1
00:00:05,320 --> 00:00:07,560
Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha. I'm not going to

2
00:00:07,560 --> 00:00:20,079
Speaker 1: Stephane ever told your production I heart Radio Samantha for

3
00:00:20,280 --> 00:00:27,520
Speaker 1: you one ever into space? And two what's your favorite planet?

4
00:00:27,960 --> 00:00:30,280
Speaker 1: So yes, And I won't say I wanted to be

5
00:00:30,280 --> 00:00:32,680
Speaker 1: an astronaut or any of that, because that was definitely

6
00:00:32,720 --> 00:00:36,080
Speaker 1: not my dream. But for the first four to five

7
00:00:36,280 --> 00:00:42,360
Speaker 1: years of my school times, the one field trip we

8
00:00:42,520 --> 00:00:46,120
Speaker 1: always did was to a planetarium. I don't understand why,

9
00:00:46,120 --> 00:00:51,000
Speaker 1: but we always went and I loved it. I loved

10
00:00:51,040 --> 00:00:54,280
Speaker 1: going into the room with all of the stars above

11
00:00:54,320 --> 00:00:56,400
Speaker 1: you and you just sit there and watch to the

12
00:00:56,480 --> 00:01:00,960
Speaker 1: fact that I swore so because I was young, and

13
00:01:01,080 --> 00:01:03,840
Speaker 1: I even watched a lot of romantic comedies. I swore

14
00:01:03,920 --> 00:01:08,680
Speaker 1: that the one, oh yes, the one would be someone

15
00:01:08,800 --> 00:01:11,440
Speaker 1: that would take me to a planetarium as a date

16
00:01:13,680 --> 00:01:17,319
Speaker 1: that has yet to happen. Had several like things that

17
00:01:17,360 --> 00:01:19,840
Speaker 1: would happen to know that they were the one, because

18
00:01:19,880 --> 00:01:23,880
Speaker 1: obviously this is what happens right in relationships, duh. So

19
00:01:24,000 --> 00:01:27,679
Speaker 1: my eight year old mind thought that he would take

20
00:01:27,680 --> 00:01:29,759
Speaker 1: me to a planetarium as one of my dates, and

21
00:01:29,840 --> 00:01:33,240
Speaker 1: I love, love, love doing that going to because the

22
00:01:33,319 --> 00:01:36,760
Speaker 1: initially the Imax theaters were in planetariums and a lot

23
00:01:36,840 --> 00:01:38,840
Speaker 1: of scientific things, and those are the ones that I

24
00:01:38,880 --> 00:01:41,640
Speaker 1: would go to. Loved it, loved going to the telescope

25
00:01:41,760 --> 00:01:44,479
Speaker 1: to see all of that. If they're shooting stars, I

26
00:01:44,520 --> 00:01:47,480
Speaker 1: love going out to watch those. It is one of

27
00:01:47,520 --> 00:01:50,120
Speaker 1: the most favorite things. One of my best friends who

28
00:01:50,160 --> 00:01:52,760
Speaker 1: lives in Portland now, he and I would try to

29
00:01:52,800 --> 00:01:55,680
Speaker 1: find the best spots in LJ, Georgia to go watch

30
00:01:55,800 --> 00:01:58,920
Speaker 1: the stars, and it was not even romantic for us.

31
00:01:58,960 --> 00:02:01,520
Speaker 1: It was just something that I had loved. So yes,

32
00:02:01,840 --> 00:02:04,720
Speaker 1: I did. I love space, but I didn't want to

33
00:02:04,720 --> 00:02:06,800
Speaker 1: go to space because that's just crazy talk. That's where

34
00:02:06,800 --> 00:02:09,760
Speaker 1: all the aliens are. They're going to get me. What's

35
00:02:09,800 --> 00:02:13,360
Speaker 1: your second question, what's your favorite planet? My favorite planet

36
00:02:13,720 --> 00:02:16,000
Speaker 1: is definitely Jupiter, and I don't know why. I just

37
00:02:16,080 --> 00:02:19,720
Speaker 1: really like it. Oh mine was saturned for a very

38
00:02:19,760 --> 00:02:24,200
Speaker 1: long time, but now it's Neptune color. I really love

39
00:02:24,280 --> 00:02:26,679
Speaker 1: the color of a Neptune. I really love the color

40
00:02:26,720 --> 00:02:29,520
Speaker 1: of Saturn though, and it'scot rings. It's close the scot rings.

41
00:02:29,520 --> 00:02:33,640
Speaker 1: I do love the rings. However, did you all like space?

42
00:02:33,919 --> 00:02:38,320
Speaker 1: Did you love space? I did? I was very similar.

43
00:02:38,360 --> 00:02:41,520
Speaker 1: I love the planetarium. When we would go we went

44
00:02:41,560 --> 00:02:44,880
Speaker 1: to space Camp one year and that was amazing. I

45
00:02:44,960 --> 00:02:46,600
Speaker 1: have it on my to do list to go to

46
00:02:46,639 --> 00:02:50,359
Speaker 1: space no joke, I'm gonna pay to do that. I

47
00:02:51,960 --> 00:02:54,680
Speaker 1: did have a period because I'm so afraid of aliens

48
00:02:55,360 --> 00:02:58,320
Speaker 1: where um, it was removed from my to do list

49
00:02:58,360 --> 00:03:03,160
Speaker 1: for a while, but now it's back on there. No,

50
00:03:03,440 --> 00:03:06,480
Speaker 1: I I loved it, and I still do. Like whatever

51
00:03:06,840 --> 00:03:10,040
Speaker 1: those meteor showers happened or comments happened, I go because

52
00:03:10,040 --> 00:03:12,840
Speaker 1: we're we're pretty lucky where we are in Atlanta that

53
00:03:12,880 --> 00:03:16,560
Speaker 1: you can drive about an hour and get somewhere dark

54
00:03:16,680 --> 00:03:19,480
Speaker 1: enough to see that. And when the eclipse happened recently,

55
00:03:20,200 --> 00:03:24,480
Speaker 1: our whole office did a thing. It was great. And

56
00:03:24,520 --> 00:03:26,919
Speaker 1: one of my favorite memories ever was when I was

57
00:03:26,960 --> 00:03:31,560
Speaker 1: in Australia and you could just see the Milky Way

58
00:03:31,760 --> 00:03:35,960
Speaker 1: and it was just shooting stars, so many shooting stars,

59
00:03:35,960 --> 00:03:39,840
Speaker 1: and yeah, it's so gorgeous. When I lived in Oklahoma,

60
00:03:39,880 --> 00:03:43,600
Speaker 1: in a very small town in Oklahoma, because Oklahoma doesn't

61
00:03:43,640 --> 00:03:47,240
Speaker 1: have the trees that Georgia does, it felt like I

62
00:03:47,280 --> 00:03:50,680
Speaker 1: was at the planetarium just being in wide open spaces

63
00:03:51,560 --> 00:03:53,560
Speaker 1: that it was like what And because I was in

64
00:03:53,560 --> 00:03:55,040
Speaker 1: a very small town that didn't have a lot of

65
00:03:55,160 --> 00:03:58,360
Speaker 1: light pollution. It was phenomenal. I would just go walking

66
00:03:58,360 --> 00:04:00,880
Speaker 1: outside and look straight up, which is really dumb of

67
00:04:00,920 --> 00:04:02,520
Speaker 1: me because I am very clutzy and I should not

68
00:04:02,600 --> 00:04:06,600
Speaker 1: have done that, but just to see that as a view,

69
00:04:06,640 --> 00:04:08,720
Speaker 1: I will always have that seared into my brain of like,

70
00:04:08,960 --> 00:04:13,360
Speaker 1: oh the sky looks different over here. Yes. Yes. Every

71
00:04:13,400 --> 00:04:15,240
Speaker 1: time I get visit my mom, she lives in a

72
00:04:15,280 --> 00:04:18,400
Speaker 1: small town, and I'll just go sit outside and look

73
00:04:18,520 --> 00:04:20,880
Speaker 1: up and be like, Wow, you can't see stars in Atlanta,

74
00:04:20,920 --> 00:04:23,599
Speaker 1: but not that Ni, but right in my hometown you

75
00:04:23,640 --> 00:04:27,920
Speaker 1: can see them right beautiful. And I don't know if

76
00:04:27,960 --> 00:04:30,240
Speaker 1: you know my love Mary, Kate and Ashley when I

77
00:04:30,240 --> 00:04:31,680
Speaker 1: was growing up, but they went to Space to give

78
00:04:31,720 --> 00:04:34,480
Speaker 1: them one of the episodes, and they that song they

79
00:04:34,520 --> 00:04:36,920
Speaker 1: sing in there, What is the sound of one hand clapping?

80
00:04:36,920 --> 00:04:39,440
Speaker 1: What is the color of clear? I get that stuck

81
00:04:39,480 --> 00:04:41,360
Speaker 1: in my head all the time. I still know the words.

82
00:04:42,880 --> 00:04:44,480
Speaker 1: I have a lot of questions about that song, but

83
00:04:44,600 --> 00:04:47,960
Speaker 1: keep going. Yeah, is there a sound if tree hits

84
00:04:48,000 --> 00:04:51,800
Speaker 1: the ground if no one is there to hear. But

85
00:04:51,839 --> 00:04:55,360
Speaker 1: there's been a lot of space news lately because yes,

86
00:04:56,040 --> 00:04:59,640
Speaker 1: NASA has made it to Mars and they was say

87
00:04:59,680 --> 00:05:03,159
Speaker 1: hello after shot the other day, and it's one of

88
00:05:03,200 --> 00:05:06,280
Speaker 1: those things that I feel like a lot of people

89
00:05:06,279 --> 00:05:10,120
Speaker 1: and even me sometimes don't take the moment to appreciate

90
00:05:10,160 --> 00:05:13,440
Speaker 1: that that we should because that's amazing, that's really cool.

91
00:05:14,600 --> 00:05:17,240
Speaker 1: It is, and the little robot is very cute. The

92
00:05:17,320 --> 00:05:19,920
Speaker 1: robot is cute. Robot is cute. I was nervous about

93
00:05:19,960 --> 00:05:22,919
Speaker 1: that space It wasn't I mean, it's not space bacteria

94
00:05:23,000 --> 00:05:26,560
Speaker 1: is the most accurate way of putting that. But just

95
00:05:26,600 --> 00:05:29,120
Speaker 1: because I've seen a lot of horror movies, so my

96
00:05:29,200 --> 00:05:33,520
Speaker 1: mind did go there. It's gonna be your time to

97
00:05:33,560 --> 00:05:38,200
Speaker 1: shine when they show an alien. You're like, I know what, Ah,

98
00:05:38,839 --> 00:05:42,160
Speaker 1: this time I've been I'm the one. No one listened

99
00:05:43,480 --> 00:05:47,800
Speaker 1: anyway in this classic episode. Uh, we're gonna look at

100
00:05:48,080 --> 00:05:53,320
Speaker 1: star gazers and women and we hope that you enjoy.

101
00:05:54,800 --> 00:06:04,159
Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff Mom never told you from how Hello,

102
00:06:04,200 --> 00:06:07,000
Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Caroline and I'm Kristen,

103
00:06:07,320 --> 00:06:09,440
Speaker 1: and we want to welcome you to our part one

104
00:06:09,800 --> 00:06:15,200
Speaker 1: of Women in Astronomy, our Lady Stargazers episode. We got

105
00:06:15,200 --> 00:06:19,480
Speaker 1: the original idea for this episode because we wanted to

106
00:06:19,520 --> 00:06:23,720
Speaker 1: pair astronomy. With astrology, we wanted to talk about the

107
00:06:23,760 --> 00:06:28,320
Speaker 1: origins of humans and of course women in particular, looking

108
00:06:28,360 --> 00:06:32,120
Speaker 1: at the sky and studying what it all meant. But

109
00:06:32,120 --> 00:06:36,520
Speaker 1: by the time we got into our women and astronomy sources,

110
00:06:36,560 --> 00:06:40,240
Speaker 1: we realized, WHOA, this is way too interesting. There are

111
00:06:40,360 --> 00:06:43,679
Speaker 1: way too many incredible women. That sounds wrong, that sounds

112
00:06:43,680 --> 00:06:45,400
Speaker 1: like I'm saying that there are too many women, But

113
00:06:46,240 --> 00:06:49,120
Speaker 1: there are so many incredible women and incredible discoveries that

114
00:06:49,120 --> 00:06:51,520
Speaker 1: we have to talk about that we decided to dedicate

115
00:06:51,560 --> 00:06:55,320
Speaker 1: a two parter too, the Ladies of Astronomy from ancient

116
00:06:55,400 --> 00:06:57,880
Speaker 1: times all the way up to today. Well, this is

117
00:06:57,920 --> 00:07:00,880
Speaker 1: also sort of an in depth follow up on the

118
00:07:00,960 --> 00:07:04,520
Speaker 1: series that we did last year on women in Stem,

119
00:07:04,640 --> 00:07:09,880
Speaker 1: dedicating four episodes individually to science, technology, engineering, and math.

120
00:07:10,440 --> 00:07:17,400
Speaker 1: And astronomy is totally worthy of two episodes because it's

121
00:07:17,440 --> 00:07:21,920
Speaker 1: the oldest of the natural sciences. So much of what

122
00:07:21,960 --> 00:07:25,520
Speaker 1: we know about the world and also technology that we

123
00:07:25,640 --> 00:07:30,400
Speaker 1: use even in everyday life comes from astronomy and cosmology.

124
00:07:30,400 --> 00:07:33,760
Speaker 1: When we think about the big questions of why we're here,

125
00:07:33,840 --> 00:07:36,239
Speaker 1: where we came from, how did all this life begin?

126
00:07:36,760 --> 00:07:39,200
Speaker 1: We don't look down, We look up. That's the right

127
00:07:39,240 --> 00:07:42,600
Speaker 1: we look up to the stars. And that's why astronomy

128
00:07:42,640 --> 00:07:46,680
Speaker 1: has essentially is essentially considered the oldest science, because as

129
00:07:46,720 --> 00:07:49,960
Speaker 1: long as people have been looking up at the stars,

130
00:07:50,200 --> 00:07:53,520
Speaker 1: there's been a version of astronomy basically. Well, and think

131
00:07:53,560 --> 00:07:57,840
Speaker 1: too about in the days before electricity, how much brighter

132
00:07:57,840 --> 00:08:00,000
Speaker 1: the night sky was, to how much you could see

133
00:08:00,000 --> 00:08:02,520
Speaker 1: with the naked eye that we can't today. So it's

134
00:08:02,600 --> 00:08:07,320
Speaker 1: understandable that people in ancient times and even in more

135
00:08:07,400 --> 00:08:12,560
Speaker 1: recent times have been endlessly fascinated by the stars. And

136
00:08:12,680 --> 00:08:16,160
Speaker 1: if we go back though to the ancient times, astronomy

137
00:08:16,400 --> 00:08:21,320
Speaker 1: was not surprisingly a mix of science and mysticism. There

138
00:08:21,440 --> 00:08:26,240
Speaker 1: was a lot of religion and superstition infused in our

139
00:08:26,280 --> 00:08:29,280
Speaker 1: curiosity with the stars. Yeah, and at the time, I mean,

140
00:08:29,280 --> 00:08:32,960
Speaker 1: there really was no difference between science and mysticism, and

141
00:08:33,040 --> 00:08:36,240
Speaker 1: so it all tied in very closely together. For instance,

142
00:08:37,160 --> 00:08:40,840
Speaker 1: the Mayans, the ancient Chinese, and the Harapping culture which

143
00:08:40,880 --> 00:08:44,080
Speaker 1: is also also known as the Bronze Age Indus Valley

144
00:08:44,120 --> 00:08:48,440
Speaker 1: civilization in Afghanistan, India and Pakistan. They used the study

145
00:08:48,559 --> 00:08:50,880
Speaker 1: of the stars to keep track of time and to

146
00:08:50,960 --> 00:08:54,600
Speaker 1: orient their cities. So that's very scientific very advanced. They

147
00:08:54,760 --> 00:08:57,280
Speaker 1: also used astronomy and the study of the stars to

148
00:08:57,320 --> 00:09:01,480
Speaker 1: try to predict the future, and that sounds like astrology,

149
00:09:01,520 --> 00:09:04,080
Speaker 1: but really the two didn't split for the longest time.

150
00:09:04,600 --> 00:09:07,120
Speaker 1: And we should point out that while astronomy is the

151
00:09:07,160 --> 00:09:12,000
Speaker 1: study of the positions, motions, and properties of celestial objects,

152
00:09:12,360 --> 00:09:16,000
Speaker 1: astrology is the study of how those positions and movements

153
00:09:16,040 --> 00:09:19,320
Speaker 1: affect people and events here on Earth. And so for

154
00:09:19,400 --> 00:09:22,000
Speaker 1: the longest time they were just the same thing. And

155
00:09:22,000 --> 00:09:24,840
Speaker 1: this is coming from a Sky and Telescope article that

156
00:09:24,880 --> 00:09:28,640
Speaker 1: talked about how quote, for several millennia, the desire to

157
00:09:28,679 --> 00:09:33,040
Speaker 1: improve astrological predictions as one of the main motivations for

158
00:09:33,160 --> 00:09:37,200
Speaker 1: astronomical observations and theories. But then finally in the late

159
00:09:37,240 --> 00:09:42,640
Speaker 1: seventeenth century, astronomy and astrology split into the mainstream science

160
00:09:42,800 --> 00:09:48,000
Speaker 1: of astronomy and the pseudo science of astrology. And Isaac Newton,

161
00:09:48,080 --> 00:09:51,080
Speaker 1: for instance, demonstrated some of the physical way celestial bodies

162
00:09:51,080 --> 00:09:55,240
Speaker 1: affect one another, and even today it's still a developing

163
00:09:55,320 --> 00:09:59,080
Speaker 1: field with a lot to discover. It. I'm talking about astronomy,

164
00:09:59,240 --> 00:10:02,040
Speaker 1: not astrology. You although for something you know, if you

165
00:10:02,720 --> 00:10:05,400
Speaker 1: read your horoscope every week, you probably think there's there's

166
00:10:05,440 --> 00:10:07,880
Speaker 1: also still a lot to discover, which is the future.

167
00:10:08,160 --> 00:10:10,400
Speaker 1: I actually did read my horoscope every week, because how

168
00:10:10,440 --> 00:10:12,440
Speaker 1: else am I supposed to know how to handle anything

169
00:10:12,480 --> 00:10:15,120
Speaker 1: that life may throw my way. It's true, Caroline, it's

170
00:10:15,240 --> 00:10:19,400
Speaker 1: very true. Look to the stars indeed, um. But in

171
00:10:19,480 --> 00:10:26,480
Speaker 1: terms of astronomy, the actual science, it's still a developing field.

172
00:10:26,760 --> 00:10:29,920
Speaker 1: The first planets outside our solar system, for instance, weren't

173
00:10:29,960 --> 00:10:33,680
Speaker 1: even discovered until the nineteen nineties. Yeah, it's not like

174
00:10:34,160 --> 00:10:37,520
Speaker 1: I mean, space isn't exactly like a tiny contained area

175
00:10:37,559 --> 00:10:39,959
Speaker 1: where you can, you know, just dig a few holes

176
00:10:40,120 --> 00:10:42,560
Speaker 1: or look, there are a few telescopes and figure things out.

177
00:10:42,600 --> 00:10:45,079
Speaker 1: I mean, there's so much left to discover, and that's

178
00:10:45,080 --> 00:10:48,640
Speaker 1: why it's such an exciting field, and so people have

179
00:10:48,720 --> 00:10:54,760
Speaker 1: been making these incredible discoveries forever. Yeah, and you're hearing

180
00:10:54,760 --> 00:10:57,000
Speaker 1: it here and only here for the first time on stuff.

181
00:10:57,000 --> 00:10:59,439
Speaker 1: I never told you space is big space. Yeah, you're right,

182
00:10:59,520 --> 00:11:04,840
Speaker 1: spaces big, this big we've been looking up. Um. But

183
00:11:05,040 --> 00:11:08,480
Speaker 1: when it comes to the history of women's participation in

184
00:11:08,520 --> 00:11:12,960
Speaker 1: the field, not surprisingly again, it was slow going at first,

185
00:11:13,000 --> 00:11:18,160
Speaker 1: and typically involved women getting into science, whether that's astronomy

186
00:11:18,240 --> 00:11:21,160
Speaker 1: or another kind of science thanks to the men in

187
00:11:21,200 --> 00:11:25,600
Speaker 1: their life or the God in their life, right absolutely.

188
00:11:25,679 --> 00:11:28,160
Speaker 1: And so first let's give some context about women in

189
00:11:28,200 --> 00:11:31,480
Speaker 1: science in general from ancient times through the nineteenth century.

190
00:11:31,480 --> 00:11:33,400
Speaker 1: And you might think, no, no, no, I came here

191
00:11:33,400 --> 00:11:35,840
Speaker 1: to learn about astronomy. Don't tell me all about general science,

192
00:11:35,840 --> 00:11:37,760
Speaker 1: although I don't know who would say that. But we

193
00:11:37,840 --> 00:11:41,080
Speaker 1: have to give you context because when you look at

194
00:11:41,120 --> 00:11:43,920
Speaker 1: things that were happening and have been happening in society

195
00:11:43,960 --> 00:11:46,400
Speaker 1: from ancient times all the way up to now, the

196
00:11:46,480 --> 00:11:49,960
Speaker 1: whole idea and and the whole landscape of women in

197
00:11:50,040 --> 00:11:53,040
Speaker 1: science and then women in astronomy, they're all parallels. So

198
00:11:53,520 --> 00:11:56,600
Speaker 1: let's go back to ancient times because evidence exists of

199
00:11:56,600 --> 00:12:00,160
Speaker 1: women being involved in science way back when archaeol just

200
00:12:00,200 --> 00:12:03,840
Speaker 1: for instance, found a carving from four thousand BC of

201
00:12:03,880 --> 00:12:07,920
Speaker 1: a Sumerian priestess physician. So it was not unusual for

202
00:12:07,960 --> 00:12:11,960
Speaker 1: a woman to serve in a medical capacity, and that

203
00:12:12,040 --> 00:12:15,319
Speaker 1: included Egyptian women, although probably just the wealthy ones I

204
00:12:15,360 --> 00:12:17,880
Speaker 1: would think, who had the choice to attend either a

205
00:12:17,960 --> 00:12:21,360
Speaker 1: co ed or all female medical school. And then if

206
00:12:21,360 --> 00:12:25,360
Speaker 1: we moved to five six hundred BC, women were treated

207
00:12:25,400 --> 00:12:30,960
Speaker 1: as equals in many Greek academic and philosophical communities. And

208
00:12:31,000 --> 00:12:35,160
Speaker 1: if we jump away ahead though, into one thousand to

209
00:12:35,760 --> 00:12:39,680
Speaker 1: fourteen hundred, which you would think, what a horrible time,

210
00:12:39,760 --> 00:12:42,960
Speaker 1: probably just to be a human in general, so much

211
00:12:43,800 --> 00:12:46,880
Speaker 1: lack of plumbing, so much mud, A smelly time. It

212
00:12:47,000 --> 00:12:50,280
Speaker 1: was a smelly time, and probably not an amazing time

213
00:12:50,320 --> 00:12:54,760
Speaker 1: for women either. But surprisingly, I keep saying surprisingly I

214
00:12:54,800 --> 00:12:56,520
Speaker 1: had there were a lot of surprises for me. And

215
00:12:56,559 --> 00:13:01,840
Speaker 1: it's recently, but during this time, opportunities for European women

216
00:13:02,240 --> 00:13:07,760
Speaker 1: hit a high thanks to monastic life. Yeah, you wouldn't.

217
00:13:08,200 --> 00:13:11,480
Speaker 1: You wouldn't think so, considering, you know, the whole execution

218
00:13:11,520 --> 00:13:16,080
Speaker 1: of Galileo and whatnot. But it makes sense when you

219
00:13:16,080 --> 00:13:18,680
Speaker 1: think about it, because at this time, the majority of

220
00:13:18,679 --> 00:13:22,679
Speaker 1: both male and female scientists were members of religious orders

221
00:13:22,720 --> 00:13:26,720
Speaker 1: and studying the stars, studying celestial objects and their movement.

222
00:13:27,440 --> 00:13:29,640
Speaker 1: It was essentially a way to get closer to God,

223
00:13:29,720 --> 00:13:32,480
Speaker 1: to get closer to the creator who put all of

224
00:13:32,520 --> 00:13:35,840
Speaker 1: that stuff in motion in their minds. And it also

225
00:13:35,880 --> 00:13:37,400
Speaker 1: had a lot to do with the fact that the

226
00:13:37,480 --> 00:13:41,679
Speaker 1: Church made an effort to correct the Julian calendar and

227
00:13:41,920 --> 00:13:44,960
Speaker 1: work some things out because they essentially had an astronomical

228
00:13:45,000 --> 00:13:48,280
Speaker 1: basis for determining when Easter and other holy days fell,

229
00:13:48,559 --> 00:13:51,160
Speaker 1: and so it makes sense that if you're hanging out

230
00:13:51,280 --> 00:13:54,280
Speaker 1: in the abbey slash being a nun or some type

231
00:13:54,280 --> 00:13:57,439
Speaker 1: of clergyman like Copernicus, for instance, was a Catholic clergyman,

232
00:13:57,840 --> 00:14:01,520
Speaker 1: you would participate in the study of the stars. And

233
00:14:01,640 --> 00:14:04,079
Speaker 1: we should point out before we move on that all

234
00:14:04,080 --> 00:14:06,480
Speaker 1: of this fascinating information that we're talking about right now

235
00:14:06,559 --> 00:14:09,920
Speaker 1: is coming from Patsy and guys from Slippery Rock University

236
00:14:09,960 --> 00:14:13,520
Speaker 1: and her paper called Women in Science five thousand Years

237
00:14:13,520 --> 00:14:17,240
Speaker 1: of Obstacles and Achievements. I mean, it's a fascinating read.

238
00:14:17,400 --> 00:14:20,000
Speaker 1: And that was sort of the tipping point when I

239
00:14:20,040 --> 00:14:22,440
Speaker 1: realized we're not going to be able to do this

240
00:14:22,480 --> 00:14:26,280
Speaker 1: in just one episode. This one podcast episode cannot contain

241
00:14:26,440 --> 00:14:30,160
Speaker 1: the whole galaxy. That's so right. It's it's just true.

242
00:14:30,200 --> 00:14:33,880
Speaker 1: It's fact. That's a scientific fact. Um. But you would

243
00:14:33,880 --> 00:14:36,840
Speaker 1: think that once we get into the sixteenth century, into

244
00:14:36,880 --> 00:14:41,520
Speaker 1: the Renaissance, that women in science would enjoy even more opportunities,

245
00:14:41,520 --> 00:14:45,760
Speaker 1: but in fact, just the opposite happened. The number of

246
00:14:45,800 --> 00:14:50,640
Speaker 1: women in science decreased because in part, this was a

247
00:14:50,640 --> 00:14:54,480
Speaker 1: time when many abbeys were closed and universities which were

248
00:14:54,520 --> 00:14:58,920
Speaker 1: often barred to women grew and so basically during this time,

249
00:14:58,920 --> 00:15:02,720
Speaker 1: women who had and physicians or who held any scientific knowledge.

250
00:15:02,880 --> 00:15:05,720
Speaker 1: Think from our Women Explorer series Jeane Beret, who was

251
00:15:05,760 --> 00:15:09,360
Speaker 1: an herb woman who her knowledge became sort of suspect.

252
00:15:10,040 --> 00:15:13,520
Speaker 1: These women ended up getting called charlatan's at best and

253
00:15:13,600 --> 00:15:19,200
Speaker 1: at worst, which is who were then put to deaths science, medicine,

254
00:15:19,960 --> 00:15:25,560
Speaker 1: any of these discovery type fields. Uh, they weren't trusted

255
00:15:25,600 --> 00:15:28,840
Speaker 1: anymore to do things. Yeah, history has long been suspect

256
00:15:29,040 --> 00:15:35,040
Speaker 1: of smart women. Yeah they must be witches. But in

257
00:15:35,080 --> 00:15:40,080
Speaker 1: the seventeenth century, though, with the newly invented microscope, there

258
00:15:40,200 --> 00:15:42,800
Speaker 1: is a rise in the number of women's scientists because

259
00:15:42,880 --> 00:15:48,920
Speaker 1: with the microscope, this also expands the kinds of sciences

260
00:15:48,960 --> 00:15:53,280
Speaker 1: that people are exploring. So you have things like botany

261
00:15:53,280 --> 00:15:57,680
Speaker 1: and entomology in particular, which are seen as women appropriate

262
00:15:58,120 --> 00:16:02,479
Speaker 1: sciences clients. Now, a lot of women who might be interested,

263
00:16:02,560 --> 00:16:07,000
Speaker 1: say in botany, weren't necessarily going to university to study it.

264
00:16:07,240 --> 00:16:11,000
Speaker 1: They would often be taught at home. And again, women

265
00:16:11,040 --> 00:16:16,760
Speaker 1: who were receiving any education at all, we're probably wealthier anyway. Um,

266
00:16:16,880 --> 00:16:20,440
Speaker 1: and what was interesting though, is that manufacturers of microscopes

267
00:16:20,480 --> 00:16:26,080
Speaker 1: and telescopes held lectures that attracted women, so they were

268
00:16:26,120 --> 00:16:29,600
Speaker 1: sometimes paying attention to women, maybe seeking this demographic, and

269
00:16:30,240 --> 00:16:33,600
Speaker 1: women were also seeking this knowledge out as well. Women

270
00:16:33,640 --> 00:16:35,360
Speaker 1: kind of had to do it for themselves in terms

271
00:16:35,360 --> 00:16:38,560
Speaker 1: of feeding their own curiosity. Yeah, and they did this

272
00:16:38,640 --> 00:16:41,680
Speaker 1: by picking up the first periodical that was published for

273
00:16:41,680 --> 00:16:45,120
Speaker 1: women interested in science, which is published between six and

274
00:16:45,200 --> 00:16:48,440
Speaker 1: six And I didn't dig too deeply into this because

275
00:16:48,440 --> 00:16:49,600
Speaker 1: you know, I had to get a move on with

276
00:16:49,640 --> 00:16:52,360
Speaker 1: the whole star stuff and everything, but I would love

277
00:16:52,400 --> 00:16:56,320
Speaker 1: to learn more about this this magazine for for women.

278
00:16:56,440 --> 00:17:01,480
Speaker 1: I think it was called Yield Lady Scientists, right. Uh. Well,

279
00:17:01,480 --> 00:17:04,480
Speaker 1: then we move into the eighteenth century and the Enlightenment,

280
00:17:05,160 --> 00:17:09,240
Speaker 1: and women in science got a boost with help from family,

281
00:17:09,440 --> 00:17:12,480
Speaker 1: but this typically was just the wealthy and the privileged

282
00:17:12,520 --> 00:17:18,000
Speaker 1: women who followed father's brothers husbands into scientific fields. And

283
00:17:18,000 --> 00:17:20,440
Speaker 1: then continuing that trend in the nineteenth century, we see

284
00:17:20,440 --> 00:17:22,560
Speaker 1: the number of women's scientists who are working with their

285
00:17:22,640 --> 00:17:26,840
Speaker 1: husbands increase, and this trend continues as we move into

286
00:17:26,840 --> 00:17:29,280
Speaker 1: the nineteenth century when we see the number of women's

287
00:17:29,280 --> 00:17:33,000
Speaker 1: scientists who are working with their husbands increasing and there

288
00:17:33,040 --> 00:17:35,800
Speaker 1: was more of a push for educating women, not for

289
00:17:35,920 --> 00:17:38,880
Speaker 1: education's sake or to enrich the lives of women themselves,

290
00:17:38,960 --> 00:17:41,800
Speaker 1: but more to make them better companions for their husbands

291
00:17:42,040 --> 00:17:45,199
Speaker 1: and eventually better mothers, so that they would be, you know,

292
00:17:45,320 --> 00:17:48,119
Speaker 1: basically more interesting to talk to. Yeah, I mean you

293
00:17:48,160 --> 00:17:51,639
Speaker 1: did have at this time the first women's colleges starting

294
00:17:51,640 --> 00:17:54,800
Speaker 1: to pop up, particularly in New England, and then with

295
00:17:54,840 --> 00:17:58,199
Speaker 1: that you would see more funding for research projects and

296
00:17:58,320 --> 00:18:03,000
Speaker 1: more astronomical servatories being built that women would have access to.

297
00:18:03,520 --> 00:18:05,480
Speaker 1: But as we'll get into more detail when we talk

298
00:18:05,520 --> 00:18:11,440
Speaker 1: about some of the astronomical superstars of that time, there

299
00:18:11,600 --> 00:18:14,960
Speaker 1: was constantly this concern between making sure there was an

300
00:18:14,960 --> 00:18:20,840
Speaker 1: appropriate balance between education and femininity, essentially making sure that

301
00:18:20,880 --> 00:18:23,800
Speaker 1: a woman didn't learn too much and wasn't so interested

302
00:18:23,840 --> 00:18:26,200
Speaker 1: in her research and looking up at the stars that

303
00:18:26,280 --> 00:18:31,200
Speaker 1: she basically defeminized herself that she couldn't take care of

304
00:18:31,560 --> 00:18:35,400
Speaker 1: domestic duties as well. Right, Well, So all of that

305
00:18:35,520 --> 00:18:38,960
Speaker 1: context leads us to the history of women's involvement in

306
00:18:39,000 --> 00:18:44,120
Speaker 1: astronomy specifically. So let's move back into early astronomy, into

307
00:18:44,160 --> 00:18:47,879
Speaker 1: ancient Egypt, and here we get the last great scientists

308
00:18:47,920 --> 00:18:53,200
Speaker 1: of antiquity, as Pattianne Guys calls her, astronomer and mathematician Hypatia,

309
00:18:53,240 --> 00:18:57,679
Speaker 1: who was born in three seventy a d. And you know,

310
00:18:57,720 --> 00:19:00,320
Speaker 1: we have to point out the whole trend in terms

311
00:19:00,440 --> 00:19:04,240
Speaker 1: of how women at this time got into science and

312
00:19:04,280 --> 00:19:06,960
Speaker 1: math to begin with. And Hypatia is the first example

313
00:19:07,000 --> 00:19:10,680
Speaker 1: that we really get of um a woman scientist or

314
00:19:10,760 --> 00:19:14,320
Speaker 1: mathematician following in the footsteps of a man in order

315
00:19:14,320 --> 00:19:17,200
Speaker 1: to either help him or get involved in science herself.

316
00:19:17,800 --> 00:19:21,760
Speaker 1: And she ended up following her mathematician father's footsteps. She

317
00:19:21,880 --> 00:19:24,840
Speaker 1: lectured on math and astronomy at the University of Alexandria

318
00:19:24,880 --> 00:19:27,160
Speaker 1: where she was head of the Platinus School around four

319
00:19:27,280 --> 00:19:30,399
Speaker 1: hundred a d. Head of the school, head of the school,

320
00:19:30,520 --> 00:19:33,920
Speaker 1: and uh. In addition to that math in astronomy, Caroline,

321
00:19:34,280 --> 00:19:37,800
Speaker 1: as you would in the time, she also studied astrology,

322
00:19:37,840 --> 00:19:40,560
Speaker 1: because of course all of those things were mixed together.

323
00:19:40,720 --> 00:19:43,440
Speaker 1: And the significant thing too about her following in her

324
00:19:43,480 --> 00:19:46,520
Speaker 1: father's footsteps as a mathematician um. And if this name

325
00:19:46,560 --> 00:19:49,440
Speaker 1: is familiar is because we mentioned her in our women

326
00:19:49,560 --> 00:19:54,040
Speaker 1: in Math episode as part of that Stems series. He's

327
00:19:54,080 --> 00:19:58,679
Speaker 1: intentionally mentored her as well, and mentorship will become a

328
00:19:58,720 --> 00:20:03,199
Speaker 1: really important theme of women's participation in astronomy, as it

329
00:20:03,280 --> 00:20:06,800
Speaker 1: is always with any of the stem fields, or typically

330
00:20:06,800 --> 00:20:10,640
Speaker 1: in any more male dominated field period. Now, in terms

331
00:20:10,640 --> 00:20:13,640
Speaker 1: of her research on astronomy in particular, Hypatia is known

332
00:20:13,640 --> 00:20:18,200
Speaker 1: for charting celestial bodies and possibly inventing a device called

333
00:20:18,240 --> 00:20:22,760
Speaker 1: the plain astro labe. Some sources credited to being invented

334
00:20:22,760 --> 00:20:26,080
Speaker 1: about a century earlier, but regardless, she used the plane

335
00:20:26,080 --> 00:20:31,720
Speaker 1: astrolabe often to measure the positions of stars and planets. Now, sadly,

336
00:20:31,800 --> 00:20:36,720
Speaker 1: Hypatia's life does not have a happy ending because there

337
00:20:37,119 --> 00:20:40,480
Speaker 1: was at the time a lot of conflict between science

338
00:20:40,680 --> 00:20:44,840
Speaker 1: and religion, and in four fifteen she was murdered by

339
00:20:44,880 --> 00:20:49,080
Speaker 1: a Christian mob that really hated Platinism, and as you mentioned,

340
00:20:49,080 --> 00:20:52,000
Speaker 1: she was the head of the Platinum School, so off

341
00:20:52,040 --> 00:20:53,920
Speaker 1: with her head. Actually, I think she was stone to

342
00:20:53,960 --> 00:20:58,120
Speaker 1: death and her skin was ripped from her body. Is okay,

343
00:20:58,200 --> 00:21:03,440
Speaker 1: uh yeah, yeah, we've never been without conflict between science

344
00:21:03,440 --> 00:21:07,040
Speaker 1: and religion, and Hypatious just one example. But if we

345
00:21:07,119 --> 00:21:11,920
Speaker 1: move forward to we get an example of how religion

346
00:21:12,000 --> 00:21:16,040
Speaker 1: actually played a part in a woman becoming an amazing scientist.

347
00:21:16,119 --> 00:21:19,960
Speaker 1: We have been a Dictine Abbess Hilde God of Binyon.

348
00:21:20,600 --> 00:21:23,480
Speaker 1: She was the most influential woman scientist of her era

349
00:21:23,560 --> 00:21:26,879
Speaker 1: and the earliest woman whose major works are still intact

350
00:21:27,200 --> 00:21:30,960
Speaker 1: and all. Hildegard studied cosmology, which is the study of

351
00:21:30,960 --> 00:21:33,800
Speaker 1: the origins of the universe, in addition to many, many,

352
00:21:33,880 --> 00:21:37,760
Speaker 1: many other disciplines. Yeah, and she advised all sorts of

353
00:21:37,800 --> 00:21:41,240
Speaker 1: important men of the day. For instance, the Pope would

354
00:21:41,280 --> 00:21:43,080
Speaker 1: sometimes come to her and be like, Hill to God,

355
00:21:44,080 --> 00:21:48,480
Speaker 1: what's happened in your brain hole? Like what, I've had

356
00:21:48,520 --> 00:21:51,399
Speaker 1: some visions? She had lots of visions, you know what.

357
00:21:51,480 --> 00:21:54,400
Speaker 1: I actually I think, if I'm not wrong, I actually

358
00:21:54,400 --> 00:21:57,480
Speaker 1: read about her in a book about migraines and like

359
00:21:58,520 --> 00:22:01,760
Speaker 1: or or oh maybe she would she get migraine auras,

360
00:22:01,920 --> 00:22:03,600
Speaker 1: And I think I think she was one of the people,

361
00:22:03,640 --> 00:22:05,000
Speaker 1: like a lot of people back in the day. They

362
00:22:05,040 --> 00:22:09,240
Speaker 1: think Joan of arc too probably got like aura, which

363
00:22:09,800 --> 00:22:13,080
Speaker 1: translated into, oh, she's getting a vision. She's either let's

364
00:22:13,080 --> 00:22:18,159
Speaker 1: either kill her Berner at the stake, or let's praise

365
00:22:18,240 --> 00:22:22,600
Speaker 1: her scientific knowledge. Thankfully, Hildegarde made the cut. She did

366
00:22:22,640 --> 00:22:24,520
Speaker 1: not make the cut. I don't know which one of

367
00:22:24,520 --> 00:22:27,600
Speaker 1: those would work when it comes to beheading, but regardless,

368
00:22:27,920 --> 00:22:32,000
Speaker 1: Hildegard was a standout female scientists at the time. And

369
00:22:32,040 --> 00:22:36,240
Speaker 1: it would be almost seven hundred years before we would

370
00:22:36,280 --> 00:22:42,200
Speaker 1: get the first Western woman astronomer that we have on record,

371
00:22:42,280 --> 00:22:47,040
Speaker 1: and this is a woman named Elissa Bethavelius who, following

372
00:22:47,040 --> 00:22:50,760
Speaker 1: this pattern of women getting into science and studying science

373
00:22:51,280 --> 00:22:54,840
Speaker 1: via the men in their life, she really came to

374
00:22:54,920 --> 00:22:58,840
Speaker 1: astronomy through her husband. Yeah. She helped her husband run

375
00:22:58,880 --> 00:23:02,440
Speaker 1: his observatory, and after he died, she ended up putting

376
00:23:02,480 --> 00:23:06,800
Speaker 1: together a catalog of more than fifteen hundred stars. Yeah,

377
00:23:06,800 --> 00:23:11,280
Speaker 1: and this is happening in the late seventeenth century. And uh,

378
00:23:11,440 --> 00:23:15,560
Speaker 1: Maria Papovo was writing about the relationship between Hevelius and

379
00:23:15,600 --> 00:23:18,840
Speaker 1: her husband over at her website brain Pickings, and she

380
00:23:18,920 --> 00:23:23,680
Speaker 1: was talking about how, uh, and a lot of times marriage,

381
00:23:23,800 --> 00:23:26,960
Speaker 1: especially if you say didn't come from a super wealthy background,

382
00:23:27,520 --> 00:23:31,320
Speaker 1: that was another way that you could get into formal

383
00:23:31,400 --> 00:23:34,480
Speaker 1: education and scholarly work, which would obviously still be happening

384
00:23:34,760 --> 00:23:37,359
Speaker 1: on more of a domestic front. And she referred to

385
00:23:37,400 --> 00:23:42,280
Speaker 1: this as a conjugal apprenticeship. Which I thought was a

386
00:23:42,320 --> 00:23:46,680
Speaker 1: really fascinating phrase and something that will still see moving

387
00:23:46,760 --> 00:23:50,240
Speaker 1: into more modern histories of women in astronomy, because a

388
00:23:50,320 --> 00:23:54,280
Speaker 1: lot of astronomy teams that discovered a lot of these

389
00:23:54,320 --> 00:23:59,679
Speaker 1: incredible structures in our sky are married couples. Yeah, conjugal

390
00:24:00,040 --> 00:24:02,960
Speaker 1: printed that sounds like something completely different. Yeah, I mean

391
00:24:03,000 --> 00:24:06,520
Speaker 1: I have a feeling, you know, when some astronomers and

392
00:24:06,560 --> 00:24:12,840
Speaker 1: love go on dates, there some conjugal apprenticeships happening. To Caroline, Well,

393
00:24:13,240 --> 00:24:15,400
Speaker 1: that seems like a good place to take a break, Kristen,

394
00:24:16,280 --> 00:24:19,120
Speaker 1: I agree. I agree. And when we come back, we're

395
00:24:19,119 --> 00:24:22,359
Speaker 1: going to talk about some names that if you haven't

396
00:24:22,359 --> 00:24:25,439
Speaker 1: heard of them, you need to know them, because these

397
00:24:25,480 --> 00:24:31,439
Speaker 1: women are like the supernovas of the early history of

398
00:24:31,440 --> 00:24:34,680
Speaker 1: women in astronomers. They are the dense exploded stars. Yes,

399
00:24:38,440 --> 00:24:42,520
Speaker 1: and now back to the show. So when we left off,

400
00:24:42,600 --> 00:24:45,879
Speaker 1: we were talking about ELIZABETHA Havlius in the late seventeenth

401
00:24:45,880 --> 00:24:49,320
Speaker 1: century and how she picked up on the heels of

402
00:24:49,359 --> 00:24:54,800
Speaker 1: her late husband's work cataloging thousands of stars. And now

403
00:24:54,800 --> 00:24:59,320
Speaker 1: when we move into the late eighteenth and mid nineteenth century,

404
00:24:59,560 --> 00:25:02,760
Speaker 1: we have of another woman who gets into astronomy via

405
00:25:03,200 --> 00:25:06,040
Speaker 1: a gentleman in her life. This time we're going to

406
00:25:06,160 --> 00:25:10,600
Speaker 1: talk about Caroline Herschel, who studied astronomy while assisting her

407
00:25:10,640 --> 00:25:16,000
Speaker 1: brother Vilhelm Vide. Yeah. I love Caroline Herschel. I loved

408
00:25:16,040 --> 00:25:18,840
Speaker 1: reading about her. She's such a fascinating character. But when

409
00:25:18,840 --> 00:25:21,720
Speaker 1: you Google her, you know the images that pop up,

410
00:25:21,760 --> 00:25:24,280
Speaker 1: which obviously they're not pictures people, but the images that

411
00:25:24,320 --> 00:25:26,920
Speaker 1: pop up are of an old woman, like this chrone

412
00:25:26,920 --> 00:25:30,000
Speaker 1: looking woman. And I was like, oh gosh, why don't

413
00:25:30,040 --> 00:25:32,119
Speaker 1: we have any like why is she not depicted as

414
00:25:32,119 --> 00:25:35,320
Speaker 1: a positive young lady. Why isn't she sexier on her

415
00:25:35,320 --> 00:25:38,760
Speaker 1: insta ram feed? Why? Well, for I was just suspicious that,

416
00:25:38,840 --> 00:25:41,440
Speaker 1: like our people, were people depicting her as an old

417
00:25:41,480 --> 00:25:46,000
Speaker 1: crone because you know, social things of the era. They didn't,

418
00:25:46,000 --> 00:25:48,480
Speaker 1: you know, young women. It wasn't appropriate. And then I

419
00:25:48,520 --> 00:25:51,600
Speaker 1: came to realize, as I actually read beyond just looking

420
00:25:51,600 --> 00:25:55,719
Speaker 1: at Google image results, that she got into astronomy and

421
00:25:55,760 --> 00:25:59,080
Speaker 1: made her major discoveries much later in life. She started

422
00:25:59,119 --> 00:26:02,639
Speaker 1: out pursuing music. She was from a very musical family.

423
00:26:02,720 --> 00:26:05,200
Speaker 1: She was the only girl in the family. Her father

424
00:26:05,320 --> 00:26:08,200
Speaker 1: was very musical, and Vin had it was also very musical,

425
00:26:08,840 --> 00:26:12,200
Speaker 1: and she actually kind of had to make a choice

426
00:26:12,200 --> 00:26:14,719
Speaker 1: eventually in her life about whether she was going to

427
00:26:14,760 --> 00:26:18,360
Speaker 1: continue pursuing music because her her career was pretty successful,

428
00:26:19,160 --> 00:26:22,680
Speaker 1: or follow her brother into astronomy. Now before she had

429
00:26:22,720 --> 00:26:25,919
Speaker 1: to make that decision, though, can we talk for a

430
00:26:25,960 --> 00:26:29,040
Speaker 1: minute about her mother and how awful her mother was

431
00:26:29,080 --> 00:26:32,480
Speaker 1: because Caroline Herschel was not a looker. I mean, as

432
00:26:32,520 --> 00:26:34,760
Speaker 1: you mentioned, you know, if you if you see her,

433
00:26:34,760 --> 00:26:37,119
Speaker 1: she does, I mean, she does look like a prototypical

434
00:26:37,640 --> 00:26:42,600
Speaker 1: old maid, spinster type. And her mom realized pretty early

435
00:26:42,680 --> 00:26:46,960
Speaker 1: on that Caroline probably wasn't going to snag a husband

436
00:26:47,000 --> 00:26:48,879
Speaker 1: anytime soon. She was also very short, I think she

437
00:26:48,920 --> 00:26:52,800
Speaker 1: was like for one um, and so her mom's plan

438
00:26:53,000 --> 00:26:56,040
Speaker 1: for her was to stay at home and clean. It

439
00:26:56,119 --> 00:27:00,680
Speaker 1: was like she wanted her to be Cinderella essentially, Yeah, exactly. Um, well,

440
00:27:00,760 --> 00:27:05,000
Speaker 1: so Caroline basically says screw that and follows her brother

441
00:27:05,080 --> 00:27:09,080
Speaker 1: from Germany to England, where they're both pursuing music that

442
00:27:09,119 --> 00:27:12,520
Speaker 1: he's also studying astronomy, and when her brother went away,

443
00:27:12,600 --> 00:27:17,000
Speaker 1: when he left their house, she used his reflecting telescopes,

444
00:27:17,119 --> 00:27:19,440
Speaker 1: which she had helped him and their other brother build.

445
00:27:19,480 --> 00:27:23,080
Speaker 1: By the way, in addition to studying astronomy and math,

446
00:27:23,280 --> 00:27:27,000
Speaker 1: and so in sev vill Helm. I'm sorry, I can't,

447
00:27:27,040 --> 00:27:30,200
Speaker 1: I have to say it that way. Vill Helm gets

448
00:27:30,320 --> 00:27:33,880
Speaker 1: famous because no big deal. He discovered uranus and then

449
00:27:34,040 --> 00:27:37,760
Speaker 1: ends up accepting a position as a royal astronomer. Yeah,

450
00:27:37,800 --> 00:27:40,400
Speaker 1: and he ended up bringing Caroline with him. And by

451
00:27:40,400 --> 00:27:46,000
Speaker 1: this point Caroline had soaked up so much astronomical knowledge

452
00:27:46,040 --> 00:27:49,120
Speaker 1: from Wilhelm, and she had spent a lot of time

453
00:27:49,680 --> 00:27:52,679
Speaker 1: at the house. By the way, she was also his

454
00:27:52,920 --> 00:27:56,719
Speaker 1: housekeeper on the side, but in her spare time she

455
00:27:56,760 --> 00:27:59,359
Speaker 1: would do what was called just sweeping the sky of

456
00:27:59,520 --> 00:28:04,639
Speaker 1: just you, using a small telescope to scan the heavens

457
00:28:05,160 --> 00:28:09,520
Speaker 1: to see essentially what she could see. And through that,

458
00:28:09,560 --> 00:28:14,560
Speaker 1: through that kind of wrote uh sweeping for lack of

459
00:28:14,560 --> 00:28:16,680
Speaker 1: a better word. So she was sweeping at the house

460
00:28:16,720 --> 00:28:21,399
Speaker 1: but also sky indeed. But through that she you know,

461
00:28:21,600 --> 00:28:26,520
Speaker 1: you sort of developed this uh internal map of the

462
00:28:26,560 --> 00:28:29,680
Speaker 1: stars which allows you to then see new things that

463
00:28:29,760 --> 00:28:34,000
Speaker 1: might pop out to you. So when she goes with Wilhelm,

464
00:28:34,160 --> 00:28:37,600
Speaker 1: she becomes appointed as a qualified assistance and then starts

465
00:28:37,600 --> 00:28:40,880
Speaker 1: earning a salary of fifty pounds a year, which makes

466
00:28:41,000 --> 00:28:46,520
Speaker 1: her the first woman to earn a salary for scientific work. Yeah,

467
00:28:46,560 --> 00:28:49,880
Speaker 1: And I think what's so interesting about her is that

468
00:28:50,840 --> 00:28:53,520
Speaker 1: not only did she follow the trend of getting involved

469
00:28:53,520 --> 00:28:55,760
Speaker 1: in science because of a man in her life, but

470
00:28:56,360 --> 00:28:59,880
Speaker 1: because she was already sort of transgressing social norms by

471
00:29:00,080 --> 00:29:02,880
Speaker 1: not marrying, by not staying at home and doing the

472
00:29:02,880 --> 00:29:04,920
Speaker 1: housework for her mother and the rest of her family.

473
00:29:05,240 --> 00:29:07,719
Speaker 1: It's sort of, I mean, it's sort of freed her

474
00:29:07,840 --> 00:29:10,800
Speaker 1: up to live this incredible life. And so in seventeen

475
00:29:10,800 --> 00:29:16,920
Speaker 1: eighty three she discovers fourteen nebulae, and between seventeen eighty

476
00:29:17,000 --> 00:29:21,360
Speaker 1: six and seventeen ninety seven she discovers eight comments. She

477
00:29:21,440 --> 00:29:26,160
Speaker 1: eventually compiles two entire catalogs of stars, and then receives

478
00:29:26,160 --> 00:29:29,760
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of awards in the nineteenth century. Yeah.

479
00:29:29,800 --> 00:29:33,800
Speaker 1: In eighty eight, the Royal Astronomical Society awarded her the

480
00:29:33,880 --> 00:29:37,320
Speaker 1: Gold Medal, and an eighteen thirty five named her an

481
00:29:37,320 --> 00:29:39,640
Speaker 1: honorary member, which was a big deal because, as you

482
00:29:39,680 --> 00:29:42,640
Speaker 1: can imagine, there were not many other women, if any,

483
00:29:42,680 --> 00:29:45,280
Speaker 1: who are getting these same kinds of accolades. Then in

484
00:29:45,360 --> 00:29:49,320
Speaker 1: eighteen thirty eight the Royal Irish Academy of Sciences appointed her,

485
00:29:49,600 --> 00:29:52,280
Speaker 1: then at eighty eight years old to its ranks, and

486
00:29:52,320 --> 00:29:55,360
Speaker 1: in eighteen forty six, at ninety six years old, she

487
00:29:55,520 --> 00:29:58,480
Speaker 1: was awarded the Gold Medal of the Prussian Academy of Sciences.

488
00:29:58,560 --> 00:30:02,920
Speaker 1: And I wonder, Caroline, if any of this Caroline co host,

489
00:30:02,920 --> 00:30:05,800
Speaker 1: Caroline Herschel, but you as well, Herschel, if you're listening.

490
00:30:06,200 --> 00:30:08,560
Speaker 1: I wonder if any of this really would have been

491
00:30:08,760 --> 00:30:13,480
Speaker 1: possible if she had married, even if she had still

492
00:30:13,520 --> 00:30:16,719
Speaker 1: discovered all the nebula, all the comments. I have a

493
00:30:16,720 --> 00:30:19,320
Speaker 1: feeling there would have been a lot of discomfort among

494
00:30:19,360 --> 00:30:23,440
Speaker 1: the scientific community of this woman who was also trying

495
00:30:23,480 --> 00:30:25,640
Speaker 1: to be a wife and a mother, because there was

496
00:30:26,640 --> 00:30:30,400
Speaker 1: there were two distinctly separate spheres. Well, I mean god

497
00:30:30,560 --> 00:30:33,040
Speaker 1: like up until the I mean even still today if

498
00:30:33,080 --> 00:30:34,840
Speaker 1: you want to be honest, but I mean, up until

499
00:30:34,920 --> 00:30:38,400
Speaker 1: the seventies, nineties, seventies, and eighties, there was still an

500
00:30:38,440 --> 00:30:40,600
Speaker 1: attitude of like, oh, well, we don't want to hire

501
00:30:40,640 --> 00:30:44,880
Speaker 1: a wife somebody's wife, because she'll she'll either leave because

502
00:30:44,920 --> 00:30:47,520
Speaker 1: she wants to have babies, or she'll she already has

503
00:30:47,520 --> 00:30:49,080
Speaker 1: babies and she'll need to leave at some point to

504
00:30:49,080 --> 00:30:51,640
Speaker 1: take care of them. I mean, like they're There are

505
00:30:51,720 --> 00:30:56,080
Speaker 1: still issues of separate spheres that we tackle today. But

506
00:30:56,160 --> 00:30:58,040
Speaker 1: the fact that she wasn't married, the fact that she

507
00:30:58,080 --> 00:31:00,600
Speaker 1: followed her brother into science, and then that she had

508
00:31:00,680 --> 00:31:05,080
Speaker 1: all of this time to dedicate to this wonderful field

509
00:31:05,080 --> 00:31:08,040
Speaker 1: of science that she absolutely loved and became passionate about,

510
00:31:08,520 --> 00:31:11,360
Speaker 1: And it kind of echoes things that I've read modern

511
00:31:12,040 --> 00:31:14,640
Speaker 1: women in the stem field say that, like God, I

512
00:31:14,680 --> 00:31:17,840
Speaker 1: wish I had a housewife, you know, like you can

513
00:31:17,880 --> 00:31:22,920
Speaker 1: accomplish anything. Anyone can accomplish anything if they do have

514
00:31:22,960 --> 00:31:25,920
Speaker 1: a little help at home. Sometimes. Well, an incredible too

515
00:31:25,960 --> 00:31:30,160
Speaker 1: that not only does her shall follow in her brother's footsteps,

516
00:31:30,200 --> 00:31:34,000
Speaker 1: she also ends up eclipsing him career wise. And yes,

517
00:31:34,080 --> 00:31:38,160
Speaker 1: that was a little bit of an astronomical fun. Well.

518
00:31:38,280 --> 00:31:41,560
Speaker 1: One of the big hitters, one of the giant celebrities,

519
00:31:41,600 --> 00:31:44,040
Speaker 1: one of the big stars, you might say, Kristen in

520
00:31:44,240 --> 00:31:48,760
Speaker 1: early astronomy, is Mariah Mitchell. And if you've watched Cosmos,

521
00:31:48,800 --> 00:31:51,960
Speaker 1: if you've studied anything about astronomy at all, you probably

522
00:31:52,000 --> 00:31:56,240
Speaker 1: know Mitchell's name. She entered the field because a she

523
00:31:56,360 --> 00:31:59,920
Speaker 1: received a great education thanks to her Quaker family and upbringing.

524
00:32:00,280 --> 00:32:03,320
Speaker 1: Plus she had a father who inspired her interest in

525
00:32:03,360 --> 00:32:06,280
Speaker 1: astronomy and not passively. It wasn't like he was studying

526
00:32:06,280 --> 00:32:08,000
Speaker 1: the stars and she was like, oh, mine, that looks

527
00:32:08,080 --> 00:32:11,880
Speaker 1: very interesting. He actively took a role in bringing her

528
00:32:11,960 --> 00:32:15,720
Speaker 1: into the study of the stars. Yeah, he taught her

529
00:32:15,800 --> 00:32:20,040
Speaker 1: about serving and navigation. She helped him calculate the position

530
00:32:20,080 --> 00:32:23,320
Speaker 1: of their house by observing a solar eclipse, and together

531
00:32:23,360 --> 00:32:27,880
Speaker 1: they acquired astronomical equipment and conducted observations. And this mentorship

532
00:32:27,920 --> 00:32:31,680
Speaker 1: was so effective, and obviously she had an innate gift

533
00:32:31,800 --> 00:32:34,320
Speaker 1: for astronomy. On top of this that by the time

534
00:32:34,680 --> 00:32:39,280
Speaker 1: she was fourteen, sailors were entrusting her to essentially plot

535
00:32:39,320 --> 00:32:44,640
Speaker 1: out navigational routes using the stars for long whaling trips.

536
00:32:44,920 --> 00:32:47,440
Speaker 1: Can you imagine like this fourteen year old being like, okay,

537
00:32:47,440 --> 00:32:49,840
Speaker 1: and then you're going to take a left here at

538
00:32:49,880 --> 00:32:55,040
Speaker 1: this star left when she sees Cerberus. And that's that's

539
00:32:55,480 --> 00:32:57,880
Speaker 1: the intent of mine right straight until morning. I don't

540
00:32:57,920 --> 00:33:01,440
Speaker 1: know anything else exactly. Oh by the way, though, for

541
00:33:02,000 --> 00:33:06,280
Speaker 1: listeners who are cringing thinking her name is Maria Mitchell,

542
00:33:06,360 --> 00:33:09,240
Speaker 1: not Maria Mitchell. Yes, it is spelled to look like

543
00:33:09,480 --> 00:33:13,680
Speaker 1: Maria m A R I A, but it is pronounced Maria.

544
00:33:14,040 --> 00:33:19,520
Speaker 1: That's right. That's right, and Maria is our first professional

545
00:33:19,640 --> 00:33:23,520
Speaker 1: female astronomer here in America, and so let's take off

546
00:33:23,560 --> 00:33:27,600
Speaker 1: a few of her accomplishments. So in eighteen forty seven,

547
00:33:27,880 --> 00:33:31,720
Speaker 1: Maria discovers a comment, and three years later, in eighteen fifty,

548
00:33:31,840 --> 00:33:35,120
Speaker 1: she becomes the first woman elected to the American Association

549
00:33:35,160 --> 00:33:38,520
Speaker 1: for the Advancement of Science. And by this time though,

550
00:33:38,560 --> 00:33:41,800
Speaker 1: she was the only female astronomer in the United States.

551
00:33:42,320 --> 00:33:46,120
Speaker 1: And in eighteen sixty five she becomes an astronomy professor

552
00:33:46,240 --> 00:33:50,080
Speaker 1: at Vassar College, where she stayed until she retired in

553
00:33:50,240 --> 00:33:55,600
Speaker 1: eighty eight, and her salary though even though she discovered

554
00:33:55,640 --> 00:33:59,120
Speaker 1: a comment, she received a medal from the King of Denmark,

555
00:33:59,600 --> 00:34:03,000
Speaker 1: among other awards for this discovery and other discoveries that

556
00:34:03,040 --> 00:34:06,600
Speaker 1: she made. Even still, when she goes to Vassar, which

557
00:34:06,640 --> 00:34:09,880
Speaker 1: is a woman's college, but at the time women's colleges

558
00:34:09,880 --> 00:34:12,160
Speaker 1: did not necessarily mean that they were staffed by women.

559
00:34:12,160 --> 00:34:16,160
Speaker 1: There were very few female faculty members. Her salary was

560
00:34:16,200 --> 00:34:19,560
Speaker 1: a third of that of her male colleagues, and she

561
00:34:19,640 --> 00:34:23,600
Speaker 1: battled the administration on the topic, but eventually withdrew from

562
00:34:23,640 --> 00:34:26,000
Speaker 1: the fight, and there was a letter that she wrote

563
00:34:26,000 --> 00:34:27,560
Speaker 1: it maybe a diary entry that she wrote, I want

564
00:34:27,600 --> 00:34:30,440
Speaker 1: to say in the eighteen seventies, where it's clear that

565
00:34:30,480 --> 00:34:33,000
Speaker 1: she has resigned herself to the fact that this wage

566
00:34:33,000 --> 00:34:38,760
Speaker 1: gap exists, but she was so invested in educating women

567
00:34:38,800 --> 00:34:42,640
Speaker 1: in particular that she didn't care. She was like, this

568
00:34:42,719 --> 00:34:45,960
Speaker 1: is this is my calling, this is women need this education,

569
00:34:46,400 --> 00:34:52,200
Speaker 1: and I will do it regardless of the compensation. Yeah,

570
00:34:52,280 --> 00:34:55,280
Speaker 1: and sort of the attitude of like, Okay, I fought

571
00:34:55,280 --> 00:34:56,880
Speaker 1: this fight, but I need to get back to what

572
00:34:57,000 --> 00:35:00,120
Speaker 1: my purposes. And I also love Caroline the photographs of

573
00:35:00,680 --> 00:35:05,160
Speaker 1: Mitchell with her students at vass Or doing their astronomy research,

574
00:35:05,200 --> 00:35:08,759
Speaker 1: you know, out with telescopes, but all dressed in nineteenth

575
00:35:08,800 --> 00:35:11,880
Speaker 1: century garb and their hair all pinned up, but still

576
00:35:12,480 --> 00:35:15,439
Speaker 1: doing the science. Yeah. This is definitely before the era

577
00:35:15,520 --> 00:35:19,040
Speaker 1: when people were told to smile on photographs Mariah and

578
00:35:19,080 --> 00:35:22,000
Speaker 1: her students. Definitely it's like, oh, did we catch you

579
00:35:22,000 --> 00:35:24,560
Speaker 1: at like a really bad astronomy moment, Like, you guys

580
00:35:24,600 --> 00:35:27,720
Speaker 1: look really upset. She was a very serious looking woman,

581
00:35:27,800 --> 00:35:32,239
Speaker 1: and she was very serious though, on just the importance

582
00:35:32,400 --> 00:35:39,160
Speaker 1: of women understanding and embracing their own intellectual prowess, which

583
00:35:39,239 --> 00:35:42,960
Speaker 1: might seem so basic now, but considering that nineteenth century

584
00:35:43,040 --> 00:35:47,960
Speaker 1: context was quite revolutionary, because it's in the late nineteenth

585
00:35:47,960 --> 00:35:51,600
Speaker 1: to mid twentieth century that we have in the background

586
00:35:51,800 --> 00:35:56,839
Speaker 1: of astronomy these issues of confronting women in the workplace,

587
00:35:56,920 --> 00:36:01,239
Speaker 1: divisions of labor, and the professionalization of astronomy as well.

588
00:36:01,760 --> 00:36:04,040
Speaker 1: That's right, and it's around this time that we start

589
00:36:04,120 --> 00:36:08,120
Speaker 1: to see increasing numbers of women in astronomy. And that's great, right,

590
00:36:08,640 --> 00:36:11,840
Speaker 1: But the thing was, from eighteen fifty nine to nineteen forty,

591
00:36:11,880 --> 00:36:14,880
Speaker 1: while a third of the people working in the astronomical

592
00:36:14,880 --> 00:36:18,240
Speaker 1: community were women, most of them were sort of shoved

593
00:36:18,239 --> 00:36:22,200
Speaker 1: off into more clerical type jobs and they didn't always

594
00:36:22,200 --> 00:36:25,000
Speaker 1: stick around for that long. Fifty of these women had

595
00:36:25,080 --> 00:36:29,480
Speaker 1: careers that lasted less than five years, lasted just a

596
00:36:29,520 --> 00:36:33,080
Speaker 1: year or two, and only twelve percent had careers longer

597
00:36:33,120 --> 00:36:36,359
Speaker 1: than twenty five years. And of course this means that

598
00:36:36,520 --> 00:36:40,080
Speaker 1: naturally women, even the ones who were working outside those

599
00:36:40,120 --> 00:36:44,440
Speaker 1: clerical boundaries that were established, accrued even fewer awards and

600
00:36:44,520 --> 00:36:47,719
Speaker 1: honors than they otherwise would have. And obviously to that

601
00:36:48,080 --> 00:36:53,080
Speaker 1: this low retention rate was partially due to being shoved out,

602
00:36:53,120 --> 00:36:58,720
Speaker 1: but also the fact that most women's aspiration was wife

603
00:36:58,760 --> 00:37:02,840
Speaker 1: and motherhood. Well yeah, in society and employers were telling

604
00:37:02,880 --> 00:37:05,160
Speaker 1: them too that they sort of had no choice. It's like, oh,

605
00:37:05,200 --> 00:37:07,719
Speaker 1: you've gotten married, Okay, see you later. Yeah. There was

606
00:37:07,760 --> 00:37:11,560
Speaker 1: this great phrase called buttons and breakfasts that came up

607
00:37:11,840 --> 00:37:14,120
Speaker 1: in this paper we were reading on the history of

608
00:37:14,120 --> 00:37:19,080
Speaker 1: women in astronomy, and essentially buttons and breakfast obviously um

609
00:37:19,200 --> 00:37:25,040
Speaker 1: encapsulating domestic duties and the concern of many male faculty

610
00:37:25,040 --> 00:37:30,080
Speaker 1: members at the time that women like Maria Mitchell were

611
00:37:30,280 --> 00:37:33,600
Speaker 1: perhaps good at stargazing, but could they also attend to

612
00:37:33,719 --> 00:37:37,399
Speaker 1: buttons and breakfast? And there was this one letter from

613
00:37:37,640 --> 00:37:40,799
Speaker 1: I think he was a faculty member at Vassar who

614
00:37:40,840 --> 00:37:43,560
Speaker 1: was talking about how pleased he was that when he

615
00:37:44,080 --> 00:37:48,040
Speaker 1: went to Maria Mitchell's house, her housekeeper actually had the

616
00:37:48,120 --> 00:37:51,560
Speaker 1: day off or wasn't there for whatever reason. And you

617
00:37:51,600 --> 00:37:55,200
Speaker 1: know what happened, Caroline, She still she cooked a dinner

618
00:37:55,280 --> 00:37:58,200
Speaker 1: all by herself and it was lovely. Yeah. This was

619
00:37:58,360 --> 00:38:01,520
Speaker 1: a letter that the an emissary for the Vassar College

620
00:38:01,560 --> 00:38:07,200
Speaker 1: founder wrote, assuring him that Mitchell was just a fabulous

621
00:38:07,320 --> 00:38:10,560
Speaker 1: cook and all around great ladies. She's still a woman,

622
00:38:10,920 --> 00:38:13,799
Speaker 1: don't worry, she still has lady bits that enable her

623
00:38:13,840 --> 00:38:17,239
Speaker 1: to cook dinner unlike you were, I, fellow gentlemen. But

624
00:38:17,320 --> 00:38:22,120
Speaker 1: that whole buttons and breakfast thing comes from this conversation

625
00:38:22,480 --> 00:38:27,799
Speaker 1: between Wellesley Physics and Astronomy professor Sarah Francis Whiting, who

626
00:38:27,840 --> 00:38:30,880
Speaker 1: fielded a question from a famous European researcher whom she

627
00:38:30,920 --> 00:38:34,239
Speaker 1: did not name, And apparently he said to her he

628
00:38:34,280 --> 00:38:36,040
Speaker 1: was visiting her because she was pretty awesome and they

629
00:38:36,040 --> 00:38:38,520
Speaker 1: were having a great conversation after dinner about the stars

630
00:38:38,600 --> 00:38:42,759
Speaker 1: and whatnot. But he couldn't stop himself from asking if

631
00:38:42,840 --> 00:38:46,600
Speaker 1: all the ladies should know so much about spectroscopes and

632
00:38:46,719 --> 00:38:52,440
Speaker 1: cathode rays, who will attend to the buttons and breakfasts? Who? Indeed?

633
00:38:52,480 --> 00:38:54,160
Speaker 1: And so I love that Like that you can have

634
00:38:55,040 --> 00:38:59,040
Speaker 1: an amazing and accomplished professor who still and is that

635
00:38:59,120 --> 00:39:01,200
Speaker 1: any different from any like interview you get in a

636
00:39:01,200 --> 00:39:04,799
Speaker 1: fashion magazine today talking to an accomplished woman like she

637
00:39:04,920 --> 00:39:07,319
Speaker 1: still has to feel questions about having it all doing

638
00:39:07,360 --> 00:39:09,759
Speaker 1: it all? What happens if you get to accomplish and

639
00:39:09,800 --> 00:39:12,879
Speaker 1: you can't perform your womanly duties? Well, Caroline, little known fact.

640
00:39:13,000 --> 00:39:16,640
Speaker 1: That is why both the zipper and the toaster were invented,

641
00:39:17,760 --> 00:39:22,200
Speaker 1: so that's not a fact. It actually, yeah, I don't

642
00:39:22,200 --> 00:39:27,319
Speaker 1: remember who will attend to the zippers and toasts. Now,

643
00:39:27,320 --> 00:39:30,239
Speaker 1: when we move though into the work at hand in

644
00:39:30,400 --> 00:39:34,959
Speaker 1: the observatories, there was still a highly gendered pattern of work,

645
00:39:35,360 --> 00:39:39,200
Speaker 1: often reflecting to the whole buttons in breakfast, these assumptions

646
00:39:39,239 --> 00:39:43,080
Speaker 1: about what women were good at and what was appropriate

647
00:39:43,120 --> 00:39:47,719
Speaker 1: work for women. So for that reason, even as the

648
00:39:47,800 --> 00:39:52,680
Speaker 1: numbers of women in astronomy grew, there were still pretty

649
00:39:52,760 --> 00:39:56,600
Speaker 1: strict gender specific rules as to who collected the data,

650
00:39:56,680 --> 00:40:01,799
Speaker 1: who reduced it, who analyzed it, and who published the results. Right,

651
00:40:02,000 --> 00:40:07,080
Speaker 1: And that's pretty important because who publishes results has everything

652
00:40:07,120 --> 00:40:09,520
Speaker 1: to do with who gets the awards and the accolades

653
00:40:09,520 --> 00:40:11,520
Speaker 1: and the fame and fortune. And this is coming from

654
00:40:11,600 --> 00:40:14,319
Speaker 1: John Lankford and Ricky L. Slaving's who wrote Gender and

655
00:40:14,360 --> 00:40:17,239
Speaker 1: Science Women in American Astronomy from eighteen fifty nine to

656
00:40:17,320 --> 00:40:21,520
Speaker 1: n and they talked about how the assignment of roles

657
00:40:21,600 --> 00:40:25,640
Speaker 1: that women received in astronomy reflected the perceptions that male

658
00:40:25,680 --> 00:40:30,600
Speaker 1: astronomers had of female astronomers or female people in general,

659
00:40:31,280 --> 00:40:35,520
Speaker 1: and how those roles really mirrored the values in American

660
00:40:35,560 --> 00:40:39,040
Speaker 1: culture at the time, and let's be honest now to

661
00:40:39,239 --> 00:40:43,360
Speaker 1: a little bit um, but we we get an inequality

662
00:40:43,719 --> 00:40:46,880
Speaker 1: issues sort of from the get go in terms of

663
00:40:46,920 --> 00:40:49,880
Speaker 1: the differences in the careers of men and women in astronomy,

664
00:40:49,960 --> 00:40:53,120
Speaker 1: because it starts with entry level positions, and so women

665
00:40:53,360 --> 00:40:56,360
Speaker 1: were often shunted over onto a track with limited mobility,

666
00:40:56,480 --> 00:41:00,600
Speaker 1: low pay, and little room for intellectual independence. Only at

667
00:41:00,600 --> 00:41:03,560
Speaker 1: the women's colleges, they write, did female astronomers have freedom

668
00:41:03,600 --> 00:41:06,840
Speaker 1: to choose and research the problems that they basically wanted to,

669
00:41:07,239 --> 00:41:10,239
Speaker 1: Because you basically had these women pouring over images of

670
00:41:10,280 --> 00:41:13,560
Speaker 1: the sky for hours upon hours upon hours looking for

671
00:41:14,040 --> 00:41:17,359
Speaker 1: little hints that something major was going on, and then

672
00:41:17,400 --> 00:41:20,239
Speaker 1: they would eventually pass that data off to a man

673
00:41:20,840 --> 00:41:24,080
Speaker 1: at the observatory or at the college, and he would

674
00:41:24,120 --> 00:41:26,920
Speaker 1: get all the fortune and glory. Yeah. And also in

675
00:41:26,960 --> 00:41:29,040
Speaker 1: addition to the fortune and glory too, he would get

676
00:41:29,040 --> 00:41:34,640
Speaker 1: the place in the science textbooks, um, and in these

677
00:41:34,840 --> 00:41:38,520
Speaker 1: factory like settings. So yes, women were given these low

678
00:41:38,560 --> 00:41:41,799
Speaker 1: paying quote unquote clerical kinds of jobs. But in the

679
00:41:41,880 --> 00:41:44,799
Speaker 1: same way as happened with the history of women in

680
00:41:44,880 --> 00:41:49,279
Speaker 1: computer science, the kinds of calculations and the data analysis

681
00:41:49,320 --> 00:41:53,799
Speaker 1: that they were performing was anything but low level. Yes,

682
00:41:53,840 --> 00:41:56,840
Speaker 1: it was tedious. Yes, it involved a lot of you know,

683
00:41:57,000 --> 00:42:00,560
Speaker 1: just constantly looking almost sweeping again that word comes up

684
00:42:00,560 --> 00:42:05,880
Speaker 1: over and over again, sweeping these images of blots essentially

685
00:42:06,400 --> 00:42:11,480
Speaker 1: and trying to figure out what they meant. Um. But

686
00:42:11,680 --> 00:42:15,920
Speaker 1: this kind of work was foundational for everything that we

687
00:42:16,120 --> 00:42:20,760
Speaker 1: know about astronomy today. Absolutely. And so here's an example.

688
00:42:20,800 --> 00:42:24,480
Speaker 1: In the late nineteenth century, Louis Boss hired a bunch

689
00:42:24,520 --> 00:42:27,520
Speaker 1: of female high school graduates to do long and involved

690
00:42:27,560 --> 00:42:31,960
Speaker 1: calculations for him. Again scientific work, mathematical work that involved

691
00:42:32,000 --> 00:42:35,360
Speaker 1: a lot of concentration and long hours. But he hired

692
00:42:35,440 --> 00:42:37,799
Speaker 1: women who were high school graduates because he figured he

693
00:42:37,880 --> 00:42:43,040
Speaker 1: didn't need specially trained workers for the task. Men did

694
00:42:43,040 --> 00:42:47,640
Speaker 1: the observing through telescopes. Women were tasked with measuring spectrograms,

695
00:42:48,000 --> 00:42:53,640
Speaker 1: computing star places, and reducing photometric data. Yeah, and when

696
00:42:53,640 --> 00:42:59,640
Speaker 1: it comes to why women were considered especially right for

697
00:42:59,760 --> 00:43:03,759
Speaker 1: those kinds of tasks, it all has to do with

698
00:43:03,800 --> 00:43:08,600
Speaker 1: this assumption of women being you know, really patient and caring.

699
00:43:08,760 --> 00:43:10,920
Speaker 1: And we also did a lot of needlework that back

700
00:43:10,960 --> 00:43:13,799
Speaker 1: then there were lots of comparisons to the tedium of

701
00:43:13,880 --> 00:43:17,680
Speaker 1: needlework and the tedium of scanning the skies or scanning

702
00:43:18,000 --> 00:43:21,960
Speaker 1: this photometric data. Um. Even Maria Mitchell talked about this.

703
00:43:22,280 --> 00:43:25,719
Speaker 1: She said, quote routine observations dull as they are, are

704
00:43:25,880 --> 00:43:28,880
Speaker 1: less dull than the endless repetition of the same pattern

705
00:43:29,200 --> 00:43:31,120
Speaker 1: in crochet work. And she was talking about that in

706
00:43:31,120 --> 00:43:35,120
Speaker 1: the context of why women are especially fit for astronomy.

707
00:43:35,440 --> 00:43:37,520
Speaker 1: And while that might sound on the one hand, it

708
00:43:37,600 --> 00:43:39,359
Speaker 1: is kind of sexist in a way, but on the

709
00:43:39,360 --> 00:43:42,920
Speaker 1: other hand, it makes sense given the constraints of the

710
00:43:42,960 --> 00:43:45,640
Speaker 1: time and what women did in their day to day

711
00:43:45,680 --> 00:43:48,279
Speaker 1: Mariah was simply saying, well, we already do this. We're

712
00:43:48,280 --> 00:43:50,080
Speaker 1: really good at needlework, you know what, we'd be even

713
00:43:50,120 --> 00:43:54,400
Speaker 1: better at science, right. And I mean, but this of

714
00:43:54,440 --> 00:43:56,719
Speaker 1: course tied into I mean speaking of sexism. I mean

715
00:43:56,719 --> 00:43:59,960
Speaker 1: it tied into all sorts of cultural and social ideas

716
00:44:00,000 --> 00:44:02,839
Speaker 1: at the time about what women were capable of. French

717
00:44:03,000 --> 00:44:05,200
Speaker 1: Lessing Or, for instance, who was the longtime director of

718
00:44:05,200 --> 00:44:10,160
Speaker 1: the Yale University Observatory, agreed with those who came before him,

719
00:44:10,160 --> 00:44:12,719
Speaker 1: including Louis Boss, that women were more cut out for

720
00:44:12,800 --> 00:44:16,000
Speaker 1: work that called for patients in great care to avoid errors.

721
00:44:16,000 --> 00:44:19,719
Speaker 1: But quote, according to my experience, women are not as

722
00:44:19,760 --> 00:44:23,280
Speaker 1: creative as men of equal training and like that. You know, mentally,

723
00:44:23,320 --> 00:44:25,480
Speaker 1: I just I throw all my papers up in the air,

724
00:44:25,520 --> 00:44:28,040
Speaker 1: because if you don't give women, or really anyone, if

725
00:44:28,040 --> 00:44:32,160
Speaker 1: you don't give a human person a chance to do

726
00:44:32,360 --> 00:44:36,560
Speaker 1: something amazing and creative and scientific and technical, how will

727
00:44:36,719 --> 00:44:40,080
Speaker 1: you know that they can do it or not? You know,

728
00:44:40,239 --> 00:44:43,760
Speaker 1: like women were being shunted into these more quote unquote

729
00:44:43,760 --> 00:44:46,839
Speaker 1: clerical jobs and men were the ones who were doing

730
00:44:46,880 --> 00:44:51,799
Speaker 1: all of the quote unquote creative observation work. But so,

731
00:44:51,840 --> 00:44:54,440
Speaker 1: how can you formulate an opinion that women aren't creative

732
00:44:54,440 --> 00:44:56,440
Speaker 1: in terms of astronomy when you're not even letting them

733
00:44:56,480 --> 00:44:58,359
Speaker 1: have the chance to do the work, probably because they

734
00:44:58,360 --> 00:45:01,080
Speaker 1: wouldn't even want to know that when and have that opportunity.

735
00:45:01,080 --> 00:45:03,759
Speaker 1: Because if we figure that out, that women are so

736
00:45:03,840 --> 00:45:06,560
Speaker 1: capable and creative, etcetera, etcetera, then who will take care

737
00:45:06,560 --> 00:45:09,200
Speaker 1: of the buttons and breakfast's breakfast? It's the buttons and

738
00:45:09,239 --> 00:45:12,720
Speaker 1: breakfast problem over and over again. Um. But even within

739
00:45:12,880 --> 00:45:15,799
Speaker 1: this factory like system, as we're going to talk about

740
00:45:15,840 --> 00:45:21,280
Speaker 1: in part two of Stargazing Women, there's this guy named

741
00:45:21,320 --> 00:45:25,040
Speaker 1: Charles Pickering who was the director of the Harvard observatory

742
00:45:25,160 --> 00:45:29,960
Speaker 1: who decided that he could bring all these women in

743
00:45:30,120 --> 00:45:34,439
Speaker 1: to be his so called computers and maintaining those same

744
00:45:34,480 --> 00:45:39,080
Speaker 1: constraints of just giving them this photometric data, look at it,

745
00:45:39,760 --> 00:45:43,920
Speaker 1: catalog it, do all this clerical kind of work. But

746
00:45:45,080 --> 00:45:48,600
Speaker 1: what he didn't bank on, I don't think was the

747
00:45:48,760 --> 00:45:52,200
Speaker 1: sharp minds that these women had and what they would

748
00:45:52,239 --> 00:45:57,239
Speaker 1: do with this information that they were given. That literally

749
00:45:57,920 --> 00:46:01,960
Speaker 1: laid the groundwork for everything we know about stars and

750
00:46:02,040 --> 00:46:07,239
Speaker 1: all the subsequent astronomical discoveries that would happen in the

751
00:46:07,360 --> 00:46:12,560
Speaker 1: twentieth century. Oh, I can't wait, me neither, but listeners

752
00:46:12,560 --> 00:46:15,280
Speaker 1: will have to. They'll have to. But so we should

753
00:46:15,280 --> 00:46:18,600
Speaker 1: ask here at the close of part one of our

754
00:46:18,680 --> 00:46:22,520
Speaker 1: Lady Stargazers episode, who are some of the historical names

755
00:46:22,560 --> 00:46:25,600
Speaker 1: that we've left out? I mean, we couldn't talk about everybody. Yeah,

756
00:46:25,680 --> 00:46:28,960
Speaker 1: and are there any astronomers listening? I hope So, I

757
00:46:29,040 --> 00:46:32,960
Speaker 1: know we have lots of scientists among our listener base.

758
00:46:33,120 --> 00:46:36,480
Speaker 1: So we'd love to hear from you. Mom Stuff at

759
00:46:36,520 --> 00:46:38,840
Speaker 1: how stuff Works dot com is our email address. You

760
00:46:38,840 --> 00:46:41,680
Speaker 1: can also tweet us at mom Stuff, podcasts and messages

761
00:46:41,719 --> 00:46:44,160
Speaker 1: on Facebook. And we've got a couple of messages this

762
00:46:44,239 --> 00:46:46,080
Speaker 1: year with you when we come right back from a

763
00:46:46,160 --> 00:46:54,520
Speaker 1: quick break and now back to the show. So I've

764
00:46:54,520 --> 00:46:57,680
Speaker 1: got to let her here from Thomas A subject line

765
00:46:57,840 --> 00:47:02,160
Speaker 1: listener mail from Taiwan. Thomas writes, I'm a regular listener

766
00:47:02,200 --> 00:47:05,040
Speaker 1: of your podcast and wish to express my appreciation and

767
00:47:05,120 --> 00:47:08,080
Speaker 1: support of your show. I'm a high school boy studying

768
00:47:08,080 --> 00:47:11,480
Speaker 1: in Taiwan, and as is the case in most Asian countries,

769
00:47:11,520 --> 00:47:15,560
Speaker 1: we seldom discuss matters of gender and sex. Owing to history,

770
00:47:15,680 --> 00:47:19,440
Speaker 1: most prestigious senior high schools here only admit students of

771
00:47:19,480 --> 00:47:21,920
Speaker 1: a particular sex. I myself am studying at an all

772
00:47:22,000 --> 00:47:25,160
Speaker 1: boys institution. When I discovered your podcast, it was like

773
00:47:25,239 --> 00:47:28,439
Speaker 1: opening a treasured chest of hidden knowledge, and I learned

774
00:47:28,480 --> 00:47:31,800
Speaker 1: a lot of practical and interesting information about the opposite sex.

775
00:47:32,280 --> 00:47:35,080
Speaker 1: Needless to say, my male friends were amazed by my

776
00:47:35,160 --> 00:47:38,600
Speaker 1: new found insight. Thanks for all your episodes, and although

777
00:47:38,640 --> 00:47:41,560
Speaker 1: your audience seems to be mostly female, I hope that

778
00:47:41,600 --> 00:47:44,760
Speaker 1: more guys can join the party. It would certainly create

779
00:47:44,800 --> 00:47:48,960
Speaker 1: a smarter society. So thanks so much, Thomas. We want

780
00:47:49,000 --> 00:47:52,720
Speaker 1: more guys to join the party too, Absolutely, guys, come on, smart, smarties,

781
00:47:52,760 --> 00:47:56,520
Speaker 1: open to Okay, we'll have a letter here from Carlisle,

782
00:47:56,680 --> 00:48:01,279
Speaker 1: subject line a newly minted lady lawyer. She says, I

783
00:48:01,360 --> 00:48:03,520
Speaker 1: was surprised to find out that most women in law

784
00:48:03,560 --> 00:48:06,080
Speaker 1: are expected to wear heels, at least in New York City,

785
00:48:06,080 --> 00:48:08,800
Speaker 1: where I work and at my particular firm. I'm not

786
00:48:08,840 --> 00:48:11,759
Speaker 1: a huge fan of heels, but it seems especially ridiculous

787
00:48:11,800 --> 00:48:15,240
Speaker 1: when I'm just walking around the office. Additionally, peep too's

788
00:48:15,280 --> 00:48:18,760
Speaker 1: are a huge no no. Furthermore, when I was interviewing

789
00:48:18,800 --> 00:48:21,160
Speaker 1: from my quote unquote big law job from a top

790
00:48:21,239 --> 00:48:24,560
Speaker 1: law school, I was told black or navy suit, white

791
00:48:24,560 --> 00:48:28,360
Speaker 1: button down, conservative jewelry, and heels in order to quote

792
00:48:28,719 --> 00:48:33,200
Speaker 1: not offend anyone. The struggle is real. I know it is, Carlyle.

793
00:48:33,239 --> 00:48:35,800
Speaker 1: Thank you for your story, and thanks to everybody who's

794
00:48:35,800 --> 00:48:38,520
Speaker 1: written into us. Mom Stuff at how stuff works dot

795
00:48:38,560 --> 00:48:41,000
Speaker 1: com is our email address and for links to all

796
00:48:41,040 --> 00:48:43,760
Speaker 1: of our social media as well as all of our videos,

797
00:48:43,800 --> 00:48:47,000
Speaker 1: blogs and podcasts with this one including our sources. So

798
00:48:47,160 --> 00:48:50,479
Speaker 1: you can learn more about lady astronomers, head on over

799
00:48:50,600 --> 00:48:56,520
Speaker 1: to stuff Mom Never Told You dot com for more

800
00:48:56,560 --> 00:48:58,840
Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics. Because it how

801
00:48:58,880 --> 00:49:00,680
Speaker 1: stuff Works dot com s