So if you're someone in a STEM field and either are female or have at least one STEM friend who is female, you've probably seen something of the recent push for greater gender equality across the board, particularly in STEM fields. I'll spare you the stats, as you've likely heard them and variations on a theme ad nauseam by now.
What I would like to share is my own encounter with the awesomeness that is working with others of my gender. I never, of course, doubted that having more females in science was a good thing (I'm generally of a "more the merrier" mindset regardless of situation*), but it wasn't until recently I had a first-hand taste of what that might mean.
*With caveats. There are always caveats. For instance, bills and mold.
By way of background, I have a somewhat love/hate relationship with fieldwork. As a geoscientist, it's something you'll encounter sooner or later, even, I'm told, if you're a pure geophysicist (which I, most decidedly, am NOT), so every geoscientist has to learn to at least endure it if they hope to have credibility in their field.
On the "love" side of things, I have seen some truly AMAZING places doing fieldwork or field related activities, including intimate views of several national parks, travel to foreign countries, and LAVA, the red-hot kind. I also derive a great sense of pride that I've generally survived and usually not made a total fool of myself in these experiences - I'm not the fastest hiker in the world, but I'm lucky enough to not faint or get heat exhaustion, and thanks to SEVERAL spring break field trips in the Colorado plateau, which featured some IMPRESSIVELY windy weather, I can usually pitch a tent and expect it to STAY pitched.*
*Several large rocks and burly geo-friends may or may not be involved.
On the "hate" side of things, I do not feel I've ever been able to describe myself as an "outdoors" person. I can exist semi-competently in the outdoors, but it is not my element. I am not one of those women whose skin magically clears up when I spend three days straight sweating my brains out with no more than a wet wipe for sanitation. I get prodigious dirt beards and prolific acne. I HATE hills (despite the wonderful views they always seem to have at the top, those darn things), up OR down. As mentioned before, I am NOT a fast hiker, although a propensity to pick up weird shaped rocks along the way probably doesn't help that.
My fist field season for my master's degree was a bit traumatic. Yes, we stayed in a hotel overnight (lugging around solar panels for charging geophysical equipment in an area with chronic theft problems is kind of a non-starter), yes, we had a nice air-conditioned vehicle to take us to and from the field site every day, but we also had long days outside in 35+˚C (95+˚F) heat, often on nice black rocks, with no shade*, and a 30˚ talus slope to boot**. AND a field partner, male, with legs approximately twice the length of mine (seriously, I tried walking in his strides once, it was like doing ballet leaps across the floor). I remember hours and hours and HOURS of staring in despair at his retreating back (he was navigating, which was good, or NOTHING would have gotten done) some 30 meters upslope from me, that distance getting larger with every passing step.
*Sometimes, as an added bonus, scrubby trees that blocked NO sunlight and ALL the wind, on nice black ash - INSTANT oven!
**Ask me about my great boot stories. These are the stories I'll be telling my grandkids 50 times in a row in the nursing home. In a nutshell, BELIEVE your adviser when he tells you to wear leather-sided boots on recent 'a'a flows.
My worst night was the night I cried myself to sleep (as quietly as a I could) after he told me the amount of magnetic data we could get would probably be limited by how fast I could walk. I knew he was right. I knew I just couldn't walk as fast. And I hated, HATED, that my physical weakness (and I'm not really a weakling), and stupid short stubby legs, were standing in the way of my science.
I was also angry and frustrated that I had fit into the stereotype of the weak, slow female in the field. I have a very contrarian nature, and so part of what draws me to geophysics, I have to admit, is that it's not overly populated with females. So I have this subconscious urge to blast all these feminine stereotypes (wears pink and lace all the time, can't do math, high pitched silly giggling) out of the water with everything I am.
But I still have to face the reality of who I am, and that I am, yes, a girl. And that, no, I'm not a super-human field machine. But I hate, HATE, that I might give someone the impression that I'm not a super-human field machine BECAUSE I'm a girl.
So, some 18 months later, enter my Eureka moment. Another field experience, but this time I was the field assistant ("field wench"), in MUCH more environmentally pleasant central B.C., with, zounds, a female as the researcher in charge.
And it was AWESOME, because for the first time I wasn't wasting more than half of my brain cells on worrying about keeping up, because my field "master" was, for once, NOT a speed hiker. Which meant that I had so many MORE brain cells* available for the actual SCIENCE. And you know what? We still got good science done. Well, at least until the gravity meter died on us, but that's besides the point....
*At this point anyone who knows anything about neurology is probably tearing their hair out. My sincerest apologies.
I also noticed I was WAY less self confident when I didn't know something, either science or field related, because suddenly, with another girl around, the fact that I didn't know something wouldn't send the message that ALL girls didn't know this thing, it was just THIS girl, this human. This simple realization made it SO much easier for me to ask for help or advice when I needed, rather than tying myself in knots about image.
And before you think something like "Oh, you just shouldn't CARE about image!", may I just say, good grief, image DOES count for something*, and, for context, I'm the girl who doesn't think twice about walking across campus at 9 AM on a Saturday with a kilt on**. Or singing along, with gusto, in a kareoke bar in front of some of the leading/up and coming scientists in my field - on at least two occasions. Or highland dancing along to Gangnam Style in public.
*Even if your image is "I couldn't care less what you think of my image"
**Which is technically cross-dressing. Not that anyone would really care in Eugene...
The point being, if I'm concerned about image, when I usually take such glee in being unconventional, I'll bet there are many other women who are much more held back by concerns of how they're perceived doing fieldwork, or writing computer programs, or giving talks, in situations where they are the only representative of "female" currently present.
So if there's some initiative on the table promoting diversity, whether it be of gender, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, you name it - I'm for it. Because life is so much better when you're a human being rather than a specimen.
