{"id":13816,"date":"2017-01-22T13:24:52","date_gmt":"2017-01-22T18:24:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/?p=13816"},"modified":"2017-01-22T13:24:52","modified_gmt":"2017-01-22T18:24:52","slug":"keeping-black-women-on-the-nasa-plantation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2017\/01\/22\/keeping-black-women-on-the-nasa-plantation\/","title":{"rendered":"Keeping black women on the NASA plantation"},"content":{"rendered":"

From a Facebook friend regarding Hidden Figures<\/a> (movie) who works for the government and is still mourning Hillary Clinton’s loss:<\/p>\n

It really was an excellent film (and a very insightful interview about the story), and captured much of what I experienced [as a white male?]. It left me very conflicted, however. First, I was awed (and loved) that it so honored the long unsung minority (and female) contributions and that my former employer (NASA) was such an unusual agent of change and inclusion. I very much appreciated the pointed lessons at a time when our country seems to be retreating from these ideals. But at the same time I felt a sense of shame and disgust that so many of the same issues persist to this day, and that too many people who need to receive those messages are either unlikely to even see the film, and even so, are unlikely to recognize the persistent biases that are ongoing even today.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I worked\u00a0on the NASA plantation as a Fortran programmer on the Pioneer Venus<\/a> project for $13,000 per year back in 1978 (that’s $47,854 in today’s mini-dollars). My co-workers included women, Indians, Chinese, white males, etc. Other than receiving a paycheck, all of us were “unsung” for our contributions of software for the PDP 11\/70 and the IBM 360\/95<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I’m not sure why the (white male) author of the above posting thinks he is doing women a favor by encouraging them to become “nameless faceless scientists”<\/a> (see Bill Burr at about 0:50) at one-fifth the salary of a dermatologist (see “Women in Science”<\/a> for a comparison of the career trajectories). Maybe this is actually how white men will keep women and, specifically, women of color, down? Encourage them to become quiet nerds in a cubicle farm instead of going into medicine, politics<\/a>, etc.?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From a Facebook friend regarding Hidden Figures (movie) who works for the government and is still mourning Hillary Clinton’s loss: It really was an excellent film (and a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nKeeping black women on the NASA plantation - Philip Greenspun\u2019s Weblog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2017\/01\/22\/keeping-black-women-on-the-nasa-plantation\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Keeping black women on the NASA plantation - Philip Greenspun\u2019s Weblog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"From a Facebook friend regarding Hidden Figures (movie) who works for the government and is still mourning Hillary Clinton’s loss: It really was an excellent film (and a […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2017\/01\/22\/keeping-black-women-on-the-nasa-plantation\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Philip Greenspun\u2019s Weblog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2017-01-22T18:24:52+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"philg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"philg\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2017\/01\/22\/keeping-black-women-on-the-nasa-plantation\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2017\/01\/22\/keeping-black-women-on-the-nasa-plantation\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"philg\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/448e4e6a0ae9105741a06dcf62cee50e\"},\"headline\":\"Keeping black women on the NASA plantation\",\"datePublished\":\"2017-01-22T18:24:52+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2017\/01\/22\/keeping-black-women-on-the-nasa-plantation\/\"},\"wordCount\":305,\"commentCount\":7,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/448e4e6a0ae9105741a06dcf62cee50e\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2017\/01\/22\/keeping-black-women-on-the-nasa-plantation\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2017\/01\/22\/keeping-black-women-on-the-nasa-plantation\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2017\/01\/22\/keeping-black-women-on-the-nasa-plantation\/\",\"name\":\"Keeping black women on the NASA plantation - Philip Greenspun\u2019s Weblog\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2017-01-22T18:24:52+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2017\/01\/22\/keeping-black-women-on-the-nasa-plantation\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2017\/01\/22\/keeping-black-women-on-the-nasa-plantation\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2017\/01\/22\/keeping-black-women-on-the-nasa-plantation\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Keeping black women on the NASA plantation\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"Philip Greenspun\u2019s Weblog\",\"description\":\"A posting every day; 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