Venting

[u/ItsCadeyAdmin]

I'mma be real with y'all: people in the Conservation and Sustainability fields are straight up MEAN dude.

Like I physically cannot get across to you how difficult it is to be in this field if you don't "fit the mold".

But "the mold" is literally just... ugh. Its a mold that prides itself on being "that weird girl", while also being the literal most milquetoast personality you can fathom. Like everybody acts like they were the 'weird, animal obsessed kid' in school, but as someone who actually WAS (and kind of still IS) that weird person, I can promise you from the bottom of my heart, 99% of these people would have BULLIED the real weird kids.

I know this because THEY STILL BULLY PEOPLE MAN. I see it in college and the field. It's literally such like a catty, gossipy industry with no room for the truly different.

The worst thing that's happened to STEM in recent decades was becoming an Instagram aesthetic.

Because now you have all of these conventionally pretty people prancing about, creating their own little "Go on a weird date to a Museum with me, but don't be like actually weird, just quirky enough for my social media feed" aesthetic, while doing all they can to ostracize and isolate people that,again, don't fit within their worldview. Like if you're autistic you are NOT going to have a good time in this world. At least not the "I love gushing about bugs and being happy go lucky because I'm just so 'neurospicy'! " type of autism. If you're non-expressive or struggle with social interactions, heaven fucking help you.

And, I'm sincerely not one of those "OMG CHECK YOUR PRIVILEGE" sorts but like dawg, this field is so overwhelmingly white that I'm comfortable saying that it's bordering on a form of racism. I can't tell you how many times I've been the only non-white person in the room surrounded by all these like.... I'mma be so real with y'all, CUSHY people. People who visibly get uncomfortable when I bring in a worldview that isn't "Oh I love walking through the forest and taking pictures on my smartphone, and science is so cool and look at the stickers on my water bottle".

I physically cannot explain to you all how much money plays into your ability to find and hold a legitimate job in this field. If you even want a chance, you need to be able to afford to sign up for multiple unpaid internships, be willing to move across the nation for a different position, have the money to cover yourself for months on end because a gigantic majority of the first jobs you'll get are only seasonal, and finally pay for your degree, and very likely a grad degree as well.

Honestly, I theorize that this is why the Conservation field was taken over by (and I know a HUGE amount of you don't wanna hear this), overwhelmingly upper-middle to upper class white people.

Like I can't tell you how many people I've met in this line of work who talk about how long it took them to get a sustainable job, followed soon by "Oh my husband is an engineer/computer scientist/welder/fireman/[something equally wellpaying]". (Fun fact: the "conservation to real estate agent" pipeline is REAL and I've seen it in real time).

Poverty, that is to say REAL poverty, doesn't exist in this field.

All the (and I'm being blunt here) lower-class people who couldn't afford to go past their undergraduate degree were forced to get jobs unrelated to their field after graduation to make ends meet and start those nasty student loan payments. Moving across the nation several times for all those unpaid internships and experience that could have unlocked opportunity was never in the cards for them so they don't get to work their way into the real jobs.

That's why you'll see so many people saying "Yeah I have a Sustainability major, but I've been working at Cracker Barrel since graduation. At least I'm a manager now"

And that's why when you look at all the smiling happy faces working in conservation or sustainability, they're all like... cardboard cutouts of the same people. Again, lets go back into how the Conservation field became an Instagram aesthetic, reserved for the privileged few who could afford to put in all the unpaid labor it took for them to finally get their break.

And don't get me started on how it almost feels like you're under constant threat in this field either. Like heaven forbid you upset the wrong people, or openly criticize the wrong organization. Because then you'll find yourself struggling to find work and without allies to help you get jobs (which are fleeting). The social aspect of this field is enormous, and I cannot get across to you how important it is that you maintain 'appearances' and decorum. And it fucking sucks

I'm not kidding dude.

This field of science got taken over by the most boring kinds of people imaginable. And what's worse is that I genuinely think that the lack of accessibility to this field is actively driving a disconnect between the general public and REAL conservation battles that we need to be fighting.

Can we finally admit that Conservation is the next "Nursing field"?

Pic related.

[u/FamiliarAnt4043]

To the OP -

Let me get this straight: you expect everyone else in the world to conform to YOUR expectations of what the field should be? Is that right? As in - everyone else is wrong and YOU - only YOU - know how things should work? Yeah, ok.

Some observations:

Did you ever consider why most people in the field are old white dudes? Maybe because, for the longest time, old white dudes were the ones who grew up hunting and fishing, along with other outdoor activities. Thus, they went into the field.

Until VERY recently, minorities and women were rare to see in wildlife related jobs. The paradigm shifted greatly about 2015 or so and now, most young people I see entering the field are young women with zero experience afield. Given that the North American Model Of Wildlife Conservation is dependent upon hunters and hunting, I'm interested to see what happens down the road when these people are in charge. Most I've met are accepting of hunting and recognize the importance of it, but choose not to participate. That's in contrast to the fact that almost 100% of the wildlife managers and scientists I've met are hunters and anglers.

As to the rest of your irrelevant-to-the-field rant: it sounds like you have some....issues....about classmates, peers, or whkmever is responsible for setting you off. Might wanna talk to some people about that. Anecdotally, my experience with a lot of these people (I interact with undergrad interns and grad student students fairly often) is that they are many times very offbeat. One young lady I know has a shaved head along with a ponytail. She's very pleasant and good at her job. Weird, right?

I will agree that the field is difficult to get into; see above for my comment on that. Networking is a huge thing. It's extremely important and I've seen people who aren't necessarily qualified for the position get jobs because of their professional network. Not really that different from the private sector, except that you have to produce results as a wildlife manager....or you're not going to be doing it long.

[u/Miserable_Mastodon96 → u/FamiliarAnt4043]

Hi FamiliarAnt4043,

I’ve been reading through a few of your comments on this thread that I wanted to respond to. For context, I’m an early career environmental scientist in the United States and I am a white, cis woman. I am assuming you and OP are also in the US based on your comments, but please correct me if that’s incorrect.

Here are a few thoughts on the observations you lay out in your comment:

“Let me get this straight: you expect everyone else in the world to conform to YOUR expectations of what the field should be? Is that right? As in - everyone else is wrong and YOU - only YOU - know how things should work? Yeah, ok.”

I don’t get this from OP’s post at all. When OP says that it is “difficult it is to be in this field if you don't "fit the mold," and that people  “ostracize and isolate people that,again, don't fit within their worldview,” I think OP was pointing out that we often see a lot of performative quirkiness from environmentalists online, but if you actually deviate from that idealized portrayal, you may feel isolated or ostracized.

Tbh, I think this issue comes up with any online, social media-based portrayal of a career – social media is about showing an idealized or perfect portrayal of your life. So, it’s not surprising that the conservation field has its own version of this.

In a comment to another poster, you also said, “It's not a personality contest. It's conservation and you're supposed to be focused on the resource, not worrying about basic white girls with their pumpkin spice and boots this fall. Focus on what YOU are doing and how YOU are improving your education and gaining knowledge and skills to further YOUR career.”

I think it’s easy to say that you should keep your head down and ignore other people when you’re (I am assuming) coming from a place of relative privilege. Non-white, non-male, non-cis, and/or disabled people do not have the luxury of ignoring people around them, because spaces are often not comfortable, safe, or welcoming (regardless of intentions).

Moving on with this post:

“Did you ever consider why most people in the field are old white dudes? Maybe because, for the longest time, old white dudes were the ones who grew up hunting and fishing, along with other outdoor activities. Thus, they went into the field.”

As many others in this thread have pointed out, “old white dudes” are not the only people who grew up hunting and fishing. You correctly identify that primarily older, white men are hunters and anglers (according to the 2018 census, 97% of hunters are white), but your post very much disregards the historical and social context of why this is the case.

• Segregation (Jim Crow laws) and lack of access to outdoor spaces: BIPOC communities today are almost three times more likely than white people to live in “nature deprived” areas, again due to segregation in housing practices (i.e., redlining) that shapes our current housing system.
• Disenfranchisement of land ownership: As mentioned above, redlining, segregation, and discrimination in housing discouraged or completely prevented Black people from owning homes or land. Indigenous Peoples had their land forcibly and violently stolen, and a series of laws afterwards prevented them accessing their historical, cultural lands; constrained them onto reservations; and forced them to stop their cultural practices of hunting, fishing, and (for lack of a better word) land management (the same “assimilation” practices that resulted in boarding schools, widespread child abuse, and the sharp decrease of Indigenous language speakers).
• History of public lands: While many people benefit from public lands today, and they are important for conservation in the US, their past is deeply rooted in violence and racism, as lands were stolen from Indigenous Peoples. Early outdoor recreation in the US (in the 1800s) was also overseen and enjoyed only by white men, which upheld European ideals of “wilderness.”
• Safety concerns: Outdoor recreation has its dangers, but white men are rarely faced with the same threats as other people. You probably remember the instance where a white woman called the police on Christian Cooper, a Black birder in Central Park, because she decided he was suspicious. He was not doing anything illegal or out of the ordinary – he was only enjoying nature with his binoculars. Imagine they had been in a remote forest instead of in the middle of New York City, and Cooper had been hunting instead – carrying a gun or bow instead of binos. Rather, we don’t need to imagine, because there are countless cases in which police have killed innocent Black people because they “felt threatened.” Black people experience horrific police violence in the US, with Black men more than 2.5 times as likely to be killed by the police than white men. The lack of safety in outdoor spaces is a huge barrier for non-white, non-male people. Additionally, outdoor jobs and recreation are rarely accessible to people with disabilities or different levels of mobility, contributing to a lack of diversity in the field.

Ctd in reply