The changing role of women in North American mammalogy

Abstract

The 75th anniversary meeting of The American Society of Mammalogists (ASM), held in Washington, D.C., in 1994, focused attention on the history of mammalogy. In addition to historical talks presented at the meeting, a book was published to document the development of the Society and to celebrate the 75th anniversary (Birney and Choate, 1994). Although the volume offered a generally excellent treatment of the history of the discipline, it made little mention of female mammalogists. This led us to wonder if a lack of recognition was because women have made few significant contributions to the science of mammalogy or if it was because the contributions of women have been more difficult to characterize and, thus, to document. This special feature endeavors to address this question.