Engineer's Cairn, University of British Columbia, March 9, 1978

Me and my two Faculty of Science (Biology) bff's did this to the University of British Columbia's (UBC) Engineer's Cairn for the first officially celebrated International Women's Day in Canada in March, 1978.

Having lived in Totem residence for the previous 3 years,  I passed the cairn every morning on my way to the Biology buildings.  In all that time I had never seen anything but another faculty's letter painted on it - F for Forestry, A for Agriculture, mostly.  I believe we were the first to put a non-faculty symbol on this iteration of the cairn.

I don't remember whose idea it was, mine, Karen K's or Karen M's, but someone bought the paint and the three of us went out in the early hours of 8 March and did it.  The next morning, I was very disappointed to find the Venus symbol burned off.  Sure didn't take the Geers long to do it - a matter of hours!  I think we hit a nerve. Yay!

We were undeterred and two of us returned the next night to do it again.  We ran out of paint and Karen K decided to leave before it was finished, so there I was, alone at 3 am.  In those two nights, we only ever saw one person: a male, who said he was a security guard.  He said not much more than a caution to take care of ourselves - women out very late - we were always cautious.

I read now that this cairn was destroyed by the faculty of Forestry in 1988 and the Geers built a new one.  Is that one still there?  Where is it, exactly?

Rambling:
I believe there was only something like 3 female students in Engineering then.  One of my later roommates went into Engineering.

As for the 3 of us Biology/Zoology students, we all got our Bachelor's degrees, one went into Forestry for a bit, then finished her working life as a Coast Guard communications operator, one went into Dance, and I, after a couple of years working for government environment and parks ministries, have been kicking around doing volunteer science for decades - always focused on biology.  FYI all of us eventually got married, divorced, widowed (a weird mix of verbs and adjectives, when you think about it, and they aren't really that relevant to who we are) and two of us became parents (birth and adoptive).

When - the situation in which I grew up - girls were not encouraged to be interested in science.  Sure, my early interest in birds and astronomy was noted and they gave me a telescope for Christmas one year, (which I promptly took apart to study); but that was not made out to be a possible direction for my life.  My life was to be family and children and taking care of them.  But I was considered a little weird because I was not that nurturing or aware of other people's feelings, prone to day-dreaming, reading science fiction, watching Star Trek first-run, thinking "too much".  I believe it was my high school science teacher that worked on my parents to get me to university - a dicey affair not decided until the week before the application was due.


We learn of famous people, both male and female, mostly the celebrity type of fame.  And most of those are extroverts; most of the world is extroverted, apparently, so that's who we hear about.  But the average life is a balance and most are not famous.  Most introverts, such as myself, seldom toot their own horn.  And that's OK!  It's OK to be perfectly happy to do your own thing - as long as it doesn't harming anyone else (generally speaking, at least not directly; disregarding the unintentional harm we do to each other and Gaia, the earth, because of the cultural system we find ourselves in).  Let's look on "famous" people more as "inspirational" rather than something we have to be.  That is their life.  They did those things and some of those things were good.  You too, do good things, in your own way.

The internet gives introverts a platform, for sure, which is nice.  But, it's OK to be "private", too!  You don't have to share everything, every thought, every event.  (PS private and secretive are different).  A life is not a single focus.  A life can be family and music and gardening and crafts, and studying nature.  And science can be used in everything.

The theme for IWD this year is #BalanceForBetter.  I went through my Outlook Contacts and counted all the scientist / volunteer scientist I know by gender.  It was 50/50 female/male.  Right on.