[randyrand]

Most people that helped nasa with the space race have been forgotten.

to imply that these women should not have been forgotten because of their race and gender seems silly to me. we don't generally remember people because of their race or their gender, we remember people primarily for unique/influential/pivotal actions.

that said the article was still good, and not really all that about the title.

[mrgoldenbrown]

>to imply that these women should not have been forgotten because of their race and gender seems silly to me. we don't generally remember people because of their race or their gender, we remember people primarily for unique/influential/pivotal actions.

That is not what science and history tell us. It may be what folks want to believe, especially folks who like to think they live in a meritocracy. Both history and science show that men get more credit than women, for example. Professors get higher ratings from students, job applicants get more callbacks and higher offers, researchers get more papers accepted by journals, etc. All have been the subject of recent studies showing that, a given resume, paper, or performance will get better outcomes if it's attached to a male name rather than female.

[bootload]

"Most people that helped nasa with the space race have been forgotten. to imply that ^these women^ should not have been forgotten because of their ^race^ and ^gender^ seems silly to me. "

Motherhood statement. Let me guess: male, white, middle class and educated? Women of colour experience a different world to you.

I lived through the late stage of Apollo and the space race and followed it closely as a kid and never read or saw images of scientists, technicians other than the stereo-typical short white sleeve engineer with glasses. This is a book and film I'll be looking out for.

[aikah]

> Let me guess: male, white, middle class and educated?

Now that's bigoted. What should he do, "check his privileges" ?

[nadezhda18]

I wish the history forgets white men once in a while.. .so far, it never happened

[michaelbuddy]

U.S. History is not going to 'forget' white men. If you want non white history, there are plenty of countries books you could read. White men don't even make an appearance in Japanese and Chinese history for the vast majority of their history. If you want female only history. Well good luck on that one.

[throwaway_java]

No.

We emphasise the actions of white men as being more important those of other groups. We write out of history the acts and perspectives and contributions that other groups have made and somehow manage to convince ourselves that we are not biased.

You describe a meritocracy that we aspire to and yet is almost completely detached from reality.

[throwaway_java]

I don't understand the down votes happening here. This is clearly an ingrained facet of Western politics and society.

Why else would minority groups be over represented in prisons and below the poverty line, generally lower educated, generally compensated at a lower level than white male counterparts of the same skill and education level.

Coincidentally because of an inherent superiority of white males? I don't fucking think so.

[michaelbuddy]

>Why else would minority groups be over represented in prisons

I find that interesting. And it's also interesting that certain minorities are overrepresented in prisons outside the United States as well.

> Generally lower educated.

Well the cat is out of the bag that the poor performing minority schools are actually getting more funding per-pupil than majority white schools. So what's the problem, is it because of white males in the U.S. somehow?

> Compensated at a lower level

Do you know how easy it is for an average-skilled black man or woman to get hired in their trade? Do you know that if you're say an electrician's union, you will get placed on vastly more projects than white workers just because of skin color and project demographic scoring? Do you know that once even a private company grows to a certain point they begin getting hounded by the gov't and private groups over their demographics? The structural racism is not only a lie it goes in the opposite direction. Anyone who works in gov't, education or private trades knows this full well.

[throwaway_java]

you seem to be arguing that the necessity for controls to counteract systemic racism are evidence that the racism does not exist. That's a total contradiction.

You're also holding up the trades as the potential high point that black folk can aspire to, which (no disrespect to the trades as they are extremely important) seems more than a little racist itself. Electrician is a great job, but isn't it curious that you didn't mention top level management executive, lawyer, knowledge worker, doctor, engineer...

[hackaflocka]

When certain media outlets in the U.S. (Fox News, Ann Coulter, Clint Eastwood, etc.) represent people behind "heroic" feats in the past (space race, WWII battles, capture of Saddam Hussein, Yeshua the Christ, Egyptians in the Old Testament), 100% of the people doing the heroism are represented as white (as in Scandinavian white). This context and history explains why there is an effort to correct the imbalance of representation. It is indeed needed and necessary to correct the imbalance. IMHO.