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By Peter Rejcek
Ernest Shackleton placed perhaps the most famous job
wanted ad in history for his 1914 Imperial Trans-Antarctic
Expedition, which later earned him so much acclaim for
the hardships encountered and overcome.
The advert read: “Men wanted for hazardous journey.
Low wages, bitter cold, long hours of complete darkness.
Safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in event
of success.”
More than 50 years later, when the Antarctic Age of Exploration
slipped into the Age of Scientific Discovery, the job
ads for forklift drivers or even administrative clerks
may not have dripped with such machismo. But there was
no less swagger to the attitude that still dominated on
the continent when the first female scientists arrived
in 1969.
It wasn’t too long after the ranks of researchers
opened up to women that they started to fill support roles
— first in the U.S. Navy and then increasingly among
the civilian workforce that eventually took over most
jobs today from the military.
Elena Marty was one of two female employees hired by
civilian contractor Holmes and Narver Inc. for the 1974-75
austral summer season. It was the Antarctic equivalent
of NASA sending the first U.S. woman into space.
“In that day, there was still a very big ceiling
to break through. The fact that they were ‘allowing’
women to go to the Ice was huge. We were an anomaly and
a commodity down there,” says Marty, now retired
in Long Beach, Calif., with her husband Jerry, who was
also an H&N employee at the time.
“That was a tough time for women who wanted to show
they could do more than just file and type and take dictation,”
she recalls. “I looked at this as an opportunity
to explore more of what I could do in a remote location
besides just being there. I was able to learn a lot there,
as well as make contributions.”
Women like Elena Marty were a rare sight in Antarctica
in 1974-75. Today, not so much, though dogs are prohibited
on the continent.
Hired in an administrative role at McMurdo Station , Marty
(like co-worker and fellow ceiling-crasher Jan Boyd) ended
up working a variety of jobs. During a weeklong stint
at the world’s southernmost research station, Marty
even drove a forklift, helping haul away a broken Navy
airplane that had crashed a couple years earlier at South
Pole. Maybe 12 women, mostly scientists, were on the entire
continent at that time.
“They really didn’t put out an ad for women
to work at the South Pole,” Marty notes.
Half-a-dozen years later, in 1981, the ratio of men to
women working in the U.S. Antarctic Program was slowly
inching up. Ann Peoples estimates it was maybe 10 men
for every woman.
“It was a little rougher around the edges than it
became later, say in the late 80s and early 90s,”
recounts Peoples, who worked for the U.S. Antarctic Program
for 14 consecutive seasons. She started as a shuttle driver
and left in 1995 as the first woman to head one of the
USAP’s three permanent research facilities at Palmer
Station.
Even into the 1980s, pinup posters of Raquel Welch hung
on work center walls. Jobs for women were generally limited
to driving shuttle buses, shuffling paperwork or pushing
a mop as a janitor. Only a few women worked in the trades.
“Since women weren’t viewed as being as strong,
skilled, or competent for the entire range of job opportunities,
that meant that the number of positions available to women
before the late 80s were just so limited,” says Pam
Hill, whom Peoples hired in 1985.
A tipping point in the 1990s
No woman served in a significant leadership role until
1986, when Peoples took over management of the Berg Field
Center (BFC), which outfits science parties and helps
coordinate outdoor fieldwork.
That was a big deal, Peoples explains, as some folks
balked at the idea of a woman running a department charged
with search and rescue responsibilities. She must have
done a pretty good job in the end — women have generally
run the BFC for more than 20 years now.
Peoples continued to push the ceiling that Marty butted
against in the 1970s, opening doors for others to follow.
In 1990, she became the first woman to hold the position
of logistics manager. Ironically, she couldn’t get
a grunt-level job in the department years before because
of concerns that a woman couldn’t handle 50-pound
loads.
The next year, she became the first woman to lead one
of the three USAP research facilities, serving as station
manager at Palmer for four seasons. Today, she heads her
own consulting firm.
“In 1981, women on the Ice were still a novelty.
By the time I left in 1995, having women on the Ice was
normal,” Peoples says. “No one thought too much
about it; women routinely contributed to USAP in all aspects
of science and support. That change was a good thing.
To be part of that change was an adventure and a privilege.”
When was the tipping point? It’s hard to say. But
maybe it was the 1993-94 season. Peoples was once again
station manager at Palmer. Janet Phillips headed South
Pole Station for a year. And Karen Schwall ran McMurdo
Station. Three station managers, three women. There were
only seven women in the U.S. Senate in 1993. (Today there
are 17 out of 100 senators.)
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