Many women who work at McMurdo Station, the main United States research base in Antarctica, say the isolated environment and macho culture have allowed sexual harassment and assault to flourish.

The National Science Foundation, the federal agency that oversees the U.S. Antarctic Program, published a report in 2022 in which 59% of women said they’d experienced harassment or assault while on the ice, and 72% of women said such behavior was a problem in Antarctica.

But the problem goes beyond the harassment, The Associated Press found. In reviewing court records and internal communications, and in interviews with more than a dozen current and former employees, the AP uncovered a pattern of women who said their claims of harassment or assault were minimized by their employers, often leading to them or others being put in further danger.

  • babeuh@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    I found this study about the differences (but it’s from 2014, please tell me if you find a more recent one) The Impact of Sex and Gender on Adaptation to Space: Executive Summary.

    TL;DR female astronauts have, according to the study:

    • a higher risk of cancer (a 45-year-old man has a 344-day limit in space to be safe versus a 187-day limit for a 45-year-old woman)
    • more orthostatic intolerance
    • more UTIs (which makes sense as women on earth are also more likely to have UTIs)
    • less vision impairment compared to male astronauts (no clinically significant cases of VIIP syndrome)
    • less hearing problems (men show a more rapid decline in the left ear and in general like on Earth)


    Keep in mind that this data is not the best because only around 20% of people that had been on the ISS at the time were women and because male astronauts are more likely to come from a military background.