On being a black female math whiz during the space race

[pnwmom]

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/06/books/on-being-black-female-math-whizzes-during-the-space-race.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=mini-moth®ion=top-stories-below&WT.nav=top-stories-below

HAMPTON, Va. — Growing up here in the 1970s, in the shadow of Langley Research Center, where workers helped revolutionize air flight and put Americans on the moon, Margot Lee Shetterly had a pretty fixed idea of what scientists looked like: They were middle class, African-American and worked at NASA, like her dad.

It would be years before she learned that this was far from the American norm. And that many women in her hometown defied convention, too, by having vibrant, and by most standards, unusual careers.

Black and female, dozens had worked at the space agency as mathematicians, often under Jim Crow laws, calculating crucial trajectories for rockets while being segregated from their white counterparts. For decades, as the space race made heroes out of lantern-jawed astronauts, the stories of those women went largely untold.

Four of them are the subjects of Ms. Shetterly’s first book, “Hidden Figures,” a history being released on Tuesday by William Morrow. The book garnered an early burst of attention because its movie version, starring Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer and Janelle Monáe, is scheduled for a year-end release and set for an Oscars run. The movie rights were snapped up weeks after Ms. Shetterly sold her book proposal in 2014, and well before she started writing the book in earnest, a disorientingly fast, if exhilarating, turn.

SNIP

[Skittles]

1. I will definitely see this movie

I want to read the book, too.

Math was my favorite subject in high school.

[pnwmom]

2. I'm looking forward to it too. I'm not a big math person, but my family

is full of math and science people.

For once we'll be interested in the same movie!

[GeoWilliam750]

3. Looking forward to the movie

[BumRushDaShow]

4. Yay!

There are so many unsung heroes out there like these women because the only description that we (POC) tend to "fit" are as criminals, no matter what background, education, occupation, or economic/financial status.

Both of my sisters' godmothers were math majors in college in the late '40s to early '50s and both were relegated to teaching in elementary schools in Philly despite having 2nd Ed. degrees, thanks to that good old white privilege thing. It wasn't until the '70s when one of them was finally able to break out and rise quickly up the district ranks at the school district HQ.

Here is the trailer for that film -

Thank you for posting this pwnmom! Didn't realize this was out there (surprise surprise). To quote Joe Madison -

In America, we are culturally conditioned to believe that white is superior, black is inferior, and the manifestation of that cultural conditioning is that blacks are undervalued, underestimated, and marginalized.

[pnwmom]

5. ln the 40's and 50's this happened to women of all colors, including white women.

Last edited Tue Sep 6, 2016, 01:15 PM - Edit history (2)

My daughter's favorite elementary school teacher was a white math whiz who had skipped two grades in school. But she told me that her college advisor had said that if she were a man, she should go into engineering; but because she was a woman -- and short -- she should be an elementary school teacher.

Then, when my daughter finished fifth, her school recommended that she have a math placement in middle school two years above grade level. But the new school said no -- that the only students they had EVER placed above grade level were boys.

This was in the 90's -- overt discrimination against girls in math was still going on.

(In the end my daughter got the correct placement and ended up getting a PhD in engineering. But every woman engineer and scientist she knows has had similar experiences.)

So the accomplishment of these NASA women was twofold -- they succeeded not only despite white privilege, but despite male privilege.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

7. Yes!!!

Really, I'm so tired of race always overshadowing gender.

Even when that dipshit radio host (can't remember his name) called the star women's basketball team (sorry, I'm no sports fan, I don't know the team name or anything), a bunch of "nappy headed ho's", ALL the articles protesting that pig focused on race. Barely anyone addressed the MISOGYNY!!!!!!

I read a quote from the woman who's the main character in the movie---she said she always found her gender to be more of a barrier than her race.

I have a black, guy friend who's very attuned to racism and will go off on lectures at the drop of a hat. He is smart as hell and knows his history, science, biblical hypocrisy, and plenty of other things.

He also has no hesitation claiming to be a great feminist and will mansplain to you how he's right and you're wrong if you're a woman trying to discuss sexism, or object to his sexist posts. Sad to say, it's become hard to hang out with him anymore, and I used to love him to pieces.

[CrispyQ]

6. I'm definitely checking out that book!

Thanks for the post.

[pnwmom]

8. You're welcome!

[heaven05]

9. "calculating crucial trajectories for rockets

while segregated from their white counterparts". Goddamn, america has always squandered it's best assets in the name of white supremacy. How fucking, goddamn stupid!!!!!!!!!! These women have joined my pantheon of heroes forever. What dedication to their science in the face of wh.....I better quit before I prick one of the thin skinned here.......