Every Man's Fantasy Ch. 20

"The impurities are caused by osmium."

"Are they now?"

"And osmium from the mines in the asteroid belt of New Exeter is very cheap at the moment, as the planet works its way back to prosperity within the Anglosphere."

"It's a good idea," Danielle admitted, "but whatever we save from buying cheap osmium, we'll lose in transportation costs from New Exeter to here. It's hundreds of light-years away."

"But you designed a means of low-cost long-distance hyperspace travel. Why can't you establish a tethered link to New Exeter?"

"Even if we could afford it, Roger, we couldn't justify the cost. We're using the hyperdrive only to go to Samothea while it is in its experimental stage. That's why I've not sold the technology. HyperStar would go spare if we used the engine to go to New Exeter at our own cost when there are transport companies begging us to set up pathways to Earth and the Beltway junctions."

"What if New Exeter paid for the hyperspace link?"

"How can you get New Exeter to pay for the link?"

"Because Mayor Grandley is keenly interested in the Samothea Project and would be happy to help if she could."

Roger became friends with Mayor Esther Grandley when he interviewed her for his video-book two years ago. Since then he'd kept the Mayor informed about Danielle's project.

Danielle was silent, thinking. She could see the commercial sense in the proposal. A paying project for Oakshott Industries and HyperStar Japan would benefit them without releasing the technology onto the open market. She could explain to the University Board that they needed a tethered link to New Exeter for the sake of the cheap osmium for the Samothea Project. It may well work. The more she thought about the suggestion, the more she liked it.

"Thank you, Darling," she said. "You might just have solved most of our problems. I'll look into the details tomorrow. Meanwhile, didn't you order dinner for us? I'm starving!"

******

While Danielle collaborated with Oakshott Industries on a design for a tethered hyperspace link from Celetaris to New Exeter, Roger contacted Mayor Esther Grandley, who persuaded a consortium of local businessmen that a hyperspace pathway direct to Celetaris, which was on a spur of the Hyperspace Beltway, would greatly benefit the New Exeter mining industry and even the hunting-tourism industry.

Legal papers were drawn up. There was no discount for the osmium and platinum, but the market price on New Exeter was the cheapest in the galaxy at the moment, so everyone was a winner.

Negotiators jumped to New Exeter by conventional means, signed a good deal and brought back enough osmium alloy to shield the new shuttlecraft and beacon.

Feeling slightly (though forgivably) smug, Danielle told the board of the Celetaris Institute for Science that the first commercial contract for the Samothea Project had been completed, bringing in a small profit and, more importantly, a supply of an essential ingredient for the Project.

3 An unexpected offer

Danielle was never quite so despondent again. She delegated some of her administrative tasks and, with new-found energy, also insisted that Roger do his husbandly duty to her every night (which he did, good and hard) and most mornings.

Of course, the bloody feminists were still a problem, but Danielle preferred to ignore them for now.

Two weeks later, Paul Kessler invited Danielle to his office to meet someone but he didn't say whom. When she arrived, Danielle saw a brunette woman in a sharp business suit with high heels sitting opposite Paul. Even from the back, the woman seemed familiar.

Paul stood to welcome Danielle and introduce his guest.

"Danielle, this Eva Welwyn. Eva, this is Doctor Danielle Goldrick, the head of the Samothea Project."

"Hello, Danielle," Eva said, getting up to shake hands. "It's been a long time."

"Hello, Eva," Danielle said, somewhat cautiously.

"I didn't know you too knew each other," Paul said, his famous savoir faire undamaged.

"Yes, we're old ... friends?" Eva said, an eyebrow raised as a question-mark to Danielle.

"Yes, old friends," Danielle confirmed.

She sat down and waited patiently to learn why the radical feminist with whom she had clashed so memorably when she was doing her doctorate at Cal Tech was here on Celetaris, being chummy with her friend, Paul.

The two women had been good friends and colleagues until Danielle sabotaged a conference Eva arranged on 'Women in Science' by telling the truth about a supposed case of male misogyny that wasn't anything of the kind. She then thoroughly debunked many popular feminist myths about how women get a raw deal in science, including the ludicrous 'wage-gap' between the sexes and the 'glass ceiling'.

Worse than this, instead of patching things up over dinner, Danielle insulted Eva's academic profession by calling Women's Studies a load of unscientific codswallop.

The two women hadn't spoken since.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you I knew Danielle," Eva said to Paul, "but I wasn't sure if she would come if she knew it was me you were meeting."

This amused Danielle, who held no grudge, however surprised she was to see Eva.

"I'm happy to see you again, Eva," she said, "but I wonder what you could possibly have to do with Paul or the Samothea Project?"

"Eva may be able to help us out of our bad publicity problem," Paul said.

"Really?" Danielle was sceptical.

"Yes, really," Eva said. "Shall I explain from the beginning?"

Danielle nodded.

"For the past few years, I've been running a post-graduate workshop for women in science and engineering who want to broaden their knowledge. I take on one or two students a term. We concentrate on anthropological studies, learning how women are treated in different societies."

"When I saw the trouble you were having with the publicity about your brother's, er, domestic arrangements on Samothea, and that you were recruiting a new crew, I contacted all my past students to ask if they were available."

"Available for what?" Danielle asked, a little sharply. She wasn't happy with the implied dig at Ezra's 'domestic arrangements'.

"To pilot and crew a flight to Samothea."

"We're already working to recruit a crew."

"Yes, a crew of men, which is causing you grief and mockery. Imagine the good publicity you'd get if you announced you were sending a crew of women!"

Danielle silently thought about the proposal.

"That's a good sign," Eva said to Paul.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that Danielle didn't ask if women would be up to the task."

"Why would I ask that?" Danielle said, amused again.

"Because you think women are less able than men in science and engineering."

"Nonsense, Eva! All I've ever said is that women are less inclined to study those subjects. One of the reasons is that men have a natural advantage in maths and physics. This is a fact, like tall people having an advantage in basketball. It doesn't mean that short people cannot dribble, pass and shoot as well as tall people. It's a function of how high the basket is."

"Women with an aptitude for science can compete very well with men," Danielle added, "it just so happens that there are fewer of us. ... But now you've mentioned the problem, I may as well ask: how reliable will a bunch of 'Women's Studies' students be on such a crucial mission?"

Although it was Eva's turn to be offended (Paul looked warily at her), yet she merely smiled and shrugged off the insult to her academic subject.

"My colleagues were all experts in engineering, medicine, physics and aeronautics before they took an interest in anthropology. They will get the job done."

Danielle didn't comment further. She would only be satisfied when she saw their resumes and met the women.

"Can you recruit five women for one of the most dangerous trips in the galaxy?" Danielle asked.

"Yes. I will send you the list of candidates. Do you approve, Danielle?"

"Subject to the rest of the Samothea Project Team agreeing, I do. Thank you, Eva. If we go ahead, the crew would have to be ready in two months."

It was a welcome offer, Danielle admitted, which would save many days of sorting through all the frivolous male candidates who offered to go to Samothea just in the hope of getting laid.

"Why are you helping us, Eva?" Danielle asked. "Why would your team take the risk?"

"Because we want the chance to study an almost pristine all-female society. Also, it will give some really good people a chance to make names for themselves."

"That's a good reason," Danielle said.

"And because we want to help other women where we can."

Danielle nodded again.

"I'm grateful, Eva," she said, "especially given our differences in the past. It's generous of you to overlook them."

"Actually, Danielle, our conflict is why I'm here, meeting you face-to-face, instead of chatting via a video-link. I wanted to tell you that some of what you said during our argument was true. I've changed my mind a little on the subject."

"You have?" Danielle was impressed.

"Yes. Do you know I use your rant at the 'Women in Science' conference as a recruiting video?"

"How does that work?"

"I ask potential students to find the flaws in your argument."

Danielle laughed.

"Do they succeed?"

"Some of them, but the curious thing is that the most accomplished scientists and engineers generally agree with you. That was my first clue. They agree that more men go into science and maths than women either because more men have the aptitude or because women choose to do different subjects. None of them was ever put off by entering a male-dominated academic culture. Some of them welcomed it."

"The woman whom I hope will be the pilot of the next mission to Samothea is called Robyn Bradford. She's an aeronautical engineer who took time off from her career to raise her family and then came back to the university to update her qualifications. She took my course out of interest."

"You'll like her," Eva went on. "She thinks you're right that lowering standards for female students actually makes it harder for them. I denied that's what happened, so we did a study to resolve the dispute. We compared the recruitment rates and drop-out rates for the last fifty years of every female physics and engineering student at every Anglosphere university."

"Using satisfaction surveys from the universities to judge a school either friendly or unfriendly to female students, we hoped our data would allow us to estimate how much it was academic culture that turned women off and how much it was the difficulty of the subject. Do you know what we found?"

"I can guess: it was inconclusive because more girls than boys drop out and they do so earlier on, which skews the satisfaction survey data."

"That's more or less right, so we've started on the primary research to get the raw data; but we unearthed some interesting tid-bits. For example, your Professor Jakovs has the lowest female recruitment rate in the Anglosphere."

This wasn't a surprise to Danielle: Professor Hendrik Jakovs hated women. He deliberately made the maths and physics parts of the entrance exams for his school much harder than they need be, weeding out the weaker candidates and (it so happened) disproportionately weeding out the women. Danielle was trying to think of a way to defend the essential good character of the professor who brought her to Celetaris, when Eva went on:

"Robyn and I found that, for the last few decades, Professor Jakovs has accepted the fewest number of female astrophysical engineering candidates in the Anglosphere - and that he also has the lowest drop-out rate for women in the Anglosphere."

"Ah-ha!" said Danielle.

"Ah-ha yourself!" responded Eva. "You're going to say that if you weed out the weaker candidates at the beginning, as the Professor does, then there is less wastage when things become difficult later on; which is better for the department and for the women themselves. Is that it?"

"Something like that," Danielle admitted.

"But the question is," Eva went on: "is the Professor weeding out weaker women by setting the highest academic standards in the Anglosphere (so he gets the best candidates); or is he simply making the academic environment unpleasant for women, to push away people he dislikes, regardless whether or not they can cope with the course?"

"What did you and Robyn conclude?"

"Some of both, in fact. In his career, Professor Jakovs has rejected many female candidates who did well at more female-friendly schools; but such women are fewer by far than the number of female candidates he rejected who later dropped out of even women-only colleges or who gained only mediocre degrees and never put into practise the qualifications they earned. If you judge by those who passed his course and made a professional success of astrophysical engineering, then Hendrik Jakovs has the best record in the Anglosphere."

"Hooray for misogyny?" Danielle tentatively suggested. Eva ignored her, continuing:

"But the most interesting thing we found out was that Professor Jakovs had only two periods in his career when there were no female drop-outs at all from his course. Do you know why?"

"How would I know why?" Danielle asked.

"Because the two periods in question were the three years that you were Professor Jakovs' doctoral student at Cal Tech (where you performed his pastoral duties toward female undergraduates) and here on Celetaris in the last two years. Explain that!"

Danielle laughed again.

"Are you saying that our success-rate is due to me softening the influence of Hendrik Jakovs' chauvinism, making it a more pleasant environment for girls, rather than the high standards he sets students in the first place?"

"I'm saying it's both; which means there's a case for changing the culture to make science and mathematics more appealing to women because that's what you're doing, whether you admit it or not. ... Yes, I know that some subjects have a male-dominated culture because 95% of students are male but you seem to be able to overcome both the natural male-domination of physics and the fact that your Professor is the most misogynistic bastard in the galaxy."

"All right, Eva. I accept what you say. I'd like to see your primary research, when it's done, though I still think Women's Studies is junk science."

"I'll convert you someday, Danielle. I'll send you my latest paper. You can throw it in the bin if you want."

"I've read it, if it's the one explaining why far more girls than boys drop out in the first year of university from science, technology, engineering and maths courses because this is when they first meet calculus?"

"It is," said Eva.

"I sympathise with the young women," Paul said, speaking for the first time in half-an-hour. "I switched from economics to law as soon as I was confronted with calculus in the maths class."

"Wimp!" Danielle admonished him. "At university, calculus is a fake wall put up to weed out weak and lazy students. But Eva argued that the problem isn't the steep learning-curve in the subject, nor that boys are naturally better at maths than girls, but the way that calculus is taught deliberately favours male students. I'm afraid I don't see anything misogynistic in calculus."

"Yet you managed to save the careers of some female students by treating them in a more nurturing way than your professor or other male colleagues would have done," Eva countered.

"As I also nurture male students when they need my help," Danielle said, "both personally and in maths and science. I don't suppose you looked at the statistics for male drop-outs from Hendrik's courses?"

Eva looked a little sheepish but her smile of admission was greeted by an understanding smile from Danielle. It was a technical draw: Danielle had taken a feminist argument seriously and Eva saw rather more nuance in Danielle's anti-feminist position than she previously thought.

It was an opportunity for a happy compromise, which Danielle characteristically sabotaged, saying:

"Eva, have you ever wondered whether the high drop-out rate of girls from science and maths courses in the first year of university is not because calculus is so difficult but because this is when the poor innocent darlings first encounter feminism?"

Eva's smile froze. It was Paul who asked:

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that girls can do anything they want to, right up to the moment that feminists tell them they will always fail because society is prejudiced against them; that they can't succeed unless the government stacks the deck in their favour, with all-female quotas, lower standards and lower grades to compete with boys. No wonder they give up as soon as they meet something a little challenging, like calculus."

The horrified look on Eva's face made Danielle laugh. She decided to pour salt into the wound.

"You know," she said, "parents tell their children: 'If at first you don't succeed, try, try and try again.' But feminism says: 'If at first you don't succeed, give up and blame the Patriarchy.'"

It wasn't possible for Eva to look more offended - until she smiled indulgently, saying:

"You're incorrigible, Danielle, but I see you're only baiting me. I'm glad we're friends again."

She stood and offered her hand to Danielle, who also stood and pulled Eva to her. They kissed cheeks and held each other for a second.

"Eva, come home with me and meet my husband, Roger," Danielle invited. "I told him our story some time ago. He's already a fan of yours. Then we'll take you to dinner. ... Will you come to dinner with us, Paul?"

"I don't know. After your initial clash, I was hoping for a cat-fight but all I got was a couple of kittens stroking each other and purring."

Eva's face was a picture again.

Danielle laughed at her. She put on an outraged feminist voice and squealed:

"Oh, my God, Paul! You've done it now. I can see the headlines already: 'Feminist snowflake outraged by chauvinist lawyer, who calls her "kitten" and wants to see her stroke another woman!'"

Even Eva laughed at that.

"I suppose that's a fair dig at me because when feminists banned sexual banter from the workplace you think they also banished office humour."

"Talking about women in the workplace," Danielle added as an afterthought. "There's another benefit to hiring women instead of men: we can pay them only eighty cents on the dollar ..."

"Incorrigible!" Eva muttered to herself, as they walked arm-in-arm down the corridor to the lift.

******

A week later, five members of Eva Welwyn's Anthropological Studies Group arrived on Celetaris to prepare for the mission.

The women impressed the Samothea Project Team from the moment they turned up for training. Robyn Bradford, the captain, an aeronautical engineer, already knew how to fly the shuttlecraft and needed only to be familiarised with the new hyperdrive system. They were all trained on the air-suits and on their expected roles on Samothea.

There was an argument only over what to call them. Eva wanted a name that signified their sex, such as 'Women's Support Team', but that was too bland. Knowing his wife's attitude toward feminism, Roger, the historian, joked that she would call them the 'Petticoat Crew' if she could. His joke backfired when the women themselves eagerly took up the name, calling themselves "the Petticoats" and addressing each other as "Hey, Petticoat!"

The publicity team gave everyone long-suffering looks and asked "Why are you undoing all our good work?" but the name caught on with the public and there was good press when the shuttlecraft was officially named the Celetaris Space-Ship "Petticoat". The publicists made the most of the photo opportunity, pushing the more attractive of the Petticoats to the front, which irritated Eva and got her biting her lip rather than make a protest.