Dan Riskin interviews 83-year-old Anne Innis Dagg, a pioneering Canadian zoologist who literally wrote the books on giraffe. She was the first Western scientist to study the behaviour of any African animal in the wild. She changed the way the world understands giraffe, and questions raised in her first book are still being researched.

But Anne had to cope with prejudices against female academics. She was denied positions and tenure at several Canadian universities because she was a woman. The University of Guelph recently extended an apology for how she and other women were treated; she has been granted honorary degrees and a research scholarship bears her name. Have things changed since then? Biologist Megan Frederickson is looking at inequalities today between male and female science professors. It was the film “The Woman Who Loves Giraffes” that sparked recent attention on Anne’s work and her way of thinking has inspired the next generation of women in science.

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