We have it tougher. It’s no surprise. Take a walk around your campus and tell me how many girls are majoring in Education or Nursing. Lots. Almost all students in those degrees are females. But if we take a walk around the Chemistry, Biology or Engineering buildings, we’ll see mostly men.
For centuries, we assumed that females shouldn’t work outside the household. When we finally started getting into college, we assumed our degrees and future jobs should be related to taking care of others, as if this was “our nature.” It isn’t.
For centuries, yet again, it was believed female brains were more artistic and letter related while males had a “Science brain.” They don’t. We don’t.
Truth is, we all are the same. Our brains are the same. Our dreams and aspirations should be the same. But why is the Science field still a male dominated field?
The answer is easy. We, as women, assume we can’t be engineers or scientists just because we don’t see any female engineers or scientists. We can all name a famous scientist. Newton. Einstein. Darwin.
But… Can we name a female scientist? Tougher. So much tougher.
We weren’t famous scientists in the past simply because they wouldn’t allow us to get into school and prepare for that. While men read, learnt and investigated, we stayed at home, with our children, with what were our “duties”.
That’s why it is so important that we learn about the women that did and do work on the science field and were and are successful.
We need to talk about Marie Curie and how she was the first person to ever receive two Nobel awards in two different fields (Chemistry and Physics). We need to learn how important her studies on radioactivity are.
We need to know about Rosalind Franklin and how her experiments led to the discovery of the DNA structure: the double helix. If today we are able to investigate with DNA and find cure to the most difficult diseases is because of her.
We need to study in school that Hedy Lamarr wasn’t just an actress. She co-invented the radio guidance system that originated WiFi. You’re reading this thanks to her. And her name isn’t even familiar to you.
We need more films like “Hidden Figures”. We need to learn that three African-American women defeated every single sex and race barrier, became mathematicians and helped the US in the early years of the Cold War, when they were silently fighting Russia to be the first country to put a man in space. These “human computers” were able to calculate the trip into orbit John Glenn had to do and make sure he came back safe.
It’s not a coincidence that we didn’t know their story until the movie just recently came out.
There’s not an interest behind showing that women are capable of doing amazing things, just as amazing as man.
It is important, it is our duty, to teach our little girls the example of this former pioneers. It is important we make sure our girls know Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson and Katherine Johnson’s names by memory. It is important they know them, just like they know Einstein and Newton. Because we can be heroes too. We are. And we want our little girls to know this. And become heroes too.
