A Refuge to Wanderlust: Challenges faced by female field biologist in context of Nepal/South Asia

I recall vividly when one of my male friends in college said to me, ‘It’s so easy for a woman in this field. NGOs, or even seniors who have some opportunities that involve field assistants, choose woman over man for sure.’ Furrowing my eyebrows, I asked him, “Really?” His logic was women who may not be qualified will get more opportunity. In addition, he said, many times senior who has position as field assistants grant those position to women feeling pity for them or being lured by them rather than opening the opportunity to other men.

So, is it really that easy for women? This topic has been deep down in my heart and I have vented about it many times in my personal diary, but recently while chatting with my amazing friend Aishwarya Bhattacharjee about the challenges we face in the fieldworks, I felt like this would be perfect thing to share.

To give a background to my friends who may not have an idea of what I have been doing, I have been pursuing my dream to be wildlife biologist here in USA. Currently my work requires no field work, as most of my research is extracting DNA from birds’ feathers. My love for wildlife research started when I was studying forestry science as an undergraduate in Nepal. It opened up many opportunities that I never expected before and also got me hooked me on nature. I was involved in wide range of field work, from traveling across eastern Nepal to collect samples for forest carbon inventory and setting up camera traps outside national parks tracking wildlife to bird-watching and interviewing people who had been affected by the wildlife. After doing all sorts of work, I realized that I was more in love with the wildlife-based research. I have travelled around 50 districts in Nepal out of 75, mostly for the field works and few for sheer pleasure of traveling. Basically, there were two types of field works that I participated in.

There are many challenges that both men and women such as strenuous walks, difficult terrain, bad weather conditions, lack of certain infrastructures. However, I have come across certain challenges that are specific to women.

1. Convincing parents:

I think it is the most common issue back home in Nepal. I have seen many of my female friends who had to seek parental permission, myself included, before making any plans. As a result, many female do not choose assignments in remote areas that may take months, but even for the other type of field work, they were not sure if their parents would permit them to go. It’s not always easy. I have had many situations when my father questioned the purpose of the trip and blatantly said that I can be raped if I went in such fieldwork. I can’t tell you how it angered and frustrated me when I was presented with exciting opportunities only to have my parents forbid them, and I could not debate enough with them, as that was considered disrespectful. Based on the cases of rape and sexual violence on women, I understand that parents are controlling because they don’t want their daughters to be the victim. Most of the times, I had to give every detail of the field work, the names and contact numbers of people and the organization so that my parents could verify the project and have the names of people to contact if they are unable to contact me directly in the field. Being away from home helps as I can decide on my own and just let them know about the decision where they feel helpless. But truly saying, they are just worried about you and even though it’s a challenge, it’s not the hardest one.

2. Lack of secure workspace in the field:

I think it would be one of the hardest one. This situation arises when you are trying to get involved into different things so that you can figure out your path or your calling. So, as I mentioned in the undergrad days, I loved trying out different projects. But where do you get hold of these projects? Most of the time, it was either your senior who was working on their research and they needed some field assistants, or it could be some NGOs that were looking some interns or foreign researchers. The challenge here was not the type of work but the type of people who were going. I remember some of the opportunities that was dream projects to be a part of, but I had to reject because of the men that were the part of the team. You had to be concerned about who is going rather than what are you going to do. It’s obvious that women are most vulnerable during field works and I have heard from some other girls how men take such opportunities as the time to “enjoy”. While not many may not come jump over you like a predator, but they would definitely be subtle about it. What about the uncomfortable situations when all the team members would be drunk and behave inappropriate? If a woman would dare to speak, they would shut her by saying she is over-reacting, or she may never get the opportunity to work or would be defamed by the same people as they would have power. Having heard all those horrible stories and not wanting to put myself in such situations, I have always listened to my intuitions. So, I decided what to choose depending on my intuition and the presence of other women in the team. However, I loved the extreme field works which was physically challenging but very rewarding. Hence, it was challenging to always find women in the team and many times I had to give up on them. While sometimes, it may not be the team but very hostile environment. Out of many, the one that scared me to death was when I had to stay overnight at the only hotel that was there by the bus stop in Okhaldhunga. I had walked to this bus stop which usually takes 2 days of walking to catch the bus to Kathmandu in a day. I was tired and hungry and one of the people of my team also had accompanied me. While eating dinner, all I could see was the drunk drivers staring at me and some women seem to be entertaining them. I just hated the vibe and after dinner when I rushed to the room, I realized the room had 6 single beds. The thought that I have to be sharing the room with all those crazy men was frightening. Hence, the only thing I could do was take out some big jackets and clothes from my bag and put it on to appear big, cover my hair with the cap and hide in the blankets so nobody would realize there is a girl. I had one night to not fall asleep, but I was so tired that I slept like a log. I woke up in the middle of the night thinking something was wrong. Thankfully, nothing happened to me but after that I could not sleep at all.

3. Lack of mentors:

I think this would be the one of the most frustrating challenges for me. We all know how much important role a mentor plays in achieving the goal. I know the importance of hardwork, dedication and effort everybody has to put on it either you are a man or woman but personally, not having access to mentorship has been one of the biggest decelerating factors. As per the culture, we can see that men learn from men and women pass their knowledge on the younger generation but not in intellectual level. Man has that access to go to another man and learn, I have seen many of my male friends going in various field works with other senior men. While a woman just can’t easily approach a man. I do think the barrier sometimes is so strong that woman can’t have enough courage to seek help but even she does many times such request is either misunderstood as sexual interest or not even considered worth. I have had encounters where my genuine curiosity has been taken as a cue to assault me which has literally shaken my ability to trust those “experts in the field”. To be honest, either you have to find yourself a boyfriend who is already doing a lot of projects and take you along which is a great way to learn or else you have to have some kind of family relationship to approach some experts who can guide you. I have had many situations when I approach people and they don’t even consider giving a try or genuinely interested in helping a young girl who wants to learn with the “experts”. In this case, I have realized, even if it’s going to take me forever, I will be taking those tortoise steps and will not give up.

4. Hypocrite well-wishers:

While I have mentioned about men in the project or the field team who are creepy. I also have problem with men or NGO’s who are quite liberal and think women should get equal opportunities but also think women are too tender to go to extreme environments and also not beneficial as having a woman in the team increase the costs of field works. Ironically, they will even give more priority to women in some projects and will use those women as the mascot to paint how generous they are by empowering women but when it comes to action in some demanding field works, they don’t trust ‘Nepali’ women can do it efficiently. I hate such double standards or generally also some tendencies of "colonial hangover" and think such attitude are equally harmful.

In addition to all these major challenges, I also can’t deny the fact that politics do play another big role in either getting the project or even finding mentors in Nepal which is very unfortunate. Favoritism, nepotism and corruption has crippled almost every sector so this one is not devoid of them either.

Having said all these, do I regret choosing the field of study which is not “usually-for-girls”? Absolutely not! I have been the happiest ever since I have chosen this and no matter how challenging it is, it’s worth keep fighting for.There are already many women who share the similar stories like I do, who may be facing even more challenging and threatening situations and yet following their passion which is why we must encourage more women to join in the league. Moreover, I also can’t ignore the fact that there are some genuine men who are there to support young women and encourage them towards achieving their goals.

I also think we women should have the courage, empathy and support towards each other. Rather than gossiping and fueling the nonsense rumors, we should learn to stand-up for each other, pave the way and provide mentorship to other women. We can achieve anything, and we are no lesser than men in anyways. So, lets get united and lift each other up. And to men who think women are getting advantage over them, I think you need to brace yourself because we have not started yet.

P.S I want to hear the stories of women who have gone through various uncomfortable situations either in their field works, office settings or any environment. I would genuinely appreciate and also let you know that you are not alone. We all have been in similar situations, but the important thing is making effort so that no other younger women has to go through it again.

(Some more pics from my fieldworks)