Antarctic work is fine for women‘but tread gently on male egos!’

Press, 19 April 1980, Page 16

Antarctic work is fine for women — ‘but tread gently on male egos!’

By

GARRY ARTHUR

The 23 New Zealand women now being interviewed for jobs in the Antarctic next summer need feel no qualms about venturing into that traditionally male stronghold — as . long as they are prepared to edge very gently around the egos of some male explorers. That is the picture that emerges from the experience of Margaret Bradshaw, a Christchurch geologist, who rose to the position of scientific leader of a four-person field party on the polar plateau this summer season. After three polar expeditions, Mrs Bradshaw is convinced that there is nothing a man can do in the Antarctic that a woman, cannot do. Antarctica is no longer the exclusively male preserve that it once was, and Mrs Bradshaw is one of the reasons why. Her effectiveness as a field geologist and team leader has made it that much easier for other women to follow suit. She wishes many more would do so. Margaret Bradshaw is an Englishwoman who came to New Zealand with her husband in 1966. He emigrated to take up a lectureship in geology at the University of Canterbury 7. After doing some teaching at the Technical Institute, Mrs Bradshaw became curator of geology at Canterbury Museum in 1974. With the new Antarctic wing in prospect, she decided that it was necessary to make a rock collecting trip to the Antarctic. On that first trip, in the 1975-76 season, she was accompanied by Sue West, a British geologist. Only a couple of women scientists had been south before them, so they were still very much' a novelty in a land where men were men and women — to some of the men — were unwelcome intruders. For years women had

been kept out of the Antarctic by the weak excuse that there were no toilet facilities for them — this in a place where the very latest scientific and technological equipment was being shipped in year after year.

Almost at once the two women came up against men’s protective prejudices. The leader at Scott Base told them he was unhappy at the idea of women going as far away from base as they planned — right to the limit of helicopter range. But Margaret Bradshaw stuck to her guns; it was important, she said, and Sue West had come all the way from Britian to visit that very spot. Mrs Bradshaw noticed that the younger men she encountered in the Antarctic had a liberated attitude towards women. The older ones tended to be conservative, holding the oldfashioned view about women being delicate creatures. Before spending their four weeks in the field, the women had to prove they could do it. For survival training they , had to dig a snow trench for themselves near : Scott Base — two sleeping benches roofed over with inclined slabs of compacted : snow. Again, the Scott Base leader was unhappy about two frail women being left alone in a snow-hole overnight. “He was afraid that we wouldn’t get our primus to work,” Margaret laughs. “We said that if it was not working, we would just have to put up with a cold night. “The leader had a fatherly concern for us,” she recalls, “but it was overcome by our persistence.” The women were taken, together with two men, right to the edge of the polar plateau, a very cold and windy spot.

Their collecting trip was very successful, and just

before the museum’s new Antarctic wing was opened, Margaret Bradshaw made a second trip to the ice to gather more rock to complete the display. She also wanted to do research on rocks 'she saw on the first visit. : This time, in' the 197677 season, she was out in the field for five weeks. Her only companion at first was John Nankerviss, a Wellington lawyer and mountaineer who accompanied her as field assistant.

“I think we were both a bit nervous about sharing a tent,” Margaret admits. “But he was a liberated sort of person who was used to climbing with women. He .was the sort of bloke to whom you . could ■ say ‘Give me a few. minutes privacy,’ and he would leave the tent.”

Margaret asked for a third person to join them for the fifth and final week in the field, because she felt that three would be safer than two in that remote spot. The arrival of a second mountaineer, Ken Sullivan,

proved oddly unsettling. “He felt he was intruding,” Margaret says. “Nan and I had got to the stage where we didn’t need to say things. I got the feeling that an element of competition was creeping in.

"The two men were a little aggressive towards each other — but it was nothing you could put your finger on. We got on very well on the whole!

“But I. was left with the feeling that it was better for a woman to have a companion. For instance, when there were two men in the tent, the language got a little worse. “I sympathise with women who have wintered over in the Antarctic. You feel the need just to have

more gentle conversation sometimes. Women have gentler attitudes, different interests.” . Margaret’s husband, Dr John Bradshaw, has also visited the Antarctic several times, but they never go together. Well aware of the physical dangers, in spite Of man’s long association with Antarctica, they are careful not to risk both lives at once. “I also feel happier with him looking after the kids, (Julia,-14, and Erik, 12),” says Mrs Bradshaw. “You can’t do big trips like this worrying about what is happening at home.’’ This summer’s visit to. the Antarctic was the big one. Margaret Bradshaw was the scientific leader of a. “deep field” party which was dropped ...near the Ohio Range 1200 km from Scott Base and only 500 km from the South Pole. It was a research trip to study fossiliferoiis marine Devonian rocks along a 32km escarpment and compare them with similar rocks of Reefton on the West Coast, and

of the plane about where we should be put down, he said, ‘Could I see your leader now’.”. Well aware that the traditional roles were reversed, Mrs Bradshaw played ■ it very low-key. She made Sure that decisions were reached through discussion. “All women are very conscious that they might be disturbing male egos in this kind of situation, and they compromise a lot. You can either be aggressive and risk confrontations, or you can do it in a more roundabout way and stay friends.” But just how friendly, was another delicate problem. ‘Most women who go down to the Antarctic are screened for their'attitude to. coping with overamorous men,” she says. “All the girls are very conscious that they can’t have any favourites. Any romance is only on the shallowest level to avoid antagonism between the men. “Scott Base had two women 1 on the staff this season; doing general

others in the Antarctic dry valleys. Two American geologists accompanied her —- Dr Lucy Force and Dr Karl Kellogg. .The fourth member of the party was the Mount Cook ranger, Graeme Ayres.. This was the first deep field party to be led by a woman. “The Antarctic Division knew me and "seemed to have faith’ in rhe,” Mrs Bradshaw says. For the most pdrt, the two men showed no resentment at having a woman as leader. “It was only in the little odd things — tiny little incidents ’ — which showed that men find it hard to accept- a woman in charge,” she recalls. “For example, when I was talking to the pilot

duties. One did all the cooking for a long time while the base cook was in the field, and the other girl ran the- canteen in addition to other duties. “I think a lot of men are glad to have females around. It makes. a more interesting atmosphere. Men often enjoy talking to women for a change, and they tend to pour out any problems about their wives at home.” ■ The four in the field party did not know each other very well when the trip started, but their ability to get along was soon put to the test. They had to weather a storm that lashed their two tents for 12 days.

“We all knew that' we had to keep our tempers intact,” Mrs Bradshaw says. “We slept a lot and read a lot, and wrote up our results. We played cards and chess, and cooked bread and experimented with cakes.” Margaret Bradshaw .: j s ' sure after ’ three , expeditions that there is nothing that a woman cannot do in the Antarctic. “Often she can withstand cold longer. A woman’s body temperature is a fraction of a degree lower than a man’s, so she is not s.o delicate really 7. And a woman can put up wth problems without losing her temper so quickly. “She is?not so good at lifting heayy boxes on to the sledge,-and other tasks involving • strength. We mentioned that in discussions with the men, but they said it was something they didn’t mind at all. They said women made camp more bearable.

They felt we made it a bit-’*: more comfortable fore's them:" ">f . ■ One of . the ways •■indt which Margaret Bradshaw-T? and -Lucy Force .made4f things more comfortable:-?' out • in the“deep field” 7 ?; was to ' build elaborate'-' “loos," complete with an-?-effective windbreak, wallv and steps down. The men would not have bothered. •... ‘ In a mixed .party,-.she. ■ felt that both sexes had), something different 'to contribute — the men’s know-how . and brute strength,’and the women’s persistence to keep them at it. . ..... ... . So she would like to see ’ more women go ter the Antarctic. Of the 480 applicants for next season’s Scott Base party, only 54 ■ were - women.. , Margaret Bradshaw, who has proved. that a woman can lead as.j, well as a man in. extreme conditions of the.," continent, is a little’dis-'A appointed that women do not follow suit.