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Women in Shark Science: The Revenge · Stuff Mom Never Told You

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