The word Bimbo is hardly a moniker that most women would
likely want to be called. My Australian colleagues, after a couple of weeks in
the Outback, would refer to me as a Bimbo—something unlikely to describe a
woman who’d not had a proper shower in awhile, wore only hiking boots,
T-shirts, and drank wine like water around the campfire. Bimbo was, for me,
more of a term of “you’re one of us”, than a silly, bouffant-coiffed female who
shrieked at snakes and spiders.
Babe is another one of those largely derogatory terms. A
Babe is a man’s plaything, a toy to be trifled with. Babes can be thought of as
subservient to a man, but in some contexts, Babes can be independent, slightly
raunchy women prone to swearing and opinions. My AMASE colleagues used the term
Babes of Science to describe a cadre of women who were leaders on expeditions
to the Arctic to study astrobiology.
Originally, we were three Babes of Science. The polite word
by one of the older Norwegian scientists was “senior ladies”, which had a trace
oldmaidishness to it. Even matronly—something no woman—mother or not wants to
be called. The Babes of Science on AMASE provided a much-needed counterpoint to
the swaggering, tall men who called most of the shots on these expeditions. We
Babes didn’t take any guff from any one and were well known for being out
spoken and opinionated.
Liane Benning, one of the original scientists on AMASE, and
the youngest of the three of us is German, raised in Romania. At that time, she
was a Professor at the University of Leeds in Great Britain. With short sandy
hair, Liane is intense, focused, and direct. Then, she was a smoker often with
a cigarette dangling out of her mouth when she was taking a break. An intensely
private person, Liane held her personal cards very close to her chest. Over the
years, Steelie and I tried subtly, and unsuccessfully, to pry out whether she
was in love with anyone and who that person might be. Eventually, we gave up
because she slyly never revealed much. We needed to content ourselves with
taking in what she gave in terms of personal revelations.
Scientifically, Liane was trained in Switzerland, postdoced
in the US at Penn State, and is the Head of a major research group in Interface
Geochemistry at the University of Potsdam, outside of Berlin. She is now
officially a Big Cheese, with an assistant and manages about 15 PhDs and
students in her group.
Creativity is a serious part of her personality. At the end
of most days in the cold Arctic, we’d sip a gin and tonic on deck of our ship
and discuss things we wanted to accomplish. Her scientific mind runs towards detail surrounded by the big picture. She digs and she burrows. There is a
laser focus, and there is sustained thought. Together we were problem solvers.
I had the more motherly Babe touch, greater emotional intelligence—Liane—no
nonsense, linear, and no-shit, take no prisoners.
Pamela (Pan) Conrad was the other Babe of Science. Almost
exactly my age (baby boomers born in the early ‘50s), Pan originally had a
career as a biologist, then an opera singer. She has an amazing voice and can
belt out any song leading with a smile and gusto. Pan entered my sphere as a
graduate student from George Washington University, where she got her PhD in mineral
physics in 1998 with staff scientists at the Geophysical Lab as mentors.
Mineral physics was an intellectual dead-end for Pan. When she was looking for
a postdoc, I recommended her to Ken Nealson, then at the Jet Propulsion Lab,
where she picked up astrobiology as her next career choice.
Analytical and technological, Pan worked her way up to being
an independent Mars scientist there, working on instrument development. She was
obsessed with Biogeophysics—a subset and slightly different from the
Biogeochemistry that Liane and I studied. Most of our conversations wound up
discussing how we could make the most out of biogeophysics. I didn’t always get
her scientific drift, but it had a novel spirit to it.
Personally, Pan was a force. On the outcrop during the
deployment of a JPL rover, we often playfully bantered about trivial things
while the rover team struggled to make their balky rover do what they wished.
“I’m much younger than you are,” she shouted, as I scurried
on a rocky promontory gathering samples.
“Yeah, like what? a month younger?” I snapped.
Back and forth we went, and others had to listen. Finally,
one of the JPL folks in media, who was making a documentary film about AMASE,
told us to “shut the F up” in so many words. He’d violated the silent code of
conduct to be polite and patient.
I looked up from my sampling and wondered “what asshole just
insulted us?” It didn’t take more than a couple of seconds for Pan to respond.
Her rejoinder was withering. Maybe too withering. Pan could use the vocabulary
of a sailor, which was common with the Babes of Science on AMASE.
Silence on the outcrop followed. After a few minutes, work
resumed—the rover moved a few feet and I finished my collections. The JPL media
person kept a low profile for the remainder of the trip. Pan caught some heat
for her remarks when she came back to the United States. She’s a fighter and
came out the other side of this intact.
Pan is an iconoclast, broad thinking, and a funny character.
She’s maintained a kennel full of weimaraners (large grey German dogs) that she
calls her “Men”. She’s served on the SoCal rescue patrol. In the past few
years, Pan has moved her life’s work and is now Reverend Pamela G. Conrad of
St. Christopher’s Episcopal Church in Maryland—something completely Babe-like.
One term that I will not tolerate, however, is Bitch. If I
have been referred to as one, I didn't hear it directly. I would have not held
back. I’d rather not be called a Broad—but given my now matronly status of
“Senior Lady”, Broad doesn’t come easily to mind when thinking of me.
This Bimbo is proud now to be called Bad Ass! Uppity women
unite!
what a lovely story Marilyn, as usual spot on;
ReplyDeleteI could not upload it here so maybe you can add it - but I emailed you another now 'iconic' photo of you and I with another set of younger - next generation 'babies' of science' in Svalbard; the still elusive Liane :-)