Why I’m going to Antarctica again
Written Prior to the Homeward Bound Antarctic Expedition 2018
Most of you will know that I’m part of the Leadership Team for the Homeward Bound project.
Tomorrow (12th Feb) I depart for Ushuaia, Argentina the stepping off point for the final leg of the 2017/18 Homeward Bound journey. I say final leg because the 80 women who’ll board the Expedition Ship M.V. Ushuaia with me on 18th Feb have spent the past year learning about themselves, leadership & visibility while sub groups were also working on projects around areas of scientific interest and gender and leadership in STEMM.
In the past, when reflecting about my involvement in Homeward Bound, I’ve focused primarily on the impact the HB program is having on the women of Homeward Bound and through them, on leadership in STEMM and ultimately the planet. Men and women are different and at the leadership table, most of the voices are those of men. As we seek to address the multiple existential crises facing humanity, in an increasingly VUCCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, chaotic & ambiguous) future, I believe we ignore the voices of women at our own peril.
But today, as I pack technical outdoor gear, verrrrry warm socks and the 1001 other things you need in such an extreme environment, I’m thinking a lot about my own place in this amazing, audacious undertaking, this male among a coterie of such inspiring women.
Twice in my life, I’ve come face to face with what it means to be a male in the world. What it means to grow up unconscious of the privilege that surrounds me in my white, middle-aged male bubble. Imagine a fish, spending its life suspended in a bountiful liquid medium, when asked what it’s like to live under water, would it simply reply “Water? What’s water?”
Twice before I popped have my head up above the surface and breathed in the realisation that not everyone on the planet (in fact around half) experience what I experience, as a male. I’m not talking about understanding it intellectually but viscerally knowing it.
Once was during training as a foster carer of indigenous children, during the Privilege Walk exercise, when I experienced the manifest difference between my own life’s experience and that of other men and women, both white and indigenous.
The second time was only a few weeks ago, listening to a Podcast from the last Homeward Bound 2016 voyage. In the podcast Lewis Pugh, internationally acclaimed extreme athlete and ocean advocate was relaying his own awakening to male privilege, starting when he came aboard the HB16 voyage as a guest speaker. The details aren’t critical, if you want to know more listen to This Is Our Time podcast, Episode 7 : A visit from Lewis Pugh.
I was there, bobbing about in the Southern Ocean, surrounded by Icebergs 100’s of feet high. I was in that room of full woman when, in the answer to a single question it became apparent to the women in the room that as a man, Lewis’ experience was fundamentally different from their own. I listened to that podcast over a year later, heard Lewis describe his own awakening in the weeks and months that followed. In that moment, I realised that I didn’t get it, not till that very moment. I didn’t get that I was still seeing the world through the lens of male privilege, didn’t get that like all males, I don’t know what I don’t know.
But I’m bound and determined to learn.
So I’m off to Antarctica once again…. Thermals (Check), Gloves (2 pairs Check) and socks, lots of socks. I’m heading south again to learn some more from the women of Homeward Bound.