There’s a study that’s been floating around lately, causing condescending eye-rolls among the climate deniers and raised eyebrows among even a couple more mainstream voices. The paper is a look at “Glaciers, gender and science” that applies “a feminist glaciology framework” to research, and in light of yesterday being International Women’s Day, we decided it deserves a little defending from the mockery it’s received in pretty much all the coverage except a blog post by the researcher’s university and one story from Oregon’s Register-Guard.
While people like Anthony Watts may be happy leaving the analysis at the level of stereotypes about how “millions of husbands and wives battle over the home thermostat,” this paper is actually an in-depth and well-researched look at how this specific scientific discipline has, like most others, historically ignored the female perspective.