The “polar retrospective” takes up events of the past week that are related to the Arctic and Antarctic and focuses on one or more aspects. This time it’s about size, gender and Greenland.
On March 8, International Women’s Day once again drew attention to the contributions of women in various areas of life. And although much has already been achieved in terms of equal rights and equality, women in human society often face unequal treatment and paternalism, up to and including psychological and physical violence. One example is the discussion in the Danish parliament about how to deal with the “IUD” scandal in Greenland. As a reminder: In the 1960s and 70s, the Danish health authorities in Greenland implanted so-called intrauterine devices in thousands of women, often without the consent of the women and girls.
However, it was only two years ago that this story came to light through an investigative report. Since then, the women involved have been fighting not only for financial compensation, but also for a proper reappraisal on the part of Denmark. The discussion is not only about the historical reappraisal, but also concerns the rights of Inuit women to decide for themselves about their bodies and their sexuality and the right to reproduce, as Sara Olsvig, President of the Inuit Circumpolar Council, writes in an op-ed. After all, the machinations of the Danish authorities at the time are not an isolated case. There has also been evidence in Canada that thousands of indigenous women have been subjected to forced sterilization and similar procedures are likely to have been carried out in other Arctic countries back in those day.
According to Sara Olsvig and the Greenlandic member of the Danish parliament Aaja Chemnitz, these practices not only violate women’s rights, but also the basic human rights of the Greenlandic population. And this should also be addressed by Denmark in cooperation with Greenland. However, the Danish Minister of Health refuses to comply with this demand. It was important to treat the two aspects separately, she explained in response.
Both Sara Olsvig and Aaja Chemnitz see this statement as a serious blow to both the rights of the Arctic indigenous peoples and women’s rights. But why does this state of gender inequality still exist in today’s society? One answer to this could be found in a statement from Darwin’s “Origin of Species”. There, he described the smaller physical appearance of female individuals as a natural condition in mammals and therefore also in humans. According to Dr. Kaia Tombak, this view was and still is in line with the prevailing attitude of the times and Western society’s tendency to view all problems and issues through a male lens. However, in order to check whether Darwin was actually right with his statement, Dr. Tombak and two other researchers carried out a study.
In their work, which was published in Nature Communication, the research team was able to clearly show that Darwin’s statement does not apply. Only 45 percent of the species investigated in the study show significantly larger males than females; in 16 percent it is the other way around and 39 percent show no difference.
Applying these results to the polar regions shows that some species in the Arctic and Antarctic are at both ends of the scale. For example, southern elephant seals are the mammal species that show the greatest sexual dimorphism. Bulls weigh up to 4 tons, while the females weigh around 900 kilos on average. Walruses and all eared seals show a similar tendency. On the other hand, in true seals such as leopard seals or Weddell seals, the females are slightly larger than the males.
Then there are the whales, where the orcas have a similar appearance to the elephant seals and the males can weigh around 10 tons, the females up to 6 tons.
But orcas in particular paint a picture that diverges from the usual “size = dominance” pattern. For the clans are led by an alpha female, not the much larger males. She calls the shots and keeps the group together. The bulls have other tasks and are primarily important for reproduction. The females do not mate with just any males, but choose their partners very carefully. This means that in these highly intelligent mammals, the females decide about their bodies and their reproduction. Then why would it be any different for a land mammal that considers itself as highly intelligent?
Dr. Michael Wenger, Polar Journal AG
Link to the study: Tombak et al (2024) Nat Commun 15 (1872), New estimates indicate that males are not larger than females in most mammal species, doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-45739-5
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