Indian Women on Venus

Here's something interesting I had not been aware of previously - many features on the planet Venus are named for women. 

This in itself is not surprising, and is really quite apt. Venus is, after all, the Roman goddess associated with love, beauty, prosperity and victory. She was a very popular deity in the Roman pantheon.  

Venusian features are named after women achievers from all over the world, both mythological and real. This convention was begun by the International Astronomical Union (IAU).

The only exceptions to this are features which were named before the convention began.

The naming convention

The features named on Venus include chasms, craters, mountains, plains, valleys, and other natural elements. 

Large craters are named for real women from the world over, smaller ones have generic female names. 

Chasms and high plains are named after goddesses from Aztec, Roman and Mayan civilizations among others.

The India Connection

Deepa is a small crater on Venus with a generic popular name for Indian girls.  

Indian women who have had features on Venus named after them are Jerusha Jhirad, Anandi Gopal Joshi and Pandita Ramabai Medhavi.

Jerusha Jhirad  1891-1984. Among the first gynaecologists in India. The Venusian crater is Jhirad.

Anandi Gopal Joshi  1865-1887. First female physician in India. The crater on Venus is Joshee.

Anandi Gopal Joshi
Dall, Caroline Wells Healey, 1822-1912, 
Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Anandi Joshi was the first Indian woman to obtain a medical degree. She received it from Women’s Medical College of Pennsylvania (WMCP), which is now called Drexel University College of Medicine. She graduated with high honours but succumbed to tuberculosis at the age of 21 without having had the chance to practice medicine. She made tremendous personal sacrifices to overcome gender prejudice to study abroad.

Pandita Ramabai Medhavi  1858-1922. The crater named after her is Medhavi.

Pandita Ramabai was a social reformer who stood against child marriage, the caste system and for women’s education. She was among the 10 women delegates to the fifth Indian National Congress annual session of 1889. She was a passionate advocate for women teachers and women doctors, which had a positive impact on allowing women in medical education.

Pandita Ramabai
India Post, Government of India, GODL-India
<https://data.gov.in/sites/default/files/Gazette_Notification_OGDL.pdf>, 
via Wikimedia Commons

She received the coveted title of Pandita at the age of just 20. She spoke out against the societal ills of ill-treatment of widows. 

Ramabai travelled to Britain in 1883 to study Medicine, but could not continue due to progressive deafness. She however proudly attended the graduation ceremony of Anandi Gopal Joshi at Women’s Medical College, Pennsylvania. 

Pandita Ramabai was proficient in 7 languages and wrote poetry. She founded the Arya Mahila Samaj to ‘empower and educate women to lead a dignified life’. Ramabai translated the Bible into Marathi from Hebrew and Greek.