I think it is interesting how they talk about history needing to be defined more specifically when looking at the involvement of women. But the question about how to decide what that definition means is a fair point because it’s subjective and whoever is asked could have a varying view on what history is and how it should be accounted for than the previous person asked. The Great Man Theory is of course based off of men because they were the ones who were allowed to thrive in that society and so that is why we have to make assumptions on the build up of history, not saying that it is right.
I think another important aspect that they brought up was that it wasn’t that women just did not participate in science or any kind of daily life that was not family oriented, they merely had to improvise by taking a man’s name or dressing as such so that they could contribute to the developing world. I don’t think that this was right, but in some ways, it was a good thing to have happened because now we see the importance of involving women and trying to recover from those times in history, no matter the definition, that women were always less represented in. In school and growing up, I just remember hearing how being a woman in STEM is important and rare and that if I like science, I should definitely be proud of that and I like that that is the message being sent to kids these days. Of course, the ideal would have been that women were always represented equally but in reality, being able to recognize the importance now is a vital step in our society today.
I agree with you when you say that when Iwe were younger we always were told that women in STEM were limited. I was always sacred due to that comment to want to become a doctor because I felt like guys would try to put me down. But now as I am in college, I can see this shifting, more females are in my STEM classes and this is encouraging.
I agree that it is really positive that young women are being encouraged to join STEM. But there is still a large disparity in the gender breakdown of STEM classes. In my high school, English classes were predominately female and high level math and science courses were predominately male. We are certainly encouraging a change in this disparity, but it seems that society still isn’t reflecting that.
I agree that the push to have more women in STEM is occurring but there has to be a bigger consensus to make it happen. I think that the movie “Hidden Figures” is a great example of how society is trying to allow women to be more recognized for their accomplishments, but there definitely needs to be greater strides in this direction.
The fact that women had to dress up as men to learn, work, and fight has always been a crazy idea to me as well. When I watched Milan as a kid, I always was amazed that they wouldn’t let her fight.and it is even more disturbing how women were so limited in many fields then and still to this day. The fact that many had to dress up as men, showed just how backwards our principles were as a society.