The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2685 by Angharad Copyright© 2015 Angharad

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This is a work of fiction any mention of real people, places or institutions is purely coincidental and does not imply that they are as suggested in the story.
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The rest of the assembled throng waited patiently as I rose to my feet and the two who’d escorted me that morning blushed crimson. I looked at them and nodded, I saw one of them cringe. They could probably see their lives rushing before them, or certainly their careers. They had gone fishing for sardines and caught a great white. I could have destroyed them, but what would that prove? That I was as stupid as they were—probably. I will tease them because they treated me with such contempt and I can’t abide prejudice or contempt being shown me because I’m female. But I won’t destroy them.

“Mr Dean, Mr Chairman of the wildlife trust, esteemed guests, ladies and gentlemen thank you for laying on this celebration of my woodland. I’ve visited it twice recently once on my own and once with two guides—both were enjoyable and I saw some interesting species of mammals, birds and insects including a genuine wildcat—uh not the farmyard tabby you tried to tease me with but a true Felis sylvestris. How do I know? I’ve seen them before.

“My family own a holiday home just up the road a little, at Stanebury,” at this the audience laughed, “so I’ve been to the area before. I’ve also been active in ecology since I was about eleven and bird and insect watching, even before that. I don’t claim to know everything but most of the things I was likely to see up here, I’ve seen before—including osprey, siskins and wildcat. I’ve even had the privilege to have seen a pine marten and thus seen most of the European mustelidae, plus of course I supervise the records coming into the survey. The most bizarre of which was a hippopotamus which apparently escaped from a zoo but was recaptured before it had a chance to leg it.” Once again the audience laughed.

“It’s funny but because I’m female people immediately assume I’m stupid or childlike.” I glanced at the two clowns and they were blushing again, but probably only I noticed it, but their body language was far from comfortable—closer to squirming, perhaps. “I have an old chap who writes to me about once a week complaining that water shrews have eaten his carrots, or a water vole attacked his cat.” The audience were chuckling all the time now.

“He wrote to me as Dr Watts, assuming I was male and his first email was polite verging on obsequious. Once I replied as Dr Cathy Watts, his tone became condescending and once or twice almost abusive. I am now quite regularly, ‘a stupid woman,’ and I admit I don’t always reply to his notes. I don’t know if he has water voles in his garden, it’s possible, though a water shrew would be a mammal new to Europe if not the world and as for eating his carrots—somewhat unlikely, probably caused by erroneous observation and consequent conclusions. Obviously, if you think you saw something which is wrong, trying to understand or integrate the experience is likely to take you further from the truth than is desirable. The ultimate in that sort of thing is religion and theology all based upon the wrongful assumption that there is a supernatural element in life. If there is it has yet to be proven in a laboratory, and until it is, I shall make perhaps an equally erroneous assumption that such things are the result of wishful thinking or poor observational skills or faulty logic. That science hasn’t explained everything yet, doesn’t mean it won’t or can’t and unlike religion which is driven by gods, science is human driven and thus a little slower.

“Having knocked religion, I will now appear to become more hypocritical than usual by stating that, at first glance, I agree with the pope—a novelty in all senses of the word. I need to qualify this quickly by stating, we agree that climate change is going to prove the biggest challenge currently to mankind, but that’s as far as we go—the rest of the time, I think he’s barking and if he’s heard of me, he doesn’t say much. I try not to say too much about him either.

“The church is of course sexist but in calling upon sky fairies’ laws it can do things as it wants when it wants or not as the case may be. Unfortunately, some crusty old professors can promulgate anti feminist propaganda as was recently the case. I wasn’t too upset by it because he said it without thinking it through and I suppose could consider age as a factor.

“Too many girls are put off science because it’s either not fashionable or too difficult or because of sexist attitudes who attempt to prevent girls taking it up. I have one word for those of you who might feel it’s legitimate—don’t. It is peddling hate or prejudice and apart from being illegal it’s old fashioned. Girls have a contribution to make to all of the sciences, including physics and chemistry. Without Rosalind Franklin’s contribution, Crick and Watson would not have discovered the structure of DNA, one of the biggest breakthroughs in the biological sciences ever.

“So please make science accessible to all and do the same with wildlife. Things are disappearing faster than ever and it’s concluded at the IUCN, the people who do the red data book, we’re on the verge of the sixth great extinction and sadly are probably the cause of much of it. Our wildlife acts as a barometer for measuring our stewardship of this floating rock and sadly, we seem greatly lacking in exercising our obligation to protect and conserve our fellow inhabitants. Unless we want to look at our own extinction, we need to understand and learn from our mistakes and hope that some exotic species doesn’t pay the price of our negligence by becoming extinct.

“Science isn’t magick, it can’t solve all our problems and we need to remember we have moral responsibilities as well. I realise I have one in boring the pants off you all, so thank you for indulging me by listening so politely. Thank you.”

I sat down to large applause and after chatting to the others on the top table, I spoke with several lesser mortals who wanted to speak to me or shake hands. Eventually I bumped into my two guides who were still blushing.

“Look we’re sorry we gave you the run around this morning. We had no idea who you were.”

“That shouldn’t have made a difference, should it?”

“Uh—no,” said Ian who was blushing so brightly I was sure I could feel the heat coming off him.

“I haven’t made a complaint...”

“Thank you.”

“Providing you learn from the experience.”

“We have.”

“Because there’s no place for sexism in science or any other walk of life, is there?”

“Uh—no.”

I let them go and hoped they’d learned their lesson, if not and I get to hear of it, they will regret it much more than they did today.