The Wild & Women

Is being a woman field biologist any more difficult than being a woman CEO? A woman fighter pilot? Or a cop? Being a woman in any field can be difficult, but field biology comes with its challenges. Remote locations are not conducive to family life. Odd hours and long days in the field where a proper toilet, let alone a bed, is a luxury. But there are also arresting landscapes. Charismatic wildlife. An exploration of the unknown and potential discoveries and breakthroughs.

Field biology is a mix of all these aspects wrapped in the practicalities of raising grants for research, managing teams and publishing reports. As a discipline, it attracted few women until the 1980s, and some of the earliest entrants, like Jamal Ara, independent India’s first ‘Birdwoman’, taught themselves field science.
Some field biologists are defined by the species they set out to conserve — such as J Vijaya, the ‘Turtle Girl’ who fearlessly threw herself into the task of conserving India’s freshwater turtles, rediscovering in the process the long-lost Cochin forest cane turtle. There is also Vidya Athreya and her work with leopards, or more precisely, with leopards within human landscapes. Her work has redefined our notion of what constitutes ‘wild’ habitats while charting new ways for homo sapiens to co-exist with non-human animals.

Women field biologists have worked in a diversity of landscapes, a range worthy of our sub-continental status. So, while we have Nandini Velho and Usha Lanchungpa who have worked extensively in the eastern Himalayas, Ghazala Shahabuddin has devoted her expertise to the biodiversity of avifauna in the mid-elevation western Himalaya while also writing extensively on larger biodiversity and conservation issues. Athreya’s work spans many of India’s leopard landscapes while Divya Mudappa’s work takes us to the cool slopes of the southern Western Ghats in Valparai, Tamil Nadu.

Some like Divya Karnad have eschewed land altogether to take to India’s coasts where she studies its depleting marine biodiversity. Her work also underscores the importance of working with communities, in this case, the fishing groups that populate our peninsular coastline. Divya’s work transcends an individual species — similarly, Mudappa’s work in restoring forest fragments in Valparai is concerned with an entire ecosystem and not a single mega species. This is a landscape that she has stayed committed to for a quarter of a century; there is an emotional connection to the land and landscape that goes beyond an academic interest in the forest as an object of study. Does gender make a difference in the field? A few decades ago, an emotional connection to scientific work was once seen as a handicap. But biologists like geneticist Uma Ramakrishnan subvert the criticism by being unapologetic about it. Is this emotional connect unique to the gender? Male biologists are not short on passion for their work either — what else would drive you to work in twenty-four-hour cycles in remote landscapes sans creature comforts? But some women field biologists wear emotion and empathy as badges of honour. Another common thread linking several of them is teamwork. As accomplished as the women mentioned above are, they put it front and centre that getting things done is about engaging with a larger community of colleagues and locals in the landscapes in which they work. Is this spirit of cooperation also a trait specific to women? Without going as far as to embrace that philosophy, it is safe to say that for these women, teamwork and cooperation seem instinctive and organic.

For many of these women, the fulfilment of their calling was no easy ride. Convincing a conservative family that wildlife science was a credible career choice was Ghazala Shahabuddin’s mountain; for others, it was living for extended periods of time in remote places that their parents would be hard-pressed to find on a map. Some of these are issues that all biologists, and not just women researchers, deal with, but what makes it harder are gender-specific problems. The research and conservation space can be a bit of an old boy’s club, and more importantly, there are issues around safety. Many parts of India are inaccessible for fieldwork simply because they are much too unsafe for women. Also, well-known organisations have unapologetically and openly chosen to not hire women for field positions based on their gender and not on their skills.

Most women wildlife biologists have dealt with sexism at some point in their careers, from colleagues, seniors and local people encountered in daily work. These include the whole gamut of sexist jokes, the ‘not bad for a girl’ comments and up to downright offensive comments. Some give as good as they get. But not every woman out there is capable of giving back. But almost certainly, every young female field biologist out there has gone through a few nerve-racking incidents from fending off men on lonely beaches at night to locking themselves in rooms to keep predatory officials at bay in remote forest department quarters (often the only places to stay). It’s worse for women who work on nocturnal species where fieldwork must happen at night. As one young woman put it, ‘It is almost as if they think we are more permissive because we work at night.’ Is this a rite of passage these women need to go through? The worst affected are newly minted women biologists, just starting out, who have no idea of the minefields ahead because no one talks about it. While the Protection of Women from Sexual Harassment Act (POSH) Act, 2013, protects women from sexual harassment in workplaces, there just isn’t enough coverage of issues or training and protocols for fieldwork. Nature conservation had its #MeToo moment in early 2023 when young scientists took to social media to share horrific tales of harassment at the hands of the Director of the Turtle Survival Alliance (TSA) India, a conservation organisation. He was replaced in the days following the outcry that ensued. While that is a step forward, it will be a pyrrhic victory if women’s safety is not ensured at a systemic level. While instances of male colleagues caught in the #MeToo maelstrom without justification are not unknown, the abuse suffered by so many young biologists is far too much and too traumatic to not be acted on. Given the remoteness of locations where these field biologists live and work, often alone and sometimes at night, the system has to place them on a footing where they can work as fearlessly as their male colleagues — their work is simply too important to let gender discrimination mar it.

Women field biologists themselves have not let the ugly truth pull them down. Field by field, ridge by ridge, forest to shore, the glass ceiling is feeling the pressure. As more women take leadership positions in wildlife biology, there is optimism that change will come.

(Anita Mani’s Indian Pitta imprint recently published Women in the Wild: Stories of India’s Most Brilliant Women Wildlife Biologists with Juggernaut.)