Women Are Creating a New Culture for Astronomy

I made a list of things I was not happy to read about women scientists, such as how they were the first to be hired, or to lead a group. I was assigned a profile of a splendid woman astronomer, but nothing about the woman or the culture of astronomy, a hierarchy in which the highest ranks have historically included only scientists who are male, white. I pretended we had jumped into a new world in which gender was irrelevant and could not be ignored, because my list evolved into the Finkbeiner test. The person I was interviewing was an astronomer.

I heard about a group of young women who were the ones to call if I wanted to talk to the field. If the top of the scientific hierarchy now included large numbers of women, I wondered if they would live in a world without astronomy. They are at the top of their game, but they are also remaking astronomy.