Patriarchy and the pangolin: A field guide to Indian men and other species

by Aditi Patil

When two young women are hired to carry out conservation research, they discover that India is a large jungle – larger than they ever imagined. Their study of trees reveals a complex world in which the greatest threat to pangolins and imperiled species is Indian men and patriarchy.

Tramping across North India, the women encounter men, man-made obstacles, and bureaucratic corruption, but forge ahead with satire and self-deprecating humour. Their many stories give us the voices of people and species oppressed or marginalised. Several anecdotes show daily battles against research methods and policies that bury lived life in dry data.

Environmental research is more about lives and livelihoods than data, says Aditi Patil. She makes us feel the pulse of life hidden by statistics. Women farmers, forest dwellers, rustics, and researchers come exquisitely alive in this entertaining and persuasive book.

Under the cover of irresistible humour, Patriarchy and the Pangolin ambushes the reader with unsettling questions about Indian society and the world of research. A bittersweet delight.

—Jean Drèze

Genres: Nonfiction, Feminism, India, Gender

218 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2020

Reviews

[Megha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh, this book has my heart!

How do I write about a book that had me chuckling out loud at its wit, nodding my head vigorously in acceptance, feeling validated with solidarity, while also silently breaking my heart with the realisation that I am not alone in my anguish and anger. Yes, I felt validated. I also felt immense sorrow at the reminder that the shortcomings of our society (and country!) are not changing, not anytime soon at least.

Aditi Patil describes her experience (harrowing adventure?) of being a field researcher for an agroforestry project in Gujarat - a region in India that was touted as the 'Model' on which India's future should be developed. For her team, she has the rebellious, fiercely opinionated Manya, and Praful, a man. This description for Praful is enough, I am adapting the author's style of humour here, okay?

We see the trio try to collect data for their research, which was made difficult by men, man-made obstacles, and bureaucratic corruption. Here you see a group of young people who don't want to just collect data that the government has conveniently asked for a particular project- they instead want to (rightfully so) document the sociological aspects of the project. They saw the potential in the raw data (i.e. lives and livelihood experiences of the people) which have been conveniently ignored and made invisible. As a researcher, I completely understand the need to document it. Because what is GOOD research, if not a collection of people's lived experiences? Unfortunately, they could not see their dreams to fruition, something experienced by almost every person whose research has been funded by a government body in India.

The author is unabashed with her bashing of blatant patriarchy, casteism, and the alienation of the oppressed classes. This book does not claim to solve these difficult questions. It documents the lived reality of two young women alive in today's India. We see Aditi and Manya struggle with gender stereotypes, bureaucracy and policy, toxic masculinity, the difficult love-lives of Aditi and their thepla loving driver Chetan Bhai! The book poses unsettling questions about Indian society and research laced with self-deprecating humour. What is not to love?!

The book earned its five-star rating from me when Manya cribbed about the very real problem of developing a urinary tract infection (UTI), a hard relate from my field experiences! Thank you for giving me this book, Aditi Patil! While I do not know how one incorporates evidence of the ecological displacement and repercussions of badly executed policies into research, please accept hugs and condolences from a fellow Indian woman who has been hung up on the clothesline, desperately trying to dry out and fall from the line!

[Indumathi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Argh. The content and story of this book has sooo much potential but the delivery falls flat.
The writing was so annoying I had to keep taking breaks to finish the book. Would’ve probably DNF’ed it if it wasn’t a book club reading.
The last few chapters sort of made up for it, so gave 3 stars instead of 2.5.

[Surbhi Sinha · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I first saw the title of this book, I knew immediately that I MUST read it! Patriarchy and the Pangolin by Aditi Patil is a short genre bender book encompassing the genres of travelogue, feminism and natural history. If it were up to me, I'd even add humour to it!

What is the book about you may ask? Is it about Pangolins? Not really. But of course it addresses the lack of them in the world. Is it about patriarchy? Oh absolutely yes, rather let's say it addresses the abundance of it in our country.

This witty and satirical book is perfect for calling out our privilege and is a wake up call to everyone who thinks they're stating the "right data", but data too is biased. The book clearly highlights that there is so much data you will never know about because of how our bureaucrats choose to portray it and there is so much data our field researchers will never be able to collect in a proper manner because of the lack of funds and will by the bureaucracy to push these research projects forward.

Patriarchy and the Pangolin is a reminder of the inherent nature of patriarchy instilled within all of us, even if it is to get rid of unwanted male attention.

It's a wonderful book which I didn't realise I'd end up enjoying and learning from at the same time. The author rightly states that this book is about what it means to be alive in India (at this point, being alive seems like a very big deal).

This isn't a fictional book, but with a friend and a research partner like Manya to fill one's monotonous life with tremendous amounts of drama, it definitely helped to fill my reading experience with many unexpected laughs.

If you share a love for nature, birds, over friendly dogs and tabby's then I highly recommend this book to you! If you want to know about the IRL situation of farmers and government schemes dipped in patriarchy then again I highly recommend this book to you!

Thankyou @aditi_patil for writing this book! Though ideally I find myself reading books to find escapism, this honest anecdote gave me the much needed kick on the bum to see more and try to do more!

Also, a huge thankyou to @hachette_india for sending me a review copy of this book. Couldn'thave picked up a more perfect book for week 3 of the #ReadingAsiaPacific read-a-thon.

[Praveen · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is disappointing and the title is clickbaity, this book does not justice in exploring patriarchy nor pangolins except for making the author burdened to use the said words repeatedly in the initial chapters with forced context and gladly for us the author forgets to use them in later chapters.

One thing going for this book is that it is funny (not ha ha funny) and you get to read and experience the flora, fauna and village life of Gujarat to a very limited extent and can be mildly interesting if you have not read anything on it nor lived in Gujarat.

This book doesn't have any purpose and absolutely has no worthwhile story to share and the whole book could have been summarised in a Twitter thread.

[Raji · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am not sure how I feel about this book. I think it fell short of the hype for me. I enjoyed parts of it immensely and learnt some things about research in India. But as someone who has edited several reports on gender (or the lack of consideration of gender) in agriculture, property ownership, government policies and measures in different Asian countries, there was little here that was new.

I am not sure, for instance, on the reliance on Manya Singh (described early on as a spherical creature) for the creation of humour. I think the actual relationship between the three researchers -- Praful, Manya and Aditi Patil -- must be one of great trust and camaraderie and some of it is evident in these pages, but I was still uncomfortable with the author's tone in some bits.

Largely, I think this was me expecting something and finding something else instead. It is a good book but didn’t work for me, unfortunately.

[SG · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was quite disappointed to find that this book didn't live up to its potential. The information and analysis promised by the title and blurb get lost in the rhetoric. The author spends too many words in sounding witty and sarcastic, and too less time on the actual point.

[Himanshu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such an entertaining read this was covering some serious issues regarding conservation as well. Aditi talks about her journey through Gujarat undertaking research on agroforestry while dealing with her new team, bureaucrats, patriarchal mindset, villagers and biodiversity observed during this journey.

I was going to give it 4 stars but the humour deserves a special mention and how relatable it gets to us researchers. Hopefully that extra star would lead to more people reading it.

[Arun Vasireddy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thanks to Aditi for being straightforward and sharing her wonderful work through this book. The honesty with which she expressed the project, people, livelihoods and the needs of the hour gave life and credibility to the narrative. A lot more books like these are needed to push forward such valuable research that is regularly lost. This book, as a medium, also takes questions and pleas closer to simple people like me who understand narratives more than regressions. I hope the lighthearted tone of the book doesn't overwhelm the reader in understanding the hardships of being a field researcher in India. It is very important to bring out the perspectives and lives of all stakeholders, such as women, in universal matters. How we naively believe and complain of a system that conveniently lets a few aged bureaucrats and politicians freely push forward their biases into the world is an irony that hits us throughout the book. The repercussions of such are faced by the resilient women of the country, the landless labour, tribals, birds and other voiceless minorities. This will be the book I'll recommend to the young greens who wish to pursue a career in conservation and other field sciences. I learned some important perspectives from the research-ogue, if it is okay to call this book that!

[R · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars.

I was torn between giving this a 4 vs 3 rating, and decided that despite being an interesting read, it does have some issues that ended up making it slightly disappointing.

I'll start with the book's title. It takes guts to include 'pangolin' and 'patriarchy' and have very little to do with either. In fact, there is not a single real pangolin encountered in the entire book. When I bought the book, I was assuming that their research work actually involved pangolins. The author gives a reason for choosing 'pangolins' for the book title, but it doesn't compensate for a misleading title.

Coming to 'patriarchy', I started reading this book excitedly hoping to find solid evidences and experiences. There were virtually none. Unless you counted encountering men with moustaches (I'll come to this part shortly) and farmers who displayed large billboards advertising their farm with their surname. I read through chapter after chapter hoping that there was going to be something better than these claims of patriarchy. I can think of worse incidents that has happened to me in a train journey than Aditi and Manya can come up with in a 6-month long agroforestry project.

I'm not denying that patriarchy lies embeded in many unspoken actions and attitudes. But for a book claiming this loudly in the title and blurb should certainly have better evidences than what is presented.

Moustache shaming: I found it bizarre that of all things, a man sporting a moustache was a sign of patriarchial attitudes. In fact, in the first few chapters, you will encounter 'moustache' and 'moustachioed' regularly. I thought the author was mentioning this simply for fun. And then, you find a small paragraph of 'moustache shaming' shared from a book titled 'The Ugliness of the Indian Male' by Mukul Kesavan. How is this even cool?

The other problem was in blanket claims that tribal societies had no patriarchy (with a reference to an Oriya book Paraja about a liberated tribe that treated men and women equally), that women in Scandinavian countries face virtually no problems that we Indians do and that equality is easier to find north, west, south and east of India.

I did a bit of research here and sadly patriarchy is apparently quite common in many tribal communities (with only very rare exceptions like the Khasi tribe in Meghalaya). While I didn't read Paraja, I did read up about it. The tribal community mentioned in the book gives equal freedom but is under the leadership of a headman (Get it? Headman). And no society is truly free of traces of pstriarchy - yes, not even Scandinavian countries. If you look at the polls, you'll still find that most people in the population are not feminists.

Finally, in a chapter, the author is saddened to find camels used for riding near Robber's Cave in Dehradun. She is shocked that they are thousands of miles away from their habitat (the deserts where they belong). Again, camels are adapted to surviving in extreme hot and cold conditions. As humans, we expolit absolutely everything around us - a sad fact. Not just camels. Our very existence is probably an ugly blot.

The point is, I came to this book with high expectations about finding instances of patriarchy but it was lukewarm at best. Same goes for insights into research aspects and details on the project. For the major part, it's a memoir and travelogue with a lot of the author's political and social thoughts shared. If it had been marketed as that, I would have no problem appreciating it.

What I did like was the good writing (with fairly good humour interspersed, if a little overdone) and the genuine feminism and the wish to save environments and marginalised population. It'd be a great book if it had substantial claims and solid experiences to share instead of silly banter.

[Shreela Sen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am rating high because some people go by average ratings, & general public should read such books, so, I don't want to decrease the average.
The book is about how patriarchy is a mindset, & exists in all social structures, & makes all decisions unilaterally, often hurting the interests of (unknowingly or knowingly (or in denial)) those that it claims to protect.
This is such an important topic, & needs discussion. & the experiences described in the book make it clear how this affects important work such as conservation & restoration & rehabilitation as well as development effort, more than casually, & more than we realize.
The book is also meant as humour, & as a peek into the life & work of field scientists. It also contains many references to sources about environmental problems & issues.
Interesting... In content as well as structure. badly written book! It has 15 chapters, & first 6 were ugly amateur, extremely rant-y & scattered. There were some striking passages here & there, very relateable & with canny insight. But the author is unable to "show, not tell". The disgust for right-wing majority high-handedness & icky-yucky mainstream entertainment revering patriarchy is dripping in the text - make no mistake, I share the disgust & the level of disgust for that - but it made a poor book. The tone is of personal "texts".
... Then, In chapter 7, suddenly, the book finds its pace, examples of patriarchy become discernable, & the sarcasm hits the spot. Thereafter, is good reading! This divide is weird!
Aditi Patil is no Gerald Durrell (In terms of writing. I am noone to judge her as a field scientist & as a human being... & she comes across as quite nice both ways, but I will, as a reader, judge the writing, & gawd! the writing needs improvement!)
The photographs did not turn out well in greyscale, & added nothing to the book... these books will fare better with photoplates in the middle or end, though, I agree, it is a less interesting way. Also, I have a rant ... Where's a picture of Rusty?

[Sandeep · Rating 2 out of 5]

Patriarchy and the pangolin - Aditi Patil
Rating 2/5

Another disappointing read of 2024. The title of the book is intended to coax the reader into buying the book, but do not fall for the same. If I had purchased it for the kindle - I would have returned it within the first 30 mins and got my money back. Alas I purchased a paperback.

I liberally skipped pages in order to complete the book, hence cannot really tell - how the writing relates to patriarchy or for that matter pangolin. But even if it did - would you learn about these topics from a young author, who was an ex - software engineer?

I would rather chose a wise and experienced teacher. The author along with 2-3 other people are on a research project - where they chose to study Agro farming - cultivating crops alongside planting trees. Along the way they visit various places (villages) in Gujarat and speak to farmers and observe people, flora and fauna.

What really made me dislike the book was the amount of small talk between two women - Aditi Patil and Manya Singh. Isn't there anything else worthwhile to be printed on paper that you chose to write about small talk? It got boring and after a while it got on my nerves. I had no other option but to skip content which was really of no value add. I really did not wish to know if Manya Singh smokes cigarettes or is sick during field trip or Chethan Bhai broke up with his girl friend.

I wish there was a good editor for the book, much of the content could have been reduced. Would not recommend this book to anyone.

Never mind.

Cheers,

[Abhishek Sharma · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s such a great read! I was hooked since day 1 and it’s a really fun journey to follow.
Research and data may seem boring to some people but Aditi just made it so beautiful.

The questions asked and the topics discussed in here are really the most important things we should be asking the leaders and leaders also should be putting the nature first amidst this race of development.

“Environmental research is more about lives and livelihoods than data”. I hope that we all can do few things in order to help people like Lakshmi, Rani and many others, I don’t know how but it’s high time that we do.

This has brought me closer to the nature in a sense. I loved knowing about different species of plants, animals and birds. Thanks for all the references and citations, I’m gonna explore them.

Thanks for giving me a good reality check on privilege and how grand things which we people feel good about does jacks**t to many people’s lives.

[Prerna Munshi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quite an interesting addition to my regular reading collection. I loved the anecdotes of Aditi's field studies and I appreciate how she fearlessly writes about the several bureaucratic/political/patriarchal hiccups they find on their ways and how difficult it is , as a woman, to navigate the narrow lanes of research and agriculture alike.
I love how she incorporates every non-human species that they encounter , as an integral character in the book.
However, I would have liked if this were a little more careful with the sarcasm...that went a little overboard and occasionally in bad taste too . The conversations too looked a little fabricated at times, to suit a fun writing style.

Congratulating the author on her first venture that has come out so well and waiting for her subsequent writings.

[Charvie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this as part of my Sanskari Girls Book Club. And lo and behold, the author feels like someone who would fit right into the club. Extremely sarcastic and pessimistic while staying funny and thinking about issues that plague my mind every day, as a sustainability professional, I found this to be extremely relatable. As she saw things from a systems thinking perspective which the authorizers of her Gujarat Agroforestry project clearly couldn't, her agony felt like mine.
Some very interesting narratives on how the ruling party is trashing everything, which is something I want to delve into more. She was outspoken about the patriarchy, lack of empathy, ignorance of authorities, capitalism etc.
The way it's written is a little difficult to read in the beginning, other than that, great read.

[Detective Deralta · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a personal account of discoveries, travels and the traversties that traveling for research entails.

It's a hilarious, hardworking and most importantly honest account that is rife with humour, heart and human insights. It beautifully weaves cultural narratives with everyday practices, the frustrations that come with being a woman in India and questions the status quo. But without being activist about it. While still being activist about it.

It's a breezy read.
But don't let that fool you. It hits hard while
wrapping the impact up in layers of humour.

What a witty, easy read.

[Vidhi Shah · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is about the adventures, experiences, and observations of a field researcher in Gujarat, India. She and two other fellow researchers travel across farms in Gujarat and talk to farmers to collect data for agroforestry researchers. She records not only information about agroforestry but also recollects instances where they faced sexism and saw how casteism still dictates the kind of employment citizens get opportunities for.

There's ranting, there's humour and there's a subtle socio-political commentary.

[Akhilesh · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book charts the course of a couple of researchers in Gujarat and other states in India while they encounter various flora, fauna and men. Aditi does a great job detailing the life of a researcher in India, the kind who cares about their work but has to deal with uncaring Government administrators and patriarchic men in the hinterlands where they have to primarily conduct their research.

It's an entertaining book and a good read.

[Mills College Library]

306.858 P3141 2020

[Amrutha Jaisanker · Rating 3 out of 5]

Did not like the prose

[Bhavani P · Rating 5 out of 5]

🍁Aditi with her fellow researcher, travel across different places around North India to gain information about forest conservation.

🍁The book also touches upon generic topics like gender inequality, wildlife, caste discriminations and issues in the government to fund projects that can actually save the planet.
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🍁For 2 young girls in India, to leave out their good paying job and working something for nature's cause, closely touched my heart.
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🍁If at all, I leave my regular job and do something useful for the society or nature, this book would have spiked my thoughts.

🍁I totally loved the experiences Aditi shares in the form of writing, along with the friendship she shared with her co-researcher.
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🍁After reading this book, I've just started wishing I get some guts to follow my passion leaving out my comfort zone!!

🍁Totally an inspirational book for young girls who wants to follow their passion despite the struggles they would step up to.
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🍁I also loved the writing style of Aditi and the words she puts across to explain a situation.

🍁The pictures shared in the book on their field trip speaks beyond just words.

[Pratyusha Das · Rating 5 out of 5]

To me, reading and more precisely fiction, is escapism. After all, who wants to see potholes on streets when you can walk over the Moon!
But hola! a non fiction can also swallow you and captivate your mind, specially when the witty author @aditi_patil tickles you with innumerable humorous adages along with connotative meanings to convey a deeper meaning in her debut book, Patriarchy and the Pangolin.

Aditi has brilliantly put into pieces the rigmarole of the field research that she conducted in Gujarat, along with her fellow researchers, with whom the endless prattles and inanities make way to bring out the perils of the society. With her keen eyes, she is quick to observe the nuanced picture of gender inequality, caste discrimination, wildlife endangerment, govt apathy and dismissal of the marginalised.

I would recommend this to any intellectual out there. This book straddles between wit and wisdom of the author. Former being the connotation and the later as the denotation.