Two of the articles in this issue concern water: one reports research at the CSIRO Marine Laboratories in Hobart and the other is about women who sail on it for pleasure, achievement or to earn a living. Another article expresses Acram Taji's concerns about the progressive loss of women in the echelons of academe.
Reading the first two made me think about water and how I have experienced it through my life. Being a country child I very early learned not to waste it. It was a pure, sparkling resource that flowed out of the side of a hill into a created pondage guarded by barbed wire fencing. From there it was pumped to a tank on the top of the hill and then gravity fed to the homestead.
It seems a good analogy to our women scientists. When they first spring from the hillside they need careful nurturing in the schools. Getting them up to the top of the hill takes a lot of energy and resources; they need to be tertiary-educated and that costs the community a considerable amount of money. Why then do we leave the taps open and let the precious resource trickle away? Too many women are giving up, leaving science, because of active discouragement, deliberate placement of barriers or, too often, because the workplace is hostile either in ethos or in demands that do not accommodate a woman's family commitments.
At the bottom of the orchard was a reed-fringed dam. How we didn't kill ourselves in our makeshift boats heaven knows but we had enormous fun. Water is not only vital for our bodies, internally and externally, but provides healthy relaxation as the women in Diana Temple's article bear witness. But each of them has gone on from simple enjoyment to accept the challenge of competition where no quarter is given for gender.
There is a fine line between tackling the barriers that restrict
women's participation in the male-dominated sciences and using
gender as a prop or an excuse. Three of WISENET's objectives:
to increase participation at all levels in the sciences, to examine
the education and employment structures which currently restrict
women's opportunities, to support more democratic and participatory
systems as an alternative to the male-dominated traditions, address
these problems.
What are we, individually, doing about it? All of us are doing something just by being role-models. Many of our members are involved further. Could we hear from or about WISENET members who are involved in mentoring, breaking barriers, affirmative actions. Perhaps there is a pattern there we can enlarge.
Heather Rossiter