[College of ACES] [University of Illinois] [Illinois CES]

Re: Re: A Woman's Place

newtribe@magick.net
Fri, 16 Jan 1998 23:58:49 -0600

Regarding women tree climbers, there are other reasons for going up a tree besides commercial pruning and removal work. In the field of canopy research some of the best-known names are women. Dr. Nalini Nadkarni, a professor at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, is an accomplished climber. Dr. Meg Lowman, Director of Research at Selby Gardens in Sarasota, Florida, gets to climb trees around the world. Neither of them would be good production climbers, doing the brutally hard work of removals, but that would be a waste of their other considerable talents. Climbing trees for scientific inquiry should qualify them as members of the tree climbing community as much as any other kind of work aloft.

No man needs to be defensive about male dominance of commercial tree work. Several million years of men fighting with each other over access to women have produced a sexual dimorphism in humans that guarantees that men will always have the upper body strength to be more suited to the heavier aspects of tree work. That doesnt make men better, just physically different. On the other hand, some new climbing techniques are allowing women who dont have gorilla physiques to get around in the trees just fine. The recreational tree climbing community has lots of women climbers who go up just for the joy of being up in a tree. Professor Steve Sillett at Humboldt State University in California is now including tree climbing training in his botany classes for canopy research. Every class so far has had its share of women as eager to get into the trees as the male students. Our most touching climbing saddle sales are for little girls who are eager to get up into the trees just like Dad.
So for all you commercia
l tree workers out there, try taking your wives, girlfriends, sisters, daughters, and mothers out for a recreational climb sometime; they might just love you a little more for it, or at least understand what you do for a living a little better.

Tom Ness