So long, farewell
At the end of 2021, Lady Science will be closing. Before anything else can be said about that, we want to thank everyone we’ve worked with over the last seven years, and especially the current staff who will see us through to the end of the project. It’s been an extraordinary privilege to have such dedicated and talented people share our enthusiasm for this project, and we couldn’t have done it without them.
This was a difficult decision, but it was one we were very lucky to be able to make. We don’t need to be saved because we aren’t failing. With an eye to both the probable future of this project––one that would be marked not by defeat but a slower, harsher kind of fading––and to new projects and new experiences, we’re going out on our own terms, and without ever having compromised our principles. It feels strange, but not like a loss. And everything you see on the website and podcast will remain available and free forever.
There are a number of reasons that we are ending Lady Science, and first and foremost is money. We have never paywalled content or included advertisements on our website or podcast; instead, we relied solely on crowdfunding from readers and listeners. Even though we might have sustained the project longer if we had used paywalls or ads, we don’t regret this choice because it’s been a real joy to create a community of readers, listeners, and writers that has self-sustained purely through a passion for and commitment to the stories of women in science. But we have come to a part of the journey where Lady Science has become big enough to require more time and labor from the editorial team but not big enough to have the funds to pay for it. We won’t compromise our principles of fair pay, so this is the choice before us. Even though each of us on the editorial team are going our own way, we are still committed to the work of recovering the lives of marginalized people in science, and in our way and our own time, we will continue to do so in other projects and collaborations.
The second reason is the nature of the media landscape. Over the last seven years, we’ve struggled to find our place in it, starting with an audience of academic historians and moving beyond that to science communication and general, interested readers. As we gradually moved outside academia, we faced rejection from the community in which Lady Science was born, fielding accusations of being sloppy and unserious in the historical work we published. Perhaps some of this came from a misunderstanding of what we were trying to build, which wasn’t an academic journal but a platform that mirrored the editorial processes and writing styles of online media. We hope we’ve been able to prove that rigorous research and writing isn’t mutually exclusive from engaging storytelling and popular online media. On the other end of the spectrum, we faced accusations from writers in legacy media of damaging the media industry with low rates for writers. At times, our rates haven’t been what we wanted them to be, even with twice-a-year fundraising, but we’ve always been transparent about our funds and our struggle to make ends meet with crowdfunding. And in the end, we were able to pay the same as much bigger publications, without compromising principles for ads or paywalls. We might not have found a place in either of the two camps we tried to be part of, but we did create our own place, our own little niche on the internet that we remain proud of.
You may not know that Lady Science is archived at the Library of Congress. We’re listed with some pretty important projects, and of all the things we’ve accomplished with this project, the writing we have published is the most important legacy of this magazine. This is why we are committed to maintaining a complete archive of Lady Science, to be openly accessible and free, forever. Writers deserve access to their clips as they build their careers, students deserve access to fascinating readings, and everyone deserves access to the rich and edifying history of women and gender in science. While we cannot continue to create this work, we can ensure that it is preserved.
Letters from the Editors
Leila
It is perhaps strange to announce our end on the anniversary of our beginning, but I think both are cause for celebration.
When Anna and I started Lady Science as a monthly newsletter in 2014, it was a small collaboration between friends, a way for us to stay connected after I had left graduate school. And gradually, to our surprise, it turned into something that others valued and wanted to be part of. When it became clear that we would need to grow Lady Science, Anna and I wanted to shape it around a certain set of principles: We would pay contributors as much as we were able; we wouldn’t paywall any content, ever; and we would accept writers from any background, academics and non-academics, senior and junior writers, anyone who had a story to tell about women in science. And looking back on the last seven years (!), I can say with pride that we did all those things.
Some of our writers published their first pieces with us and went on to have successful careers as freelancers. Over the years, we also had the privilege of working with some wonderful editors, each one bringing their unique voice and perspective to the magazine. Each writer and each editor further enriched the magazine, making Lady Science what it is seven years later. And personally, I have become a better writer and editor because of them, not only better in crafting prose but in the way I approach the work with a more compassionate and empathetic understanding of historical subjects and the writers who bring them to life once more.
I’m grateful to Anna for taking this journey with me while never knowing where it would lead. I certainly didn’t expect our working collaboration to turn into the close friendship that it has. I’m also grateful to the staff who’ve joined us over the years, especially Rebecca Ortenberg, our long-time managing editor, and I’m sure that without her Lady Science would have ended years ago. And finally, I’m grateful, more than words can say, to the readers and listeners who have joined us at any point in these last seven years; it was for you and because of you that we did all of this.
Anna
Lady Science was the first, and remains the only publication dedicated exclusively to the history of women and gender in science. Not a journal, not a blog, we wanted Lady Science to be a home for rigorous, passionate writing about these subjects because they are essential parts of the story of science that have been left untold for far too long. And now, hundreds more pieces of writing exist in the world to tell those stories. For me, this archive, and all the love and care and skill that went into making it, is the most important thing I have ever been a part of.
But Lady Science was so much more. It’s where Leila and I became friends and long-term collaborators. It’s how I learned to write and edit and read and think, and has changed the way I see and understand the world. I’ve traveled all over the country speaking about this project, and it has created opportunities and friendships that I will cherish. And it has reminded me, in profound ways, that the end of something never erases work that was worth doing. Whatever comes next for me, I will have learned how to do it here.
