As a new play examines the work of Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, we celebrate the women whose crucial discoveries were ignored or suppressed
ighty-five years ago, several dozen eminent astronomers posed for a photograph outside the newly constructed McDonald Observatory near Fort Davis in Texas. All were men – with one exception. Half-concealed by a man in front of her, the face of a solitary woman can just be made out in the grainy black and white image.
In the end, the ideas of Payne-Gaposchkin – who was born in Britain and married a Russian scientist, Sergei Gaposchkin – prevailed, though not without considerable opposition from male colleagues, as revealed in a new play,Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, partially obscured, centre left, third row, was the only woman in the photo of eminent astronomers at the McDonald Observatory in 1939.“Essentially she was up against a men’s club,” says Feehilly.
Like all female students at Cambridge until 1948, Maunder and Everett were not awarded degrees despite passing their examinations with honours; during her education and career, Rubin suffered widespread discrimination. Even after she acquired fame, she was blocked from using the great Palomar Observatory to continue her groundbreaking research because it had no bathrooms for women.
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