In May of
1961, President John F. Kennedy told Congress, in a historic speech, the
country should put “man on the moon,” before the end of the decade.
Kennedy
wasn’t being purposely sexist. He was assuming, naturally, it would be a man
stepping down on the lunar surface to say it was “one small step for man,
one giant leap for mankind.” Neil Armstrong was also not trying to make a statement.
Neither Kennedy or Armstrong could anticipate an era where their words would be
castigated as evidence of gender bias. I think they were using the word man to
represent humanity.
The moon
landing has given today’s culture warriors the opportunity to a swipe at 1960's
America. The New York Times and the Washington Post recognized the historic
event as “mostly white and male” and guilty of ‘gender bias.’ Could we have
done better? Yes. People of color and women should have been included.
The Times
tweeted “The Apollo program was designed by men, for men. If we do not acknowledge
the gender bias of the early space program, it becomes difficult to move past
it.”
I acknowledge
the white male nature of NASA in the beginning. It took until 1983 for Sally
Ride to become the first American woman in space. We will never forget the sacrifice
of Christa McAuliffe who died in the Challenger disaster.
My point
is…Can we avoid the practice of interpreting past events in terms of modern
values? Can we give Kennedy and Armstrong and NASA a pass long enough to
celebrate a moment in history…and then… work to insure multiculturalism in our
future space endeavors?
I sure hope
so…
It seems kind of weird to pick a single inane article (they wrote dozens of articles leading up to the anniversary, including one about how it was America's greatest achievement) about the very real challenges NASA has encountered along the way on its path toward getting women into space and make this about some sort of "PC Culture is condemning everything we love" deal.
ReplyDeleteThe article talks about differences in Space suit sizes, differences about where men sweat versus where women sweat, the size of ladders on current spaceships being optimally designed for men with longer reach, and how men and women are affected by radiation differently and how this might play out in space.
There is a section of the article that discusses how women were excluded from the process, but it doesn't really assign blame or judgement.
It's like you saw the word gender bias in the headline and decided it had to be something bad. The article doesn't even talk about the famous "one small step for man" speech you referenced in your comment.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/17/science/women-astronauts-nasa.html
DeleteHere's the "presentist" article the Times tweet was referencing, for anyone curious.
"This is not an indictment of NASA in 2019."
That's the exact opposite of what you are portraying.
I don't think they were interpreting the past in terms of modern values. They were acknowledging that it was real. I grew up with it. Being denied a credit card because I was a woman. Being judged for a job based on my looks rather than my qualifications. Asked when I was a single, working adult to provide a co-signer on a rental application. Asked where my husband was while trying to buy a car. All these things happened to me and millions of women over many decades. It's not being "politically correct" to say that the attitudes were wrong. Your article makes it appear that you would just like all this history to be tucked neatly into a box and put on the shelf, because it happens to make you uncomfortable to hear any discussion of it, which you term "political correctness". Yes, I can celebrate the historical moment and Sally Ride. I can also remember how long it took to get there, and all the walls that had to be broken down to do it. One does not subtract from the other.
ReplyDeleteWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSH!
ReplyDeletelol this one is so dumb it doesn't even deserve a response