No water-skis are not
the best platform to teach from.
No people don’t hear you
as well over the roar of engines and water.
Yes, you will probably fail
more often
You lose people’s
attention more when people are focused on where you are rather than what you
are saying.
It’s exhausting, and
even the easiest lesson is hard to do from a difficult place to stand.
But if that is the ONLY
space you have to teach from, and people will watch, because of the spectacle then
what are you going to do?
Quit and lose your voice
and audience?
Fight for a better space
and risk people refusing to tow you?
Or carry on and hope
like hell eventually someone sees how stupid this is and gives you a more
appropriate space to teach from in the future.
All of the above options
are entirely legitimate, and I wouldn’t judge anyone who took any of those
options. I also don’t blame people who don’t even go into those spaces because
they aren’t well enough, fit enough, have enough time, or can deal with the
stress of such an unpleasant work environment.
Refusing to work on skis
isn’t unreasonable.
Refusing to provide a
better space for women to work and have a platform IS.
The fact that some of
our most interesting scientists in New Zealand (I can name Siouxsie Wiles, Christine Winterbourn, Heather
Hendrickson, Margaret Brimble, and Judy O'Brien off the top of my head) are not
seen regularly in our media is a damn waste, and frankly it’s a bit of a
surprise that even Souxsie with her bright pink hair and award for science communication
is mostly under the mainstream radar.
Dr Dickinson is getting
there, and she is getting there on the shittiest water skis possible. BUT SHE
IS GETTING THERE.
While we watch the
rubbish she has to deal with, hoops she has to jump through, and
unreasonableness of her environment, let’s take the focus off the stunts she
has to pull, and on why that’s the ONLY SPACE SHE HAS FOUND AN AUDIANCE.
Because I’m pretty damn
sure that if anyone had any kind of choice, they wouldn’t work with people who
undermine them, degrade them, and bring their personal life into a professional
discussion. But we do.
Because that is the only
space we have.
Let’s stop pointing at
the women who are the spectacle and start looking at why that’s the only space
women have voices.
