Cameo # 2

The changing role of women in
Australian ecology

Carla Catterall

School of Environment, Griffith University, and
ESA President 2008-2010

c.catterall@griffith.edu.au

The author subduing a recalcitrant tree

As I write this reflection, Australia has its first female prime minister and both major parties support the introduction of a national maternity leave scheme. But when I entered the field of ecology as a fledging baby boomer in the early 1970s, a looming reappraisal of gender roles in science and society was little more than a collective background murmur of discontent. I started my University studies as a veterinary science student, as one of about 10 women in a class of 130, and it was common for male students (and some of the staff) to question audibly whether this was a place where women should be. After all, how could we wrangle effectively with a recalcitrant cow or horse? As it turned out, women soon came to dominate vet student numbers, and meanwhile my own interest had shifted towards studying biological science, where I encountered a greater tolerance of student diversity. But I soon became aware of entrenched gender bias in my chosen field. In staff selection it was not uncommon to hear talk of finding the best man for the job. Of course, the senior academics were almost all men. And attitudes to fieldwork were frequently overlain with an aura of machismo strongly reminiscent of my vet student days. I remember a CSIRO colleague telling me seriously at a conference that women were unwelcome on remote field trips because of the risk that they might inadvertently entice male staff into extra-marital affairs while away together. By implication, they were also therefore poor choices for field-based appointments. At a lesser level there was a common view that mixed-gender field groups would be less skilled, less productive, and less manageable than male-only teams. Similar feelings no doubt lay beneath the exclusion of women from Antarctic expeditions. Expressing such perceptions in anecdotes was unremarkable at the time: the stuff of everyday conversations about the job market.

The passage of time has proved that these attempts by a more-privileged subgroup of society to exclude another from the action could not be justified. By the 1980s, notions of equal employment opportunity and affirmative action had gained wide currency around most of Australia. The Slatyer and Saunders (1999) account of ESA's early years tells us that in 1963, only 10% of ESA's 146 members were women. This compares with 16% of 510 in 1983, 32% of 844 in 1999 and 55% of 1663 in 2010. In 1994, ESA members elected their first female President (Marilyn Fox, who followed 19 consecutive male predecessors in the previous 34 years). The anecdotes above would sound ridiculous to many ecologists in the year 2010, and it is indeed easy to forget the gender bias that underpinned both the mentoring of younger ecologists and processes of recruitment and selection, even a few decades ago. Gender-based discrimination is now prohibited by law, and mechanisms to prevent it have become embedded in administrative procedures (at least on paper). Two of four ESA Presidents in the decade 2000-2010 have been women.

If discriminatory attitudes can be relegated to the past, then what is the role of women in ecology in 2010, and where is it headed?  A little quantitative exploration suggests some recent pendulum swings towards females amongst aspiring early-career ecologists. Between 2008 and August 2010, a surprising average of 74% of student research and travel grant applicants to ESA came from women (SE 3%, N=14 ESA grant "rounds", containing 248 applications). Although women comprised a somewhat smaller proportion of awardees (64% of 95 grants), they still dominated the field of grant recipients. Even back in 1990-1998, 55% of conference student prize-winners were women. And ESA's Council in 2010 comprised ten female and eight male voting members. Women make excellent field workers and outstanding ecological scientists, as long as the opportunities are available, entrenched discrimination is removed, and they are not expected to be the main carers of their children. It could be easy for women ecologists of Generations X, Y and beyond to assume that there are no gender-related impediments to career progress.  

On the other hand, women comprised only 34% of 221 gender-classifiable first authors of papers published in ESA's journal Austral Ecology from February 2007 to August 2010, and make up only 28% of its 43 associate editors in 2010. Women similarly comprise 33% of the 2010 editorial board of Ecological Management and Restoration. Women presented only 28% (8 of 29) plenary or keynote speakers at recent ESA conferences (2007-2010, including INTECOL), and only two of ESA's 21 Gold medallists (and one of eight recipients since 2000) have been female. Perhaps this simply reflects a time-lag that will disappear as the latest generation works its way through the ranks.

Alternatively, while barriers to women's entry and practice in ecology have been removed, equality of advancement opportunity may yet prove more difficult to achieve. Biological imperatives faced by women as mothers are these days easy to underestimate. In recent years I have been perplexed by the attitudes of several first-time pregnant postgraduate students who expected to continue their studies not too long after childbirth, on more-or-less the originally-planned timetable. In my experience (and theirs) such an assumption is about as realistic for most women as those unreasonable misogynistic attitudes outlined above. Furthermore, the increasingly pressurised, fiercely competitive and insecure environment to which early career scientists must nowadays commit long working hours is not a friendly place for mothers of young children, or for those attempting to return after career interruption. There is little recognition of alternative career trajectories, as lucidly highlighted in a recent article by the 2008 Life Scientist of the Year (Vinuesa 2010).  Such pernicious cultural and administrative processes, together with lingering bias and preconception, as well as the growing international export of dress and behaviour regulations associated with some conservative Islamic sects, may still in various ways thwart the career progress of female ecologists. Only time will tell for sure how soon (or whether) women will be able to reach their full potential as ecologists, but there's no room for complacency.

References cited

Slatyer, R. O. and Saunders, A. (1999) Ecological Society of Australia: the first 25 years. Ecological Society of Australia, Canberra. 28 pp. (downloadable via the ESA website www.ecolsoc.org.au).

Vinuesa, C. (2010) Every scientist needs a wife.  Cosmos 34, Aug/Sept, 101.