One of the strongest arguments made in support of same-sex education relates to the benefits for girls. During the middle school years, pre-teens become more attuned to where they fit in the social order. For many girls, this means that being perceived to be “smart,” particularly in math and science, is not an asset. As such, they begin to “dumb down” in math and science to become more desirable to the male sex. It is no wonder, then, that I was thrilled that Hidden Figures […]
Hey I found this great new book no one has ever heard of!
So I liked this book a lot. Just getting that out of the way. Also, I haven’t seen the movie. Just getting THAT out of the way. So what could I possibly add to the conversation about this book and subsequently some sense of the movie? Probably not much. But here’s what I was thinking as I read it. This book is mostly not narrative. I mean this in the sense that there’s a lot of information about the lives of the women and men […]
Hidden Heroes of History
When it comes to nonfiction I prefer history and I prefer female centered stories most of the time (hence why my husband calls me a feminazi, he doesn’t actually know he’s a feminist even though I regularly explain that yes he is). So a book about awesome women in history related to the field I work in? Sign me up! Hidden Figures covers the work done by black female “computers” during the 1940’s – 1960’s at Langley first with the NACA and then NASA. Ms. […]
“Every time we get a chance to get ahead, they move the finish line.”
I’m not a huge movie person honestly, but I am a huge Taraji P. Henson person so of course I went and saw Hidden Figures in theatres and freaking loved it. This is not a movie review site, so I won’t go into too much detail except to say that it was magical finding out about the histories of these smart-as-fuck women and it was a very entertaining way to spend a couple of hours. I really recommend seeing the movie and then reading the […]
Run, Read This, And Go Tell That
Wow. Just wow. I saw this movie two weeks ago and was blown away by it. Reading the book just gave me even more details about the African American women who came out as human computers (I had no idea that was where the word computers came from, they computed so were seen as computers) and helped shaped the United States space program. Shetterly has historian disease (yeah I use to suffer from this as well, historians unite!) so the flow was off a few […]
Until the movie comes out, whet your appetite with the book!
I saw a movie trailer for Hidden Figures a few months ago and FREAKED OUT. I believe that African-American representation and history is important to the American story. BUT, when those stories are so often reduced to two experiences—slavery and Civil Rights—we get an incomplete story. We need art that’s more inclusive and less reductive. I very much hope that Hidden Figures as a film can be that art. But in the meantime, I discovered there was a book and devoured it in a few […]