Coast to Coast AM: Male Chauvinism Within Bigfoot Research?

Of course, at some level, one could say we don’t even know what we are looking for and what skills or odors or equipment it will ultimately take to find unknown hairy hominoids. After all, we haven’t found any Bigfoot, Yeti, Almas, or Skunk Ape yet, so what we have been doing isn’t working – or the unknown hairy hominoids are not out there. But that doesn’t stop some people from criticizing others who are for a completely open field of investigators – from academics to truck drivers, from women to men, from true believers to skeptics. For example, in a recent case, two of us encouraging women are labeled as chauvinistic. This seems a curious reaction, doesn’t it?

Intelligent women involved in Bigfoot research wish to have an open discussion about sexism in the field. I say great. But it seems incredibly remarkable to me that two women would pick out as targets to critique George Noory and myself, via mislabeling or misunderstanding what we discussed just last week, via seemingly trying to pin the label “male chauvinists” on our backs.

I am at once dismayed, outraged and disappointed in Robin Bellamy and Sue Darroch for remarks they have made to warp around George and my brief discussion about supporting women in Bigfoot fieldwork and then say it is “a bit chauvinistic.”

In the May 20, 2007 blog by Sue Darroch, she uploaded a posting entitled “Sunday Smackdown….Male Chauvinism Within Cryptozoology?” I post it here, without edits, including her misspelling of “Sasquatch,” so there will be no accusing me of trying to emphasis one part over another. This is done to make immediate commentary on Darroch’s editiorialized view of George and my talk show sidebar on why women might, in the end, do better in the Bigfoot field. Here is what she says:

I did not use the word “attractive” in the same way that it seems Darroch appears to be implying I did. I was not talking about sexual attraction but about how animals have a fight or flight response, how they “read” each other. I wasn’t talking about hormones, but more correctly, about pheromones (i.e. those chemical substances released by an animal that serves to influence the physiology or behavior of other members of the same or similar species). As noted in the blog posting in which Darroch has not shared the title, in “Women Bigfooters Do Better Fieldwork?”, I was discussing the biological level of relating used in conjunction with fieldwork – and alluded to the work of Jane Goodall. Goodall was not using her “hormones” to have sex with chimpanzees, but instead, the messages in her pheromones to send signals to the chimpanzees that she was not a threat to them.

Darroch appears unaware of my previous work on gender and sexism, including the fact my master’s thesis was written about sexism in the professionals, and my masters was awarded from the women’s college where I attended their graduate school for my masters degree.

Darroch also apparently has missed that sexism has been a topic of some interest to me and readers here at Cryptomundo. It is fine if she wants to call me “a bit chauvinistic,” for as a male, despite my best efforts, I probably do slip, as most males do. But in my discussion on Coast to Coast AM with George Noory, I was well-aware of the low numbers of Bigfooters who are female, and was alert to the fact that what I was saying was to support more women in the field, not less.

Indeed, in my blog “Homophobus mysognistis xenophobus ignoramus,”, I might have went overboard to state my point, but from Darroch’s posting, it is apparent I did not make my point enough. Simply stated, the more people – of all kinds, of all genders – in cryptozoology – the better.

Am I a chauvinist? Well, sometimes I may be too defensive, too passionate, too interested in pushing the envelope into the future, too nerdy, and too sleepy, but I’ve never gotten the feedback from women – or men – that I’m a chauvinist. I can’t speak for how George Noory feels, but from being on his show almost 20 times, I have not experienced him as being a sexist, a chauvinist, a racist, or a xenophobe. I am sorry Robin Bellamy and Sue Darroch found our comments on C2C “a bit chauvinistic.”

Hominologist and Texas resident Melissa Hovey has written a thoughtful response on this issue.

Loren Coleman About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct). Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015. Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.

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