Women working in Conservation and Sexist barriers

More Women Are Working In Conservation. But That Doesn't Stop Harassment

Megan S. Jones is a PhD Candidate in the Human Dimensions of Natural Resources department at Colorado State University. In her research she investigates how women navigate gender biases and motherhood choices to advance to conservation leadership positions, and how women give and receive support in their conservation careers.


Full article along with an audio interview
https://www.kunc.org/post/more-women-are-working-conservation-doesnt-stop-harassment#stream/0

Erin O'Toole: Let's talk about what the problem looks like, what challenges do women in this field face that make it so difficult to advance?

Megan Jones: Well, you mentioned harassment in the beginning, and I think that sexual harassment is a real challenge. We've seen that come up across a range of different organizations in the last few years. And it's really both that women in that case can experience sexual harassment. But also that when they experience it, they are often afraid of reporting it because they don't think that anything will be done at their organization, or that they actually will be retaliated against if something is reported, or that if anything is done it won't be enough, it will be, you need to handle that better yourself kind of a thing.

So that's one. And we also found in our interviews that women experience a host of other challenges that interact with harassment, so various forms of exclusion, either formally through not being promoted as fast as men, or informally not being invited to the meetings that men are invited to. Also difficulty with fair compensation, that women often feel that they are being paid less than men, or that they don't have the skills to negotiate for the fair salary.

And then these broader problematic trends around women feeling that they are seen as less competent, or not really belonging in the space, that people assume they're not the scientific leaders in the room, or that they don't have the skills to do this work.


https://warnercnr.colostate.edu/cpam/gender-protected-areas/