's own college and train several women to become future geologists. She influenced most of the women geologists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, some of whom debated and argued with discoveries she had personally taught them (debates she in fact welcomed and results she championed). The college originally included geology as part of the natural sciences and so Bascom initially worked out of a storage area in the newly established sciences building, but after two years she had gathered a collection of minerals, rocks, and fossils worthy of their own building and eventually founded the school’s department of geology. Her work and contribution to geology is still being awarded and they named a crater on Venus after her.

Both of these women geologists were incredibly successful when being a woman was virtually worse than being a pet, but my all time favourite story of women in science is not that of a geologist but a woman ahead of her time even in an unrelated field. It shows the brilliant sense of humour needed to survive in a world where your determination and drive will only get you as far as that glass ceiling. Anna Barbauld was the brilliant young assistant to Joseph Priestley FRS, the great 18th-century chemist (who discovered oxygen and it's necessity to life). She pioneered animal rights in laboratories after noting the distress of mice as they were steadily deprived of air in glass vacuum jars. Accordingly, she wrote a poem in the voice of one of Priestley's laboratory mice and stuck it in the bars of the mouse's cage for Priestley to find the next morning. She entitled it: "The Mouse's Petition to Dr Priestley, Found in the Trap where he had been Confined all Night".

For here forlorn and sad I sit,

Within the wiry Grate, 

And tremble at the approaching Morn 

Which brings impending fate…

The cheerful light, the Vital Air, 

Are blessings widely given; 

Let Nature's commoners enjoy 

The common gifts of Heaven.

The well-taught philosophic mind 

To all Compassion gives; 

Casts round the world an Equal eye, 

And feels for all that lives.

Barbauld's penchant for study worried her mother who expected her to "end up a spinster because of her intellectualism..." and with it still a common legend that boys don't like smart women let's hope that's not the fate even for today's women in science.