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SMNTY Classics: Women in Shark Science · Stuff Mom Never Told You

0:05
Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and Chal Stephane never
0:07
Speaker 1: told you production of iHeart Radio, and today we have
0:19
Speaker 1: a classic for you. That's it's an interesting one because
0:22
Speaker 1: it's about women in shark science, which there was a
0:24
Speaker 1: great episode. I loved it, but we've both missed Shark Week,
0:28
Speaker 1: which just happened. And also we originally did this episode.
0:32
Speaker 1: Do you remember this? We did it around the holidays
0:34
Speaker 1: because Jaws the Revenge is a holiday movie, so we
0:40
Speaker 1: talked about that at the beginning. So timing wise, we're
0:44
Speaker 1: very off. This one is kind of confusing in that manner,
0:47
Speaker 1: but I did want to bring this one back because
0:49
Speaker 1: I enjoyed it, even though it's got some really upsetting
0:51
Speaker 1: stuff towards the end. But as I've mentioned recently, I
0:56
Speaker 1: have been I know, I'm always watching horror movies, but
0:59
Speaker 1: I have in on horror movie kick like a lot,
1:04
Speaker 1: a lot. Like I was trying to close down the
1:07
Speaker 1: horror movie shot for a minute, but then I got
1:09
Speaker 1: a free trial for shutters. So now that that's all,
1:12
Speaker 1: is that what happened? Because you're preemptive right now, Like
1:14
Speaker 1: we typically don't start until end of August, September, October,
1:18
Speaker 1: so way ahead. I say way ahead because you were
1:22
Speaker 1: doing this a month ago, two months ago. Yeah, I know.
1:27
Speaker 1: I think we will be continuing to talk about this.
1:30
Speaker 1: But I have watched a lot of shark horror movies lately,
1:32
Speaker 1: which I know, as I mentioned in the top of
1:35
Speaker 1: this this classic episode, I know shark scientists really don't like.
1:39
Speaker 1: If this was if I could have a different podcast,
1:42
Speaker 1: I would want to do one. That is just why
1:44
Speaker 1: do we have so many horror movies about sharks and
1:47
Speaker 1: everything imaginable everything. But that's a different podcast, and I'm
1:51
Speaker 1: really busy right now. But if anybody has that podcast,
1:55
Speaker 1: let me know. In the meantime, please enjoy this classic episode. Hey,
2:07
Speaker 1: this is any and Samantha and record to stuff. I
2:10
Speaker 1: never told your production of I Heart Radio. So Samantha,
2:21
Speaker 1: what are your what are your thoughts on sharks? You know,
2:24
Speaker 1: as I've talked about, I have many a weird phobias,
2:28
Speaker 1: and I guess I did not realize how many that
2:32
Speaker 1: I had until people started asking me to do things
2:34
Speaker 1: or if I was interested in things, And then when
2:37
Speaker 1: people would suggest things, I'm like, oh, actually I'm scared
2:39
Speaker 1: of that. And sharks and creatures in the sea scare me.
2:43
Speaker 1: One of those things is like if I can't see
2:45
Speaker 1: the bottom, I can't. I can't if I can't see
2:48
Speaker 1: in the water, hell no, hell no. I don't know.
2:51
Speaker 1: If it's because of the many tales that I've heard
2:54
Speaker 1: of people losing a limb and or be like bitten
2:57
Speaker 1: on or chewed on a little bit or dung um,
3:01
Speaker 1: all of those things have scared me pretty darn well,
3:06
Speaker 1: so that I don't like going too deep into the ocean.
3:09
Speaker 1: I don't want to scuba. I don't want to do
3:11
Speaker 1: any of those things. The one time I went to
3:14
Speaker 1: Puerto Rico and all we did was like, you know,
3:16
Speaker 1: we were not that far out, but they were like,
3:17
Speaker 1: here's the scuba I need to do. And when I
3:20
Speaker 1: figured out what was around me, I immediately got out.
3:22
Speaker 1: I was like, oh my god, I can see these things.
3:24
Speaker 1: Now I have to leave. So all that to say, yeah,
3:27
Speaker 1: sharks scare me, I absolutely believe. Like all the amazing
3:32
Speaker 1: people who do great things, and I love the little
3:34
Speaker 1: videos of people making friends that's so adorable, but hell no,
3:39
Speaker 1: hell no, they made me panic. And then like when
3:42
Speaker 1: I see the videos of people who are doing the
3:45
Speaker 1: little rafting or the canoeing or whatever it is that
3:48
Speaker 1: they're doing out there, and then there's a big creature
3:50
Speaker 1: underneath them. I'm like, that makes my heart skip a
3:53
Speaker 1: beat in a bad way. Right, So I have a
3:59
Speaker 1: lot of feel links on it. Yes, yes, irrational. I
4:05
Speaker 1: suspected you might. I suspected you might. I I'm actually
4:12
Speaker 1: also afraid of sharks. But I also love sharks. I
4:17
Speaker 1: like many people, and I know to anyone who's listening
4:20
Speaker 1: works with sharks, this is going to really bother you.
4:23
Speaker 1: But I love the movie Draws and I would watch
4:28
Speaker 1: it every summer because I'm a masochistic, weird child. Uh.
4:32
Speaker 1: And then I would be afraid. I would be afraid
4:34
Speaker 1: every time I went into the water. I had a
4:36
Speaker 1: friend who had like a story of big She saw
4:38
Speaker 1: shadow in a pool and thought of a shark. I
4:40
Speaker 1: fool would just always be on edge. And I have
4:42
Speaker 1: seen some sharks while swimming. Um. I when I was
4:48
Speaker 1: scuba diving in Australia, I turned around and there was
4:50
Speaker 1: a big, old grigory nurse shark right there, and I
4:55
Speaker 1: just probs, like to your extra rules. Although luckily for me,
5:01
Speaker 1: I had done a report on gray nurse sharks in
5:05
Speaker 1: high school, because I also think that sharks shure misunderstood. Yes,
5:12
Speaker 1: but gray nurse sharks don't. They were almost extinct if
5:16
Speaker 1: I'm remembering quickly, or they were definitely endangered because they
5:19
Speaker 1: look me and they look like white great white sharks,
5:21
Speaker 1: but they actually I don't think they can even bite,
5:23
Speaker 1: like their mouths don't open enough to really do any
5:26
Speaker 1: damage to humans. So it was like this really tragic
5:29
Speaker 1: thing that happened. So luckily I was like, pretty sure
5:32
Speaker 1: that's a great nurse shark. I'm definitely not going to engage,
5:34
Speaker 1: and I hope it just goes away, but I'm pretty
5:38
Speaker 1: sure it's a great, great nurse shark. I have had
5:41
Speaker 1: a couple of close encounters with sharks. I'm thinking of
5:45
Speaker 1: at least three off the top of my head that
5:48
Speaker 1: we're pretty scary, but I won't go into them because
5:51
Speaker 1: we were trying not to fear monker about sharks. Yeah,
5:54
Speaker 1: don't tell me these stories. Oh no, you have to
6:00
Speaker 1: hear it. I'm fired. It all worked out. So before
6:04
Speaker 1: we get into this, we did want to put a
6:07
Speaker 1: quick trigger warning. We're gonna be talking about some sexual
6:11
Speaker 1: harassment and sexual assaults and kind of just general a
6:16
Speaker 1: key nous around all of that. Um, we're not gonna
6:18
Speaker 1: get into into anything too specific, but put that right
6:22
Speaker 1: at the top. But this was an old request from
6:24
Speaker 1: a listener, Vicky, and I hope you're still listening, Vickie.
6:28
Speaker 1: I believe those requests from several several years ago. We
6:30
Speaker 1: will get to all your requests sometimes it takes. And
6:34
Speaker 1: should we be talking about sharks and women in shark
6:37
Speaker 1: science during Shark Week? No, because it is a holiday topic.
6:43
Speaker 1: And here's why. I recently just rewatched the movie Jaws
6:51
Speaker 1: the Revenge had a whole like planned as like they all,
6:55
Speaker 1: they did a little like a streaming matinee of Jaws.
6:58
Speaker 1: I was very surprised. Yes, I had actually forgotten it
7:02
Speaker 1: was a Christmas movie at this point. It was just
7:04
Speaker 1: kind of a pleasant, well Christmas movie and very loose Christmas.
7:10
Speaker 1: And it's also called Jaws for the Revenge from nineteen
7:15
Speaker 1: and if you all me, here's a brief synopsis. It
7:19
Speaker 1: is a sequel to Jaws Too, ignoring what happens in
7:22
Speaker 1: Jaws three D, and it centers primarily on Ellen Brody,
7:26
Speaker 1: played by Lorraine Gray. Her husband Martin Brodie, had recently
7:30
Speaker 1: died of a heart attack. And she loses her son
7:33
Speaker 1: in a shark attack at the beginning of the movie,
7:35
Speaker 1: and the actor who plays him now owns a restaurant
7:37
Speaker 1: in Atlanta. This walking Distance from Me and Yes takes
7:41
Speaker 1: place at Christmas. There's a whole thing where there's a
7:43
Speaker 1: Christmas carol playing. Winter Sun dies and if they hadn't
7:46
Speaker 1: been singing, they might have heard his cries for help.
7:49
Speaker 1: That the moral of the story. Don't singing Christmas carols.
7:53
Speaker 1: They go, I mean, we've been talking about that for
7:57
Speaker 1: a while. To stop seeing Christmas songs if it's not
7:59
Speaker 1: near Christmas over, just don't think Christmas kidding. If it's
8:03
Speaker 1: one thing I learned from Jaws, the revenge. So Ellen
8:11
Speaker 1: becomes convinced that this shrike wants revenge on her family
8:15
Speaker 1: after the past two outcomes of sharks coming in contact
8:18
Speaker 1: with her family ending up in those sharks dying. The
8:22
Speaker 1: tagline of the film is this time it's personal. Her
8:27
Speaker 1: remaining son, Michael, who is a marine biologist, convinces her
8:30
Speaker 1: to calm down to the Bahamas after assuring her there
8:33
Speaker 1: are and have never been sharks in the waters down there.
8:37
Speaker 1: Never The pilot HOGI, played by Michael Kane immediately shows
8:46
Speaker 1: interest in Ellen, an interest that is reciprocated, and well,
8:49
Speaker 1: when you know what, a shark shows up when Michael
8:51
Speaker 1: is conducting research and seems to only be interested in
8:54
Speaker 1: attacking him. M Michael doesn't tell his mother, who was
8:59
Speaker 1: having nightmares flash box and seemingly premonitions about a shark
9:03
Speaker 1: trying to kill her family. After an attempted shark attack
9:07
Speaker 1: on her granddaughter, Ellen, it takes a boat and goes
9:09
Speaker 1: out to confront the shark. Michael admits what has been
9:11
Speaker 1: going on when they catch up via plane. Michael admits
9:15
Speaker 1: what has been going on with the shark because he
9:17
Speaker 1: and some colleagues, including Hoagi, they catch up with her. Um.
9:21
Speaker 1: They confront the shark, and with several fake out deaths
9:24
Speaker 1: of the human, of the shark, of some inexplicable dancing,
9:26
Speaker 1: and an explosion, Ellen impales the shark um while seeing
9:30
Speaker 1: visions of her family and other sharks, many she'd never seen,
9:34
Speaker 1: never seen before, and yes, in the edited version, this
9:37
Speaker 1: somehow causes an explosion. Uh, there's more than one ending
9:41
Speaker 1: to this movie. And if you're listening to this and
9:43
Speaker 1: you're thinking that sounds kind of bizarre, it is. It
9:46
Speaker 1: was not well reviewed, It was widely panned. It was
9:48
Speaker 1: the last of the Jaw series to date. But I
9:53
Speaker 1: don't think it's some interesting things in there. Um, you've
9:56
Speaker 1: got a whole like women's intuition, um with Ellen and
10:00
Speaker 1: this trauma and like constantly being dismissed. Admittedly, this shark
10:06
Speaker 1: premonitions a little different than what we're normally talking about.
10:11
Speaker 1: But she was right, She was right. And then I
10:16
Speaker 1: always love this line. Apparently Michael Caine has never seen
10:21
Speaker 1: this movie, and he has a quote where he said,
10:23
Speaker 1: I've never seen it. I hear it's quite why all
10:26
Speaker 1: accounts it's quite terrible, but I have seen the house
10:28
Speaker 1: it bought and it's lovely. And then you have this
10:34
Speaker 1: whole side flot with older widowed women dating um and
10:38
Speaker 1: Michael being weird about it. Um, Like it's kind of strange.
10:41
Speaker 1: But also Michael Caine's character watching it, because this was
10:45
Speaker 1: my second viewing of this film, he does seem to
10:48
Speaker 1: have a little bit of suspicious things going on in
10:52
Speaker 1: his life. But she she knows what she's doing as well.
10:55
Speaker 1: She wants to be happy. Doesn't have probably addict the
11:00
Speaker 1: fictions of the bombs and people that live there. Yes,
11:04
Speaker 1: but uh, this is It's one of those movies where
11:08
Speaker 1: I was watching it and I sometimes you just don't
11:11
Speaker 1: expect all the Christmas imagery in a movie about sharks.
11:30
Speaker 1: I know that bringing up Jaws Yes, does not endear
11:33
Speaker 1: me to any sharks scientist, though interestingly in Jawston Revenge
11:37
Speaker 1: there is some sharks science happening, and speaking of Yes, today,
11:43
Speaker 1: we wanted to talk about some of the women who
11:45
Speaker 1: have done and are doing amazing work in the field
11:48
Speaker 1: of sharks science, the real non fixed sharks science. A
11:55
Speaker 1: couple of stats before we get into that. Despite the
11:57
Speaker 1: fact that modernly about graduate students in the USR women,
12:01
Speaker 1: the majority of senior scientists in it are white men.
12:04
Speaker 1: Some articles used the term the Petrie Sharks for this
12:08
Speaker 1: specifically niche when we're talking about today. Study across scientific
12:13
Speaker 1: disciplines found six of those surveyed experienced sexual harassment on
12:16
Speaker 1: the job, and twenty percent experienced sexual assaults and racism.
12:21
Speaker 1: A recent BBC study found that seven seminal textbooks used
12:25
Speaker 1: to teach science and medicine to undergraduates did not feature
12:27
Speaker 1: a single black woman in them. So the situation isn't
12:31
Speaker 1: great for sharks either. Over a hundred million sharks are
12:34
Speaker 1: lost a year due to commercial industries. Yes, yes, so
12:38
Speaker 1: that's kind of setting the stage where we're talking about um.
12:42
Speaker 1: And one name that comes up a lot in this
12:44
Speaker 1: conversation of women and sharks science is Dr Eugenie Clark.
12:49
Speaker 1: From childhood, Clark had love sharks and showed an interest
12:52
Speaker 1: in taking care of the oceans. She was born in
12:54
Speaker 1: New York City on May four Her father was American
12:59
Speaker 1: and her mother was Japanese. She often credited her mom
13:01
Speaker 1: and Japanese culture for fostering her love for the sea
13:05
Speaker 1: and passion for protecting it. As a kid, she enjoyed
13:08
Speaker 1: spending her saturdays at the New York Aquarium watching the
13:10
Speaker 1: sharks and wondering what it would be like to swim
13:13
Speaker 1: with them. She became a marine biologist despite all of
13:16
Speaker 1: those sexism she encountered over her career from extremely early on.
13:21
Speaker 1: In her words, she says, as a child, marine biologists
13:25
Speaker 1: explore William Beebe was my hero, and I used to
13:27
Speaker 1: read about him going down in the batty sphere and
13:30
Speaker 1: I wanted to do that too. And I told my
13:32
Speaker 1: family and they said, well, maybe you can take up
13:35
Speaker 1: typing and get to be the secretary of William Babe
13:38
Speaker 1: or somebody like him. And when she applied for graduate
13:42
Speaker 1: school at Columbia University, a scientist told her quote, if
13:45
Speaker 1: you do finish, you'll probably get married, have a bunch
13:48
Speaker 1: of kids, and never do anything in science. After we've
13:51
Speaker 1: invested our time and money in you. Well, daum, people
13:55
Speaker 1: are real supportive. But of course that was not the case.
13:59
Speaker 1: Boom got her PhD from New York University and platus
14:03
Speaker 1: and swordfish reproduction, and through her work earned the nickname
14:06
Speaker 1: the Shark Lady as a leader in the field. During
14:09
Speaker 1: her time as a full Bright scholar, she explored the
14:12
Speaker 1: largely unexplored waters of the Red Coast of Egypt and
14:16
Speaker 1: experience which led her to write the best selling book
14:19
Speaker 1: Lady with a Spear in nineteen fifty three. She went
14:23
Speaker 1: on to take a job at the Script's Institution of Oceanography,
14:27
Speaker 1: when diving was still a pretty risky thing to do.
14:29
Speaker 1: Her hose mauth functioned at one point and she nearly drowned,
14:33
Speaker 1: And she still had to deal with institutional sexism. For instance,
14:36
Speaker 1: at one time women were not allowed to do overnight
14:39
Speaker 1: research trips archers to places like the Galapagos Islands, Clark
14:43
Speaker 1: became the founding director of the Cape Hayes Marine Laboratory
14:46
Speaker 1: or what is now the Mote Marine Laboratory and Aquarium
14:49
Speaker 1: in nine and this is where she really deviled and
14:51
Speaker 1: fostered her love of sharks, and she really made it
14:54
Speaker 1: her goal to change their image. She once said, people
14:57
Speaker 1: generally thought that sharks are dumb eating machines. After some study,
15:00
Speaker 1: I began to realize that these gangsters of the deep
15:03
Speaker 1: have gotten a bad rap. So she conducted several experiments
15:07
Speaker 1: to make her point, and in one she showed that
15:09
Speaker 1: sharks could tap plates to obtain food, and they could
15:12
Speaker 1: distinguish between two symbols on different plates. On top of this,
15:17
Speaker 1: she also discovered the first known effective shark repellent, called
15:21
Speaker 1: Moses soul. Just a case of curious. It was made
15:24
Speaker 1: out of flat fish secretions, so all right, let's go
15:27
Speaker 1: get some. She debunked the myth that sharks had to
15:30
Speaker 1: keep moving to breathe with her discovery of sleeping sharks
15:33
Speaker 1: in undersea caves in Mexico. She was an outspoken public
15:37
Speaker 1: speaker and defender of sharks. In fact, she jumped to
15:40
Speaker 1: the defensive sharks after the movie Jabs came out in
15:44
Speaker 1: One of her most well known articles was the piece
15:46
Speaker 1: in National Geographic called Sharks Magnificent and miss understood. So
15:50
Speaker 1: she married five times, so she didn't get married, but
15:53
Speaker 1: not to quit. She married five times and had four children.
15:57
Speaker 1: Up until nineteen she was a teacher and she kept
16:00
Speaker 1: diving until her death in twift at the age of
16:04
Speaker 1: ninety two. In an interview, she said, quote, I figure,
16:07
Speaker 1: if I'm in a wheelchair, they can will me to
16:10
Speaker 1: the end of the boat and put on attack on
16:11
Speaker 1: my back and duped me over the side of the boat,
16:13
Speaker 1: and I can go down to the bottom and I
16:15
Speaker 1: can study these fishes as long as I want, if
16:18
Speaker 1: you want to learn more. So many books have been
16:20
Speaker 1: written about her and by her, like children's books, science books,
16:24
Speaker 1: all kinds of books. Amazing, I know, I know grief.
16:28
Speaker 1: Julian Child backed for a time during World War Two.
16:32
Speaker 1: Julia Child worked for an agency that collected an analyzed
16:36
Speaker 1: intel for the Office of Strategic Services or the o
16:39
Speaker 1: s S. The story is fascinating, but for our purposes
16:42
Speaker 1: in this episode. At one point she was assigned to
16:44
Speaker 1: the Emergency CE Rescue Equipment Section and task with developing
16:49
Speaker 1: a shark repellent. What they came up with was something
16:52
Speaker 1: that smelled like dead sharks that showed quote slight repellents. Nice.
16:57
Speaker 1: Then there's Melissa Christina Marquez, the other of sharks Pretty
17:01
Speaker 1: Riacan scientist, author, and public speaker. Marquez is outspoken when
17:05
Speaker 1: it comes to the importance of understanding and protecting sharks.
17:08
Speaker 1: She's also passionate about diversifying the field. Quote I not
17:11
Speaker 1: only focus on diverse sharks because they're over five hundred
17:14
Speaker 1: different species, but I also want people to see the
17:17
Speaker 1: diverse scientists that study them as well. Growing up watching
17:20
Speaker 1: Shark Week, I never saw any female scientists, let alone
17:23
Speaker 1: any female Latina scientists. So with the organization that I have,
17:26
Speaker 1: I want people to see themselves in a lineup of
17:28
Speaker 1: sharks scientists and be like, great, I can do this.
17:31
Speaker 1: I work with really inspirational people who helped me be
17:33
Speaker 1: better and to keep pushing through the racism, the sexism,
17:36
Speaker 1: and the ageism. She was also attacked by a crocodile
17:40
Speaker 1: while on a shark dive in All Good and she
17:44
Speaker 1: continues to dive. Also don't like crocodiles, so in Jillian
17:49
Speaker 1: Morris break Launch Sharks for Kids with a goal of
17:52
Speaker 1: providing free educational materials for teachers to use in classrooms,
17:56
Speaker 1: the program also offers in parson visits, tours, trips, and
18:00
Speaker 1: shark tagging expeditions. That's kind of cool. Yeah, oh, I
18:03
Speaker 1: would have loved that as a kid. Oh, I would
18:06
Speaker 1: have loved it to UM. So, now let's talk about
18:10
Speaker 1: Minorities and Shark Sciences or miss m I s S.
18:14
Speaker 1: This organization was founded in June after the hashtag black
18:18
Speaker 1: in Nature in conjunction with the hashtag black Burners Week.
18:22
Speaker 1: UM We're trending. Hosted by at Black a f in stem.
18:26
Speaker 1: It was founded by Yasmin Graham, Ammani Weber Schultz, Carl Jackson,
18:30
Speaker 1: and Jada Lcock. From their website, we were founded by
18:34
Speaker 1: four black female shark researchers. We strive to be seen
18:37
Speaker 1: and take up space in a discipline which has been
18:39
Speaker 1: largely inaccessible for women like us. We strive to be
18:42
Speaker 1: positive role models for the next generation. We seek to
18:44
Speaker 1: promote diversity and inclusion in shark science and encourage women
18:47
Speaker 1: of color to push through barriers and contribute knowledge and
18:50
Speaker 1: marine science. Finally, we hope to topple the system that
18:53
Speaker 1: has historically excluded women like us and create an equitable
18:56
Speaker 1: path to shark science. We believe diversity and scientists creates
19:00
Speaker 1: diversity and thought, which leads to innovation. Reebert Schultz has
19:04
Speaker 1: been open about how she is careful about who she
19:06
Speaker 1: works with in the face of violent racist threats. She's
19:09
Speaker 1: received quote, I need to feel that whoever I'm working
19:12
Speaker 1: for or with will have my back and stand up
19:14
Speaker 1: for me in situations where it is not safe for
19:16
Speaker 1: me to stand up for myself. Uh yeah, so Graham
19:20
Speaker 1: said of the founding, thinking about those slaves of Freedom Texas.
19:24
Speaker 1: If they could know in the future that they were
19:26
Speaker 1: going to be black people getting pH d s and
19:28
Speaker 1: they're going to be black people publishing papers and everything,
19:31
Speaker 1: that would blow their mind. But it doesn't just stop there.
19:34
Speaker 1: The barriers should not exist at all, and the work
19:36
Speaker 1: is not finished, and the founding of MISS is a
19:39
Speaker 1: continuation of all the work that was started by those
19:42
Speaker 1: that came before us. Um. They also started Guild Guardians
19:45
Speaker 1: to educate the public about sharks, skates, and rays, and
19:48
Speaker 1: on top of that they have the Rising Ties mentorship program.
20:05
Speaker 1: So let's take a look at today. Because while these
20:09
Speaker 1: badass women have made great strides and against odds stacked
20:13
Speaker 1: against them, the field still has a lot of issues.
20:17
Speaker 1: In August, Katherine McDonald wrote The Dark Side of being
20:20
Speaker 1: a Female Shark Researcher. Being a scientist should not require
20:23
Speaker 1: developing the grit to continually endure misogyny, discrimination, harassment, assault
20:27
Speaker 1: or bullying, and in it she described her experience with
20:31
Speaker 1: all of the above from a young intern just starting
20:34
Speaker 1: off in shark science. She also highlights how Discovery Channel's
20:38
Speaker 1: annual event Shark Week, a week of content that draws
20:41
Speaker 1: millions of years, very rarely features women are people of
20:44
Speaker 1: color in leading roles. She described her first experience in
20:47
Speaker 1: the field as an intern, being relegated into a sexualized
20:50
Speaker 1: supporting role for the lead of male scientists on camera
20:54
Speaker 1: and speaking at her first conference and being attacked so
20:56
Speaker 1: aggressively by a male scientist that another man apologized for him,
21:00
Speaker 1: saying he does that to a female graduate student every
21:03
Speaker 1: year or two. Okay, so that's okay, yeah, yeah, that
21:06
Speaker 1: makes it better. Yeah. Um. This conference typically ended in
21:11
Speaker 1: an auction in which grad students in revealing outfits, paraded
21:14
Speaker 1: items up for bid around the room, an event where
21:16
Speaker 1: one senior scientist would sit with the quote prettiest students.
21:21
Speaker 1: Women had to be on guard from on wanted touches. Um.
21:24
Speaker 1: The first male grad student who helped display auction items
21:27
Speaker 1: at this event had his ass slapped by a senior
21:30
Speaker 1: scientist dude who said, quote for old times sake. McDonald
21:34
Speaker 1: also described a photo from a pass conference where a
21:36
Speaker 1: male senior scientist had his hand between the length of
21:39
Speaker 1: two female scientists, lifting them. One is laughing while the
21:43
Speaker 1: other appears to be about to grab dear God. Yeah so.
21:47
Speaker 1: McDonald's also describes how during the early days of her
21:50
Speaker 1: career she was verbally harassed, masturbated at, and sexually assaulted.
21:55
Speaker 1: She recalled how undergraduate women were referred to as quote
21:58
Speaker 1: fresh meat. Uh. Woman she spoke to about this, I
22:01
Speaker 1: shared a story about how she had been so happy
22:04
Speaker 1: to be invited to a dinner with a prominent male scientist,
22:07
Speaker 1: and she said, I accepted and thought we were heading
22:09
Speaker 1: to a restaurant. Turns out we went to his house.
22:12
Speaker 1: From there, he indicated I smelled bad and it would
22:14
Speaker 1: be best if I took a shower. I thought it
22:16
Speaker 1: was odd, but I decided to do it. While showering,
22:19
Speaker 1: I looked up at the ceiling and I saw a
22:22
Speaker 1: camera lens sticking out of one of the ceiling tiles,
22:25
Speaker 1: and I could not believe my eyes. I gave the
22:28
Speaker 1: camera a bird, so he knew I knew. I went out,
22:31
Speaker 1: said nothing and had dinner. I left. I did not
22:34
Speaker 1: confront him. I did not have the courage I wish
22:36
Speaker 1: I had. I only saden to think he did this
22:39
Speaker 1: too many women. It's humiliating to think he watched me.
22:43
Speaker 1: Oh God. And another woman told her that a senior
22:46
Speaker 1: male scientist told her that her career was game over
22:50
Speaker 1: when she told him she was pregnant. Many others told
22:53
Speaker 1: her they've been asked out by superiors and how they've
22:55
Speaker 1: been afraid of the repercussions to their career if they
22:58
Speaker 1: turned these men down. Uh. Pretty much every woman she
23:01
Speaker 1: spoke to described experiencing at least light misogyny UH. Comments
23:07
Speaker 1: asking who you slept with to get where you were,
23:09
Speaker 1: or that they were, you know, strong for a girl,
23:12
Speaker 1: observations about their bodies, doubts about their experience, and in
23:16
Speaker 1: one example, a woman featured in Shark Week was called
23:19
Speaker 1: by her first name despite being a doctor, while a
23:23
Speaker 1: man who wasn't a doctor was referred to as a doctor.
23:27
Speaker 1: And his last name, and being on Shark Week as
23:30
Speaker 1: a shark scientist is obviously a huge career boost um
23:34
Speaker 1: and a chance to get some visibility. So how ridiculously disrespectful? Yeah? Absolutely.
23:41
Speaker 1: One study about Shark Week found that over the thirty
23:44
Speaker 1: plus years it's been running, the experts were white or
23:48
Speaker 1: white passing and identified as male. Here's a quote from
23:52
Speaker 1: the study of the hosts and experts featured in more
23:55
Speaker 1: than five episodes. There were more men who were non
23:57
Speaker 1: scientists named Mike, and there were women of any name
24:01
Speaker 1: or occupation that is really specific burns burns me up
24:08
Speaker 1: non scientist name Mike. Okay, And initiative by the Atlantic
24:12
Speaker 1: White Shark Conservacy called the Gills Club, founded by Cynthia
24:15
Speaker 1: Wigan and Maryanne Long, fights against the stigma and discrimination
24:19
Speaker 1: against woman instant in part because of the unfortunately accurate
24:23
Speaker 1: gender gas presented in Shark Week. When Tiffany Huddish hosted
24:27
Speaker 1: the thirty Shark Week, she was the first woman of
24:30
Speaker 1: color to do so, so that had to be super recent. Yeah. Also,
24:35
Speaker 1: sharks scientists have released a few studies that have shown
24:37
Speaker 1: that Shark Week is negative in terms of the public
24:40
Speaker 1: perceptions on sharks and often inaccurate. Another woman McDonald spoke
24:44
Speaker 1: to created an educational program for girls in science, only
24:47
Speaker 1: to find out a male supervisor was taking credit for
24:49
Speaker 1: it in the media. When she confronted him. Quote, he
24:52
Speaker 1: told me, I overestimated my contribution and that no point
24:55
Speaker 1: should have felt ownership over my work. I considered fighting
24:58
Speaker 1: and exposing him, but at the time that felt insurmountable.
25:02
Speaker 1: He was protected by a massive institution and I was
25:05
Speaker 1: protected by absolutely nothing. Over estimate made it wow okay
25:11
Speaker 1: because of how shark field work works, often in remote locations,
25:15
Speaker 1: in close quarters in mixed gender sleeping situations requiring physical
25:19
Speaker 1: contact between scientists, especially when restraining an animal. There are
25:23
Speaker 1: a lot of areas where sexual harassment assault can occur,
25:27
Speaker 1: and the academic journal Nature Geoscience, which includes ocean science,
25:31
Speaker 1: found that no real progress has been made in terms
25:34
Speaker 1: of diversity for over forty years. Here's another quote from McDonald.
25:39
Speaker 1: Becoming a scientist should not require developing the grit to
25:42
Speaker 1: continually endure a missalogy. Discrimination, harassment, assault are bullying. But
25:45
Speaker 1: from their earliest experiences, women scientists learned that if they complain,
25:49
Speaker 1: they'll be described as difficult or a problem. If they're
25:52
Speaker 1: heartbroken by how they're treated compared to their mail peers,
25:54
Speaker 1: they'll be told they're too emotional and need to grow
25:57
Speaker 1: a thicker skin. And if they leave the field, the
25:59
Speaker 1: problem was them they weren't tough enough to hack it
26:02
Speaker 1: in shark science, which unfortunately a lot of this ring
26:08
Speaker 1: is true for several other fields we've talked about. We
26:12
Speaker 1: just hear these stories over and over again. It's always
26:15
Speaker 1: so infuriating and upsetting. Yeah, And you know what, I
26:19
Speaker 1: was just thinking, like it probably top five things that
26:24
Speaker 1: children will say about when they want to grow up.
26:27
Speaker 1: Marine biologists is one of them. Veterinarian is another. But
26:30
Speaker 1: the marine biologists always stuck in my mind because it
26:33
Speaker 1: was almost like a running joke that everybody said this,
26:36
Speaker 1: and I'm like, there's so much just a small field
26:39
Speaker 1: in comparison to but perhaps it's more so that is
26:42
Speaker 1: so little opportunity outside of white men that it feels
26:47
Speaker 1: like it's such a small field and it shouldn't be, right, Yeah,
26:50
Speaker 1: because osians are huge, right, Yeah, And a lot of
26:54
Speaker 1: it's been undiscovered. There's so much to learn, especially now
26:59
Speaker 1: when we've got like climate change and pollution and all
27:01
Speaker 1: that stuff. Going on. Yeah, I wanted to be a
27:04
Speaker 1: marine biologist and my cousin I had a cousin who
27:08
Speaker 1: worked in it for a while. She had a really
27:11
Speaker 1: cool wedding. I was not invited to it, but a
27:17
Speaker 1: quarium or something, but she, I guess she succeeded. But
27:23
Speaker 1: I know, it's just hearing these stories. Oh, it makes
27:26
Speaker 1: me so angry. You know. One of the best stories
27:30
Speaker 1: about sharks that I think I have watched recently, and
27:32
Speaker 1: I think it was on the Dodo. A woman named
27:34
Speaker 1: Christina Zinato goes and gets hooks out of shark's mouth
27:39
Speaker 1: and she's a diver I believe has done this for years,
27:43
Speaker 1: and she's even made friends with one that remembers her
27:46
Speaker 1: and she would go and visit them. Yeah. Like it
27:49
Speaker 1: was just the cutest little like video of her. She
27:52
Speaker 1: recorded a year after year and they would run into
27:54
Speaker 1: each other and she's like, this is my friend dada
27:57
Speaker 1: um and she's been doing this for thirteen years and
27:59
Speaker 1: she has this huge collection of hooks that she has
28:02
Speaker 1: been able to remove from the mouth sharks. And I
28:05
Speaker 1: was like, wow, that makes me like the sharks a
28:07
Speaker 1: little more because eight they're the victim here and I
28:09
Speaker 1: feel bad be she's so nice and that friendly. But
28:12
Speaker 1: I'm like, still know and that's okay, So that's okay.
28:20
Speaker 1: But you know, we did go over quite a few
28:23
Speaker 1: distressing facts in this one, but so so many of
28:27
Speaker 1: the women's scientists and Shark Science are doing amazing things,
28:31
Speaker 1: and a lot of this did give me like hope,
28:34
Speaker 1: Like I almost wasn't expecting to find this much information,
28:36
Speaker 1: to be honest, right, but it's still yeah, we have
28:41
Speaker 1: so much work to go and so so so many
28:44
Speaker 1: of the scientists when we were researching this and Shark
28:47
Speaker 1: Science of said they just didn't see themselves represented growing
28:51
Speaker 1: up or not even really now. So still a lot
28:55
Speaker 1: of work to do, and there are so many amazing
28:59
Speaker 1: women in doing that great work. If we didn't mention one,
29:04
Speaker 1: or if we didn't mention you and you happen to
29:06
Speaker 1: be listening movies right in, we would love to hear
29:10
Speaker 1: about the work you're doing are the work of someone
29:12
Speaker 1: you know. And also we may return to some of
29:14
Speaker 1: these women in the future to dig dig in deeper,
29:18
Speaker 1: dive in deeper. Ah Hi. And then I just want
29:24
Speaker 1: to include random shark rocks this Actually do really enjoy sharks.
29:28
Speaker 1: They can have Virgin Verse. The sex is real rough
29:31
Speaker 1: um and they have a sixth sense electro baptism which
29:34
Speaker 1: is featured and jaws do probably yeah inaccurately, but it
29:41
Speaker 1: isn't there. So listeners. As always, we would love to
29:48
Speaker 1: hear from you if you would like the email as
29:51
Speaker 1: you can our emails step Media, Mom and stuff at
29:53
Speaker 1: iHeart media dot com. You can find us on Twitter
29:55
Speaker 1: at MoMA Stuff Podcasts or Instagram and Stuff. I've Never
29:57
Speaker 1: told you. Thanks, It's always star a super producer, Christina,
30:00
Speaker 1: thank you. Thanks to you for listening. Stephone ever told
30:02
Speaker 1: you the production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts
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Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows,