"Gender Bias in Naming Planet Surfaces: Just 2% of Names Represent Women, Academic Study Reveals"
Originally Published 2 years ago — by Daily Mail
The guidelines for naming planetary surface features are biased towards men, with fewer than 2% of Mars's craters and only 2% of Moon craters named after women, according to research. Annie Lennox, a doctoral researcher at The Open University, argues that the male-biased culture of naming planetary features disadvantages women and marginalized groups. Lennox is urging the International Astronomical Union (IAU) to change its policies, which she claims are biased towards cisgender white men. The IAU establishes working groups to propose and approve names based on guidelines that often honor historical figures or cultural themes. Lennox's research found that Mercury had the highest representation of women's names among the planets analyzed, while Mars had the lowest.