Personal Stories

Published in the RSAA Lunations
Vol1 Issue9 1–31 October 2020

 

I grew up on the far south coast of NSW, just outside of the beachside town of Tathra. We moved there from Melbourne in 2002 when I was 8 years old, so that my parents (previously a software developer and a naturopath) could try their hands at biodynamic strawberry farming. For those unfamiliar with the term, think organic farming but with extra ‘hippy vibes’ and a tendency to get a bit spiritual. Much of my childhood was spent milking cows, feeding chickens, extracting honey from our bee hives, roaming around the bush and eating an unnatural amount of strawberries.

Up until the age of about 16, all my career aspirations revolved around the arts. I spent a lot of time painting, drawing, playing any musical instrument I could get my hands on, dabbling in film photography and writing altogether too literal poetry. At 15 I had decided to become a fashion designer (probably aided by having famed Australian fashion designer Prue Acton as our closest neighbour).

At 16 I had a minor existential crisis brought on by reading The Outsider for the first time, and decided that fashion design was frivolous. In the space of a summer I switched schools, dropped the drama, art, textiles and music classes I had been taking, and started grade 11 studying chemistry, physics and advanced maths.

In grade 12 in NSW, you can choose one elective unit in chemistry and physics, which need not be the same one chosen democratically by the rest of the class. I decided to take astrophysics and forensics, which I had to teach myself because the classes chose something else. By the end of that term I knew I that astrophysics was ‘it’ for me, and applied to Monash to do a Bachelor of Science. I also applied to do forensic pathology at Deakin as a backup, as I had thoroughly enjoyed separating my own blood into its constituent parts via electrolysis.

I moved back to Melbourne in 2013 to start my BSc at Monash. With a few interruptions I made it through the first 2 years of my undergraduate, but began to have a crisis of confidence. I was grappling with an anxiety disorder and my grades had taken a nose dive.

I became very conscious of the fact that my female peers were dropping out of our physics and astronomy classes, and by the end of our second year I found myself very much in a minority. I also became much more aware of how my male peers related to me. One instance in particular has stayed with me: we were doing a group lab project in physics which involved us designing our own experiment of the course of a month or so. I was very excited and proud of my plan for the design because I felt it was my first original ‘physics idea’. I presented the idea to my lab group, but was immediately shut down by a male group member, who said it would never work and that I clearly didn’t know what I was talking about. Imagine my chagrin when he proceeded to present my idea as his own to our professor the very next week, and accepting the accompanying praise.

Because I am a very stubborn person instances like this, like being disbelieved when I told people what I was studying, like being told that I ‘didn’t look like an astronomer’, like being laughed at by tutors for expressing a wish to continue to postgrad study, like my male colleagues wondering aloud why women were fundamentally less suited to science than men, only served to strengthened my resolve to continue. It also made me determined to be the best advocate that I could be for all women in STEM.

Isabella Gerrard