In writing about my mother, Jenny Cox, I mentioned that she was refused permission to do her botany PhD research on the island of South Georgia purely because she was a woman. Though she saw this as an injustice for the rest of her life, she never revealed any details of what happened.
The efficient archive service at the British Antarctic Survey has now made available a letter from Sir Vivian Fuchs dated 7 October 1959. He still wanted my mother to do UK-based lab work on existing specimens. However, he refused her or any other women access to the island, citing accommodation and severe conditions in the field.
In hindsight, this decision ended her scientific career. Fuchs’ views on women in the Antarctic and sub-Antarctic were widely held by men who knew the region, and the policy was applied for most nationalities’ Antarctic expeditions at the time. Fortunately, Jenny went on to demonstrate how people can survive setbacks and do other things.
