stonedkitty:

did-you-kno:

On her childhood:

“I counted everything. I counted the steps to the road, the steps up to church, the number of dishes and silverware I washed … anything that could be counted, I did.”

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On her NASA calculations:

“Early on, when they said they wanted the capsule to come down at a certain place, they were trying to compute when it should start. I said, ‘Let me do it. You tell me when you want it and where you want it to land, and I’ll do it backwards and tell you when to take off.’ That was my forte.”

Katherine really stood out in her field because she was the only woman who asked questions.

“The women did what they were told to do,” she explained. “They didn’t ask questions or take the task any further. I asked questions; I wanted to know why.“

In 2011, when asked if she still counts things:

 “Oh, yes. And things have to be parallel. I see a picture right now that’s not parallel, so I’m going to go straighten it. Things must be in order.”

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Source

AND SHES BLACK

No, sexism in science doesn’t mean advisers take their students aside and say “don’t worry, you’ll pass your thesis defense, because I’ve noticed we both have a penis.” It doesn’t mean tenure committee meetings include the action item “DID YOU NOTICE SHE’S A WOMAN? INAPPROPRIATE? DISCUSS.” It doesn’t mean lab doors have signs saying “no open-toed shoes and no chicks.”

Here’s what male scientists and historically male-led departments do instead: Offer little or no maternity leave for graduate students. Evaluate women employees on their personalities rather than their competence. Make jokes that cause women colleagues to feel left out and belittled. Go on national television in a shirt that shows women as decorative, sexualized semi-nudes. Hire people who just seem to fit in with the culture that thinks all of this is okay.

!! your tags via the zayn thing make me happy. because you’re exactly right. the original question is sort of phrased like “ha ha, teenage girls, amiright, so silly for being upset.” but the response seems less… on that level of condescension, and more of a wink and nod to the fanbase, you know? and that’s a super duper important thing, because teenage girls are a big contender for the title of “most written off subset of the population”

eponymous-rose:

I helped run a coding workshop for sixth-grade girls a few years back, and that was actually the first time I ever heard of One Direction–we had the girls building CSS-based websites, and they were all incredibly shy about personalizing them in any way. I’d never seen so many generic “animals are kind of neat aren’t they” fansites. Eventually, though, one of the other volunteers started chatting with a couple girls about One Direction, and the excitement sort of spread across the room, and we wound up teaching them about embedding video so they could put their favorite songs in. They went from being pretty apathetic to actually wanting to learn extra stuff because we were able to tie it in to something they cared about.

There’ve been a whole lot of studies showing that a lot of young women can trace their dislike of science/math/etc. to around sixth or seventh grade–it’s a really critical time, when self-esteem issues and peer pressure just start barreling in out of nowhere in a huge way, and suddenly the kid who was perfectly content to play with her little toy telescope wants it packed away before her friends see it. There’s phenomenal social pressure to conform, and all it takes is one bad experience to turn someone off those fields for life.

We’re depriving ourselves of some seriously great scientists and mathematicians and leaders in the field by dismissing teenage girls outright. That dismissal hurts, and that hurt lingers. Nobody wants to break down a door when even adults–perfect strangers–make them feel like they won’t be welcome on the other side. I’m thinking of that scientist dude who did the press conference after a big astronomical event; he was wearing a shirt with a bunch of scantily clad, highly sexualized women on it. It’s like, what teenage girl wants to go into a field where the big names don’t even think twice before wearing something like that on national TV? 

So it’s a big deal to see someone this recognizable in science saying something nice about teenage girls. Saying something nice to teenage girls. It’s the equivalent of sitting down on the Bus of Science and saying, “Hey, I saved you a seat if you want it.” It’s nice to see.