At the closing banquet for the Primate Behavioral Management Conference, I was seated next to Brenda McCowen. I wanted to tell her how exciting her work was to me, but I was also nervous that I might not understand it fully, or that I might embarrass myself by oversimplifying. But my advisor was also there, and with her encouragement (and a few IPAs) I eventually worked up the courage.
“My thesis is sort of about the things you covered in your talk,” I said artlessly.
“Oh, really?” McCowen said graciously, “How is that?”
“Well, I’m doing a cultural and historical survey of primate aesthetics,” I said, “along with presenting some of my own research. And one of the things I want to say is how silly it is to take things out of their context. Like, scientifically. How, you know, disrupting something to understand it is short-sighted and, and… macho.” I said, raising my eyebrows. I was hoping that she would pick up on my implication.
“And male, you mean?” She asked.
“Yes! Male.” I said, relieved. “And your talk, well, it’s the perfect foil for that way of thinking. It’s so much more progressive to think about how things fit together than how we can pull things apart.”
“Thank you,” she said.