THE INVISIBILITY OF WOMEN GEOSCIENTISTS IN CHILDREN’S NONFICTION BOOKS

For those seeking to increase gender and ethnic diversity among geoscientists, representation matters. Students are more likely to consider going into an academic field or profession if they can see someone like themselves there. And although there is a hot trend in publishing to promote the achievements of women in science, the majority of women presented are from only a few fields and geoscientists are rarely included. This study examined juvenile and young adult nonfiction books from public libraries on the subject of women and science. These books contained multiple summaries of women scientists and were examined to determine how many women and which sciences they represented. Scientists were classified into one of four science categories: Biology, Chemistry, Geology (Geoscience), and Physics/Astronomy.

A total of thirty-six books were included in this study and ranged in publication date from the years 2000 to 2018. The greatest number of books published were between the years of 2014-2018. These fell into three categories of books: women in science, women in space, and exceptional women of all backgrounds. These books contained 353 entries or sidebars on women scientists. Of these, the highest group profiled was in Physics/Astronomy with 43% of the entries. Only 10% of the profiled women were geoscientists and of the thirty-six books examined, only eighteen books mentioned any geoscientist at all. A total of eighteen women geoscientists were profiled, most only once, and a full one-third of the entries were on Mary Anning (12 entries). The next closest were Marie Tharp and Adriana C. Ocampo, each with three entries. Even with books specifically dedicated to women in science and even containing “Women in Science” in the titles, women geoscientists are only included for 8% of the entries and don’t appear in some books of that title at all.

So, although there are increasing efforts to promote women in science, publication data from juvenile and young adult nonfiction books demonstrates that women in geoscience are largely being overlooked. If these women continue to remain invisible, few girls will see geosciences as a science at all, much less one they can study.