Astronomy is an old science. By that I don't mean that the ideologies or methods behind astronomy are outdated. I mean to say that the study of astronomy by humans began thousands of years ago, dating as far back as the 2nd Millenia BCE in Ancient Babylonia.
It doesn't take much reading through a history book or modern astronomy textbook to make the realization that the vast majority of renowned astronomers are men. This is partially because for much of human history, women were not permitted to participate in scientific endeavors. It is also because many of the women who broke through in the field and made discoveries never received acknowledgement for their work.
One such astronomer was Antonia Maury, a member of the Harvard Computers alongside Annie Jump Cannon and Williamina Fleming in the 1880s-1890s. Maury was hired by Edward Pickering to classifying stars and their stellar spectra, but ultimately she found flaws in the classification system created by Annie Jump Cannon and Williamina Fleming, and she ended up redesigning the whole system to be more detailed. She left the team multiple times because she felt that her contributions were not being acknowledged properly.
In addition to her work with the Harvard Computers, Antonia Maury is also credited with the first discovery of a spectroscopic binary.
References:
https://www.britannica.com/science/astronomy/History-of-astronomy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_Computers
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonia_Maury
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kionasmith/2019/03/22/antonia-maury-a-female-astronomers-fight-for-recognition/?sh=3ef4e5894625
https://physicstoday.scitation.org/do/10.1063/pt.6.6.20180321a/full/
I think it's really sad how these women, including Antonia Maury, did not get the credit for their discoveries at the time they discovered them. Most of the time, the men got the recognition for other women's discoveries. I think we are slowly getting better at recognizing all the important things women did for astronomy. As women in astronomy, what do you think we can do to better advocate for these women and for ourselves in this primarily male-dominated field?
ReplyDeleteA lot of women in STEM weren't recognized for their accomplishments and still today are not treated the same as men. I think that it is getting better but it is crazy to me that some people like Anonia Maury didn't get the complete credit for a big discovery she made. I think that this is something that is very important to talk about and I really enjoyed reading this post. I am hoping that being women in STEM we will keep moving forward instead of reverting into these old ways.
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