Travelling (and pregnant) with trowel

Great feature on anthropology professor Suzanne Pilaar Birch in The Guardian:

This bunch of smiling, pregnant scientists, evidently glowing as much from the sheer exertion of hard work as from hormones was a surprising spectacle on Twitter. It was around the time tennis champion Serena Williams announced she was having a baby and the internet was buzzing with the news that she’d won the Australian Open while pregnant – without dropping a set. We frequently see images of glamorous stars showing off their bumps – Beyoncé’s heavily styled Instagram shots, Demi Moore on the cover of Vanity Fair (a pose that Serena Williams herself now replicates for the latest edition of the magazine) – but expectant mums, hard at work?

Pilaar Birch agrees that it’s a rare sight. “Pregnant women [in the media] are always so clean, dressed up nicely, pictured in a yoga pose or something. You never really see them working. In the field there were times when I almost forgot that I was pregnant, I was just doing my thing.”

An amazing amount of work, effort and diligence on the part of women [scientists] just to pursue a 'normal' career. We are grateful for their perseverence, and the discoveries and insights it produces in the field, as well as the example they present for so many other young women in every field. We've posted about Trowelblazers previously - an important source of support for our scientists. Plus this will be another kid who is very proud of his mom, just as we are.