"Excessive praise arises from the same bigotry matrix as excessive criticism."
― Stefan Molyneux
Have you noticed there's an increasing number of birding groups on social media (especially Facebook) for women birders? Now as far as I can tell all of them allow access to anyone, but it's peculiar that these are even necessary. Birders are birders, right? Should men create their own birding groups, too? How might that go over? Anyway, recently in one of these groups I came upon several threads calling out various forms of toxic masculinity inherent in the North American birding community. One criticism being leveled at men is skepticism in reports and field observation unfairly targeting women more so than men ― given a sighting, a man is more likely to be believed (by other men) than a woman, all else being equal.
Perhaps this is a phenomenon I can't see because I am a man. However, I will say that most of the people I bird with are women. Back when I used to lead field trips, most of my participants were women. Like any selection of people, women I bird with possess varying degrees of birding expertise with respect to field identification ― some I trust implicitly, while others I might ask a few follow-up questions about the observation. Whether a man or a woman, I have regarded these as informative and passionate lessons in avian field identification. I sincerely hope such times have been beneficial to my co-birders.
Though I haven't kept a scorecard (why would I?), my sense is I've been balanced and fair when deploying incredulity given what's being reported, when, and where. At the top of my head I can think of two situations in particular where I had to get quite terse in order to correct misidentifications ― both involved men that were not very experienced birders. Neither episode went well because it's difficult to accept being wrong, which is a very human condition regardless of sex.
I can think of one situation where I accused an experienced female birder of stringing to her face, which was very upsetting for her. Another time I accused a male birder of stringing, but that was over email and I never saw or heard from him again. A female birder I know once confused juvenile Ring-necked Pheasants for Ruffed Grouse. It was pretty challenging to convince her otherwise ― it necessitated me obtaining photographs of the young pheasants.
Related link: What's a Stringer?
It's a perplexing notion that, on the one hand, there's a need for more women to be engaged in birding (but also science and research) because they can offer a different perspective. The inclusion of which is taken as a positive attribute assigned to women that's being ignored or left out. On the other hand, this notion is often juxtaposed with systemic toxic masculinity in virtually any group where men are in a majority. This is a negative attribute assigned to men. Is the notion that women can offer something men aren't able to when it comes to birding a sexist claim? Is the over-representation of men in positions of influence and expertise a sexist state of North American birding?
Why is any of this important? I am passionate about making the correct identification. A bad reputation in birding is a skin that's very difficult to shed. Once you've made a sufficient number of misidentifications, and don't appear to learn from them, it can be a rough uphill battle to earn any semblance of respect. Birding can be a tough crowd that way. My skepticism and incredulity is inversely proportional to birder reputation when known. When unknown, I generally give the birder the benefit of any doubts I may have. But if a birder tells me they observed a dozen Connecticut Warblers in early May flitting about together in the brush, I'm not going to believe it. Well, they turned out to be Nashville Warblers. True story!
On learning, I know a particular female birder who has become quite good in a short period of time ― she puts in the field time and studies at home. I also know a male birder that, for one reason or another, has plateaued at a fairly mediocre level even though he has put in a ton of field time. Everybody's different. I could give the same birding lesson to a variety of individuals and some are going to get it, and some aren't. As a field trip leader, I want my participants to have fun while becoming a better birder in terms of getting the identification game down.
But all of this makes me wonder if any of the female birders I have corrected in the field or via email see me as an example of what's wrong with birding in North America, necessitating new female birding groups. Rest assured, no man who makes an identification error in front of me gets a free pass just because he's a man. Female birders who have attended my field trips know I am no less thorough with them when it comes to making correct identifications.
I think it's rather unfortunate that there's a perception of sexism (both real and perhaps imagined to some extent) in birding circles. I would ask that birders who feel they're being marginalized to be sure that it isn't just hurt feelings. I also hope there isn't a real effort on behalf of some male birders to keep women down in this very rewarding pursuit of knowledge and natural beauty.
I don't consider the person's sex or race, only whether they are right or wrong. If they're wrong, I correct them. What's more, we discuss the path to the correct identification and perhaps how the error was made. I will never stop asking or answering questions.
Addendum: After a lengthy and lively discussion via my Facebook page on this subject last evening, I am convinced there is a long history of sexism against women (I already knew this, though). I am also convinced that as a man the best I can do is empathize because I can never know what it's like to experience systemic sexism. But what I'm not convinced of is that the inherent skepticism, incredulity, and questioning one finds in birding, bird identification, birder reputation, etc., has anything to do with sex bias. I think it would be quite reasonable to hold the notion that if you come into birding having experienced sexism your entire life, the questioning of a sighting might feel like an expression of sexism being applied to you. While it may very well be the case that some men do apply it unequally by sex, I'm not convinced that every case of this represents this attitude toward female birders. When I asked for particular examples, I was harshly accosted for not understanding. The vague examples I was given seemed no different to those I have deployed toward both male and female birders when requesting more information about an unusual bird sighting. Even by asking for examples and stories, I was informed this, too, was expressing a sexist attitude and that it's my fault for not taking them at their word, though I never said I didn't believe them. I merely wanted to see the difference between what's happening to some female birders.
Birding Posse © 2021 Mike McDowell