3-Minute Insect Essential #57 from the INSECT NEWS NETWORK

LA FEMME et LE FREAKY: A Look At the Role of Women in the World of Insects (INN #57 2/6/13). All in all it’s a radio show full of femme and a little freaky – to catch the full buzz visit www.insectnewsnetwork.com and type in #57 – that’s pound 57 – and be sure to join the insect tribe while you are there. Remember it’s a big world out there and most of it is microscopic.

What do Alcatraz, Tai Kwan Do, and Lily Muster have in common?

Well as you might have guessed it connects to today’s INN broadcast “La Femme et Le Freaky”: A Look at the Role of Women in the World of Insects.

This is Emmet Brady host and creator of the INN, and I have said it many times before: women were the first entomologists. If our civilization started as hunter gatherers, then it was most likely that the women, who cared for the village and picks the nuts and harvested the nuts, who first learned the plant medicine. And when ya study plants, you study bugs.

May Berenbaum, Archduchess of Cultural Entomology who teaches at U of Illinois, gave a presentation at Cornell University that offered an interesting historical validation.

In the early 20th century, with the rise of the women’s rights movement, female entomologists began to assert their presence more strongly, Berenbaum said. At a regional entomology meeting in 1924, one in 12 attendees was a woman. – about 8%. But after World War II, entomology training programs once again were predominantly male.

Today, 12.5 percent of entomology department heads are women. That stat does not include, however, all the women around the world who have an affinity, a predilection, an inexplicable passion for the 6- and 8 -legged creatures that share this planet with us.

What then of the current state of Insect Affairs? Well, my guests on the show include two women of different ages, different backgrounds, who both work with bugs and outreach but neither are trained entomologists..

First up is Barbie Hoffman, aka Granda Ma Bugs, who ran an animal rescue unit for 12 years and now runs a martial arts center with her husband in Northern CA. Barbie is definitely a wise elder in the Insect Tribe, as years ago She has turned her home into a safe and welcoming insect zoo with thousands of live specimen safely living alongside her and her grand children. We have a nice conversation about the high calcium content of soldier flies.

Then we speak with Tracie Jones, who operates a traveling classroom that extends the conscious connection from the 60s to today – called Peace, Love and Bugs. She discusses how a phasmid walking stick was the creature that opened the door to the microcosm for her, and how parents often need their children to do the same.