Twenty-three women sat, hunched over stones, chipping and banging. Seated around the open fire of a South African lapa, they wore protective glasses and looks of concentration.
This was us. A year ago, on day one of the women’s field camp organised by the Human Evolution Research Institute (HERI) at the University of Cape Town (UCT). As far as we can tell, this was the first camp of its kind, with the express purpose of giving young women in the palaeosciences an experience that would help keep them in the discipline.
Our goal was to create a safe space for young women, not just to learn, but to realise the value that they can bring to our discipline, so that those who are drawn to pursuing a career in research and academia are motivated to do so.
Our plan was the run a field camp every year, but here we are in August 2020, amid a global pandemic. So instead of taking the 2020 cohort of young women into the field, we are left with the memories from last year.
Our intention with the field camp was to bring together an all-women group of academics, postgraduates and senior undergraduate students from the departments of archaeology and geological sciences at UCT in a rare opportunity to learn the basics of fieldwork without the pressures of marks or reports. Without any men around, we were also free of the hierarchy, bias and harassment that are present during many mixed-gender field schools.
Why does that matter? In the palaeosciences overall, and particularly in South Africa, there is a worrying lack of diversity. While our student cohorts reflect the demographics of South Africa, a quick look at the staff webpage of any of our leading higher education Institutions, or funding bodies supporting palaeosciences, will show you that this is certainly not true the higher up you go.
Diversity and representation in leadership positions is a huge, global issue; one which needs no further introduction here. It is 2020 after all.
That's not the only problem. The study of human evolution often goes hand in hand with field work. Many early human fossil and archaeological sites are in remote areas, and to work on these sites requires weeks of challenging fieldwork. Much has been written about the experience of women in these field sites, from mild harassment to actual sexual assault. So not only do our young women have few role models in leadership positions in the palaeosciences in South Africa who look like them – they put themselves at serious risk by taking part in a central aspect of the discipline.
At HERI, we decided to do something to tackle this issue – one small thing to make a difference in our own sphere. Our undergraduate classes in geology and archaeology, the feeder disciplines into human evolution, are all at least 50% women. We do not need to attract women into these subjects – we do need to give them safe, informative, positive, and even fun experiences so that those with the passion to do so choose to stay in the discipline. And the idea of a women’s only field camp was born.
We celebrate Women’s Day in August and in 2019 this gave us a long weekend, so we had a date. The organisation came together quickly and we were overwhelmed with positive responses. One young woman from the Department of Chemistry even begged to come along (we said yes).
We had a wonderful, fun weekend. It poured with rain. And the worst thing that happened was running out of beer and chocolate biscuits on the first evening (emergency shopping was done).
And here, a year later, are the things we learned and why we believe camps such as these can pave the way to changing the face of palaeoanthropology in South Africa.
1. Put learning first
HERI’s camp introduced women to basic fieldwork skills in an environment where learning was the focus, rather than research output or grades. We ran two field based exercises: one on measuring dip and strike at a series of outcrops – this is a basic geological skill but we know woman are less likely to speak up in a field setting when they do not understand something. So, we up-skilled our participants and then paired geology students with archaeology students to work as teams. The archaeology exercise saw everyone making stone tools, either in total silence (very hard for new knappers!) or with verbal instructions – a fascinating experiment in social learning.
This is important because a field setting with a toxically competitive atmosphere is not conducive to learning and students, particularly woman, get put off.
2. Understand past experiences
For all the participants on our field camp, this was not their first experience of fieldwork – and many, if not all, already had a collection of bad experiences. We ran a survey with HERI postgraduates before the field camp to get a sense of these experiences and what interventions could have made a difference. We organised our field camp around this information, deliberately adopting a bottom-up approach, rather than top-down with us setting the tone.
Our goal was to give the all the women a positive field experience – so as the third years considered their options for Honours, they had more than just their previous negative experiences to draw on.
3. Offer equipment – without question
HERI recognised that some women may not know what equipment they need on a field camp – or have access to it. The solution was to establish a store of field items that were available to borrow. Women just had to ask, and they were provided tents, mats, sleeping bags, head torches etc. This isn’t unique to HERI, as many major field camps offer supplies. What set HERI apart was its approach to lending. There was no judgement or questions around why a woman didn’t have what she needed, it was simply supplied.
As one participant put it, “Help is available, and most of the time we know it is, but it’s a question of whether I’m comfortable asking for help. At HERI, there is an emphasis on being comfortable asking for what you need. No questions asked.”
4. Address harassment
Preparing women for harassment in the field is vital to ensure a pipeline of safety and accountability. The HERI field camps hosted a sexual harassment workshop, led by its Deputy Director Professor Rebecca Ackermann, that invited women to share experiences, learnings and concerns about harassment in the field. “Environments that are hostile to women – such as field environments where there is a lot of harassment – create reduced satisfaction with, and commitment to, fieldwork and the science itself,” says Ackermann.
The workshop included a component where students reviewed the UCT Science Faculty’s code of conduct for fieldwork. This was an opportunity not only to identify gaps in the guidelines, but to familiarise students with the procedures for dealing with issues of harassment.
According to one participant, “Being able to contribute towards the making of the code of conduct made it feel inclusive and had the effect of boosting confidence for me within the discipline.”
We believe that the HERI’s field camps can serve as a model on which other field-based disciplines can work to inspire, recruit and retain women and black women. And science would be better for it. We know more diverse groups generate better science. Human evolution in South Africa has historically left out many voices and, we at HERI, are passionate about changing this and presenting a safe, informative and inspiring opportunity to cultivate the next generation of young scientists.
So, now, in August 2020, as we celebrate Women’s Month in lockdown and with no field camp, we can enjoy the memories and photos from last year and look forward to when we can meet again. And work on changing the face of our discipline one field camp at a time.
This article is written by Dr Robyn Pickering, senior lecturer at the Department of Geology at the University of Cape Town (UCT) and Director of the Human Evolution Research Institute (HERI) at UCT & Dr Jayne Wilkins, a paleoarchaeologist and ARC DECRA Research Fellow at Griffith University, Australia and Executive Member at HERI.