Navigating the ‘Old Boys’ Club’ of Science, With a Friend

Beck: You both study a super-specific topic, and I think that’s typical of academia, to spend your career going deep into one niche subject. Does that lead to a pretty small community of people who work on the same thing? Do you see the same people over and over again?

Rehemat: You often see the same people who research the same time period as you. But if I go to a conference and there’s people [who study across] the whole timescale, there’s a whole new set of people. It’s quite a big community.

Raquel: The first time I did science internationally was when I went to the International School on Foraminifera, this little summer school that happens every year in Italy for a few weeks. I realized: Oh my God, there are other people studying this tiny little fossil. I was so excited to have foram friends.

At the end of those three weeks, of course, everyone goes back to the different countries they’re from. That’s when I started keeping up with people on Facebook, just checking in like, “Hey, how’s your research going? What are you struggling with?” There’s a distance, and the distance lets me be more vulnerable. Like “Oh my God, I’m stressed.”

When I met Rehemat, it was during a time in my life where I was reaching out and [creating] a more global science community for myself.

Rehemat: You create a support network. When something’s going wrong, people in your outside life might not get it at all, but people you meet at a summer school or a conference, they’ve been through it.

Raquel: Part of [what’s great] is having another woman of color in paleoceanography, because it’s such a white thing.

Beck: In your global network that you’ve built for yourself online, are there not many women of color?

Raquel: It’s just Rehemat.

Rehemat: Within the U.K., there can’t be more than 10 of us that I know of [in our field]. Whenever Raquel and I go to conferences, we’re definitely two of just a handful of women of color.

Beck: You guys live an ocean apart, but your lives have intersected in several specific ways. You’re studying this same niche thing, and studying it through the same lens of, How can this help us understand climate change? And you’re two of only a few women of color doing that niche thing. What does it mean to have someone in your life who understands all these aspects of your work?

Raquel: It’s comforting to have somebody who you don’t have to give all this background knowledge [to]. There’s not a prologue of having to explain what the research is. I can just say something and Rehemat will have the context to understand it and be there for me.

Rehemat: When stuff happens that’s racially focused or gender-focused, it’s nice to have someone who will understand the context of that as well. It’s good to be able to talk it through and work out if it’s something that you need to do something about, or whether you just need to know how to react next time. Having other women of color around me is super helpful.

Raquel: A small example: At this past conference, our posters were right next to each other. I don’t get nervous for a talk, but I sometimes get nervous for posters, because sometimes certain scientists will treat a student and their poster as a prey/predator situation. They can trap you at your poster and harass you about anything—how they don’t like your data or your adviser—and usually you’re standing there by yourself. Having a really dear friend, and someone I look up to [next to me] made me feel more comfortable talking about my science. Sometimes people say, “Okay, you’re connecting because you’re both women of color in science,” and it’s like, “Yeah, of course, but also it allows me to do my science better when I feel like I have a community.”