(Posted for #InternationalWomensDay at journal of Ecology blog; https://jecologyblog.com/2019/03/08/international-womens-day-balance-for-better/) I knew I wanted to be a forest ecologist since a very early age. I was born in a rural region of a country with a remarkable machismo culture, and that at the time it was just getting back to democracy after more than four decades of dictatorship. However, I grew up in an environment in which no one ever told me I could not do somet