Telling Women's Lives

Neicy Myers-Reader Response

In this week’s readings, particularly in “C. Megan Urry, Peering Into Universe, Spots Bias on the Ground” is this revolving idea of women’s positon of inferiority to men’s superiority, especially in high levels of academe advancement. The article’s opening of “women should not have to be clones of male astronomers in order to participate in mainstream astronomical research” helps to create a reflection of the gender gap of inequality. While women are continuously performing at the same levels, utilizing the same capabilities at a capacity equivalent to those of their male counterparts, the “cloning” of their work isn’t equivalent to their counterpart’s gender. The article also highlights consistent records of sexual harassment in the workplace, “the men came and used the event to network, and the women came and sometimes found themselves worried about people propositioning them.” I thought this was an important piece of the article because of the importance of this issue within all of the spaces women occupy. From college campuses, to the workplace both white and blue collar, women are subjected to the inferiority of men in their classrooms, in their conference rooms and beyond. Sexual harassment is a reflection of the privilege and power men share as a result of perpetuated expectations divided by gender. (“There’s generally no path forward in academe for the woman who has a powerful antagonist angry at her”.) I also found it interesting that Urry’s consistent confidence throughout her young adult life begin to steadily decline once entering spaces of advancement that often lacked other women. (“I thought I’d be able to do anything with my life. I chose physics because it was clean and elegant I didn’t go through that thing that happens to teenage girls where they fall off the cliff of self-confidence and get discouraged about science. The discouraging things happened later”.) For Urry to really see the inflation of sexism and discrimination as she entered graduate school and beyond at the Space Telescope Science Institute, shows that women and girls are systemically and adamantly taught in all stages of their lives that gender equality isn’t a thing to be obtained by them.