One Last Ride for Antarctica's 'Ivan the Terra Bus'
24 comments
·March 29, 2025avar
rafram
The NSF itself said that sexual harassment is a problem at the base. They surveyed women there and 59 percent said they had been harassed. There have been a few named individuals accused of harassment there and a few victims who’ve come forward without asking for anonymity, but the point is that it’s so pervasive that there’s almost no point in trying to find individual perpetrators. Over half of all women at McMurdo are harassed!
https://www.npr.org/2023/11/03/1210418182/antarctica-sexual-...
redeux
Terribly, 59% is actually lower than the rate of sexual harassment for women in the USA, which is around 77% according to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center.
https://www.nsvrc.org/resource/facts-behind-metoo-movement-n...
rafram
77% is over a lifetime, but 59% is just over the one or two summers that someone spends at McMurdo, so it makes sense that it would be lower. But if there weren’t a serious culture of harassment, you’d think it would be much lower.
petsfed
I want to buttress a sibling comment and dig into how misleading your quoted statistics are.
While there are complicating factors, in general, probabilities add linearly. So for the average woman in the US, who lives for 77 years, she therefore has a 1% chance of being sexually harassed during any 1 year of her life. Obviously, this follows some distribution, but still, the odds of it happening in any one year of her life probably peaks around 5-10%.
I couldn't find good data on how many seasons the average Antarctic worker puts in, but let's say its around 10. That means the average woman working in Antarctica has a 5.9% chance of getting sexually harassed per year. Except, the average contract length in Antarctica is 4-6 months. So while a woman in the US has a 0.5% chance of being sexually harassed in a given 6 month time frame, a woman in Antarctica has an average 11.8% chance of being sexually harassed for the same time frame.
Do you understand the difference?
avar
> The NSF itself said that sexual harassment
> is a problem at the base.
> They surveyed women there and 59 percent
> said they had been harassed.
The survey[1] had a 24% response rate, so that 59% number is extrapolated from that, it's actually just over 14%.
The report certainly contains some deeply troubling anecdotes, but (no surprise) there's a wide chasm between what it claims, and how it's been reported on.
But don't take my word for it, read what they have to say on page 28:
"[...]it is important to note that the survey
and focus group questions were not
designed to elicit information regarding
the prevalence or incidence of sexual
assault within USAP. This remains an effort
for the future. Instead, the qualitative
and quantitative data elicited extensive
information regarding individuals’
experiences and perceptions. Team LDSS
did not independently investigate or
otherwise seek to verify the accuracy
of individuals’ reporting."
The 59% is then women respondents who had a "negative experience" with either assault or harassment.
I don't believe that means, as you claim, that "they had been harassed". Earlier on page 30 they say:
Approximately 40% of all focus group
participants discussed a personal
negative experience with sexual assault
or sexual harassment
1. https://www.nsf.gov/geo/opp/documents/USAP%20SAHPR%20Report....
petsfed
>The survey[1] had a 24% response rate, so that 59% number is extrapolated from that, it's actually just over 14%.
That's not how statistical extrapolation works.
Here's a recent study that uses modern statistical modelling methods to extrapolate actual harassment rates from reporting rates that suffer strongly from self-selection bias in a similar environment: [0]
Perhaps they can repeat the original study in light of the suggested methods just published.
0. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/marine-science/articles...
bombcar
It's somehow related to self-referential news (where most "news" articles aren't reporting that a thing happened, but that another news agency reported that it happened) - it's almost "wikification", where what matters is the link and someone else having said it, original research is forbidden.
Of course, this problem has existed forever - rumor vs fact, the oft-misattributed to Twain "a lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth can get its boots on".
s1artibartfast
Thats not how I read the closing and description of the prior era. I read it as one that was more human, before being stamped out and sterilized due to the PR challenges is posed.
null
jsight
> Is there a name for this fever dream style of writing, that even if you follow up on all the loose ends dropped throughout, find that some of them evaporate under scrutiny?
It is called journalism.
teddyh
> Is there a name for this fever dream style of writing, that even if you follow up on all the loose ends dropped throughout, find that some of them evaporate under scrutiny?
Journalism.
shadowtree
You too can ride in such a vehicle - just visit the Columbia Icefield in Banff, Canada.
https://www.banffjaspercollection.com/attractions/columbia-i...
They drive out tourists on to the ice (as long as it is still there, couple decades left).
I did it, very cool.
nxpnsv
I was driven in this from the ice runway to McMurdo station in 2001. It was very loud and slow and bouncy. I loved it.
cozzyd
Sad I won't get to ride Ivan when I (hopefully) go back to the ice this fall. I've ridden Ivan both previous times I flew to McMurdo from CHC, though the second time it's because the Kress got stuck in soft snow lol
gregoriol
What is it replaced by?
joshvm
In the summer, there are a small fleet of vehicles called "Deltas": https://photolibrary.usap.gov/PhotoDetails.aspx?filename=del... and the Kress.
From the article (though it doesn't say these still exist):
> But, she says, “Ivan could just make it through anything. I mean, he just floated across when the roads went bad,” as opposed to the Deltas and the 65-passenger Kress trailer, which often got bogged down in slushy snow and transitional terrain, and led to passengers being stranded out on the ice.
DVs (the Antarctic/naval term for VIPs) usually travel in minivans with oversize or tracked wheels. Those are also used to get smaller groups shuttled between places.
sleepytimetea
AI /s
biofox
It has been a dream of mine to visit one of the research stations in Antarctica since I was a child. Unfortunately, my professional career has not yet provided me the opportunity :(
jbm
Off topic but this is much more of a common sentiment than I had thought. There was an anime series about this - 宇宙よりも遠い場所 — literally about high schoolers who wanted to go to the antarctic.
jasongill
[flagged]
What a weird way to conclude an article, to suggest that an Antarctic bus will be remembered as coming from an era of "McMurdo’s persistent culture of sexual harassment".
Then when you click through that article you can read about, among other things, a case where "the AP generally does not identify those who say they have been sexually assaulted unless they publicly identify themselves".
But they have qualms about including the name of the supposed attacker, who you can find (not from the AP) was found unanimously not guilty by a jury[1], in a case that whatever anyone believes about it, had nothing whatsoever to do with sexual harassment or sexual assault.
The alleged victim had supposedly stolen the defendants nametag, because she was upset about not being invited to a party. When confronted she refused to give it back, and the defendant forcibly retrieved it from her.
Is there a name for this fever dream style of writing, that even if you follow up on all the loose ends dropped throughout, find that some of them evaporate under scrutiny?
1. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/stephen-tyler-bieneman-not-guil...