Society€™s bastion falls to evolution
The Age
Wednesday March 10, 2010
ANOTHER male bastion has fallen with the Royal Society of Victoria electing the first woman president in its 156-year history.€˜€˜It€™s evolution,€™€™ said society project officer David Dodd, of Melbourne University zoologist Lynne Selwood€™s new post.Early members of the non-profit body for the promotion of science were town fathers such as premier Sir Henry Barkly and judge Redmond Barry.The first woman member was zoologist Miss Helen Neild, daughter of the Society€™s librarian, in 1889. But it wasn€™t until 1979 that its first woman councillor, sexual health researcher Delys Sargeant was elected, and then only, Professor Selwood said, after strong lobbying from a councillor€™s feminist wife.A €˜€˜delighted€™€™ Professor Selwood said a woman president was €˜€˜long past the time it should have happened€™€™.She wants to overhaul the society€™s finances, expand income streams and update membership records kept on 1980s computer system DOS. She wants to attract younger members and families.She will oversee events for the 150th anniversary of the Burke and Wills expedition, including a re-enactment trek focusing on the environment.Professor Selwood, 70, said in academia in the early 1960s there were €˜€˜very few€™€™ women in science.€˜€˜I remember when I was finishing my PhD at Sydney University, they appointed a female lecturer [in zoology] and a senior department member said, €˜we were forced to appoint her€™.€™€™Today, however, Professor Selwood said, €˜€˜it€™s very hard to be sexist in science because there€™s a lot of legislation to prevent it€™€™. There are dinosaurs, she said, €˜€˜but they can€™t come out of the closet€™€™.In the 1970s at La Trobe University, and later Melbourne University, Professor Selwood became an expert on the reproductive life of two mouse-sized marsupials, the antechinus and the dunnart. She found a way to increase dunnart populations by inducing ovulation in infertile females using hormones.She is now developing birth-control vaccinations for brushtail possums, which could help reduce 35 million possums in New Zealand and overpopulation in Melbourne city parks.
© 2010 The Age
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