I am not sure that before this podcast I ever noticed that \u201ceveryday\u201d women do not show up in history. It makes total sense how it took a certain privilege throughout history to be able to \u201cmisbehave\u201d. This allows us to, oftentimes, only recognize the women throughout history who were in the upper class and able to achieve upward mobility in spite of their risk on the societal standpoint that came along with going against the status quo. At the same time, women of color who often did misbehave are still erased from history from the sheer fact of them not being acknowledged, so there were prerequisites to having the ability to gain general traction in the event that some marginalized \u201cGreat WOmen\u201d did \u201cmisbehave\u201d.<\/p>\n
I love the point they made about describing ladies of science as beautiful. This is what draws away from their contributions and plays into gender roles and expectations. It is bothersome that women are not acknowledged enough for our contributions throughout history as a whole. Women often do immense amounts of work to either support men or have men take credit for their achievements very often and this is so sad.<\/p>\n
What is even sadder and eye-opening is how easy it is for women to fall into the great man theory as well. It was crazy to hear the story from the special guest about how she and her students could only find one example of a woman in science to write about from their science literature at their entire university. It is sad to say that there are a lot of examples of how history is often only told from one perspective. There are so many great people that get lost along the way.<\/p>\n
This reminds me of the idea of implicit bias. Everyone is primed so often to believe that men belong in the positions that society deems to be powerful. Everyone is then also primed to believe that women are not only supposed to support these men in doing so but to also get used to not getting credit for their actual contributions. Men built the system this way, and women live in it and perpetuate it. I am grateful, as a STEM woman of color, for this podcast highlighting this for its listeners and for myself.<\/p>\n
It is sad that I have to actively seek information on people whom I know existed, that fought odds and made waves and also looked like me. It is because society does not value them enough to teach anybody, even little girls who also like me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I am not sure that before this podcast I ever noticed that \u201ceveryday\u201d women do not show up in history. It makes total sense how…<\/p>\n