Good morning,

Today is Penguin Awareness Day, so in tribute to our waddling little feathered friends, we begin with an article about women in the Antarctic. DID YOU KNOW that the US Navy – for a long time the only organisation that would send anyone to Antarctica – refused to send women until 1969? When they finally did, the comms around this seem to have been managed poorly :

One time Terrell noticed a fellow following her around McMurdo. Later, she saw him sitting on a porch crying. She asked him what was wrong. He said, “I think you’re a woman.” Terrell assured him that’s what she thought as well. Apparently, the Navy hadn’t told most of the enlisted men that there were going to be women there — a particular shock to those who had been on the Ice for more than a year.

https://antarcticsun.usap.gov/features/contentHandler.cfm?id=1946

Unrelated to penguins, but related to work and talking and organising, I loved this Atlantic interview with a Rhode Island state representative who, after a decade of waitressing, is devoting herself to her community. I highly recommend that you read the whole thing as I had real trouble finding a pullquote here:

I'm a waitress, and have been for going on 10 years. I literally went across the street, to the restaurant across the street from my high school, and I got a job there in what I thought was going to be a very transitory period of my life, and it has ended up being my main form of income. A couple of years ago, a coworker of mine tricked me into coming to an industry night for the Restaurant Opportunity Center. All of a sudden, I was surrounded by these really amazing union organizers who were explaining to me that while it might not feel like it, I did in fact have rights as a worker and could stand up for them if I so decided.

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/11/from-waitress-to-state-representative/506969/

Good luck with breaking the barriers you need to break,

🐧Alex🐧.