A Small Step, and A Giant Leap to Better Support Women in Spaceflight Writing
In my last piece written for this publication, I discussed toxic fandom and gatekeeping — and how women spaceflight and tech writers found themselves dressed down on a regular basis by a certain subset of male SpaceX fans in attempts to inspire fear and intimidation. Those aren’t the only issues we’re dealing with on a frequent basis. Our writing and work seem to be shared less by male colleagues, allowing us less desired exposure to audiences. More worryingly, I feel that sometimes our presence in this community is viewed less as communicator, and more as “promoter” — meaning we’re encouraged to share men’s work, and expose them to our contacts and digital Rolodexes without any benefit or reciprocal behavior.
These factors might be caused by a reason I discussed in my last piece: the fact that many women tech writers started at a different point in the “race,” and are historically behind. Readers may assume we’re coming from a different level of authority, or a place of no authority at all. In addition, at present time, women still have less access to higher level jobs in many industries, making it difficult for us to be viewed through the same lenses as our male counterparts.
A CNBC article from 2020 stated, “[F]or every 100 men promoted and hired to a manager position, only 72 women are promoted and hired for the same role, reported Lean In and McKinsey & Company in a 2019 ‘Women in the Workplace’ study.” Numbers are even more discouraging for black and Latina populations: “For women of color, this figure is even lower, with just 68 Latina women and 58 black women being promoted to manager for every 100 entry-level men who are promoted to the same job.” These figures loom large over our heads, despite us viewing ourselves as “very ambitious.” They underscore why women at the peak of their careers often are viewed differently than similarly qualified male counterparts.
Moreover, some view the very idea of a woman writer — especially a younger, attractive one — as a novelty. A 2019 article in The Atlantic discussed how critic Martin Ebel characterized the buzz surrounding critically acclaimed fiction author Sally Rooney as being merely hype “helped by ‘promising’ photographs where she ‘looks like a startled deer with sensuous lips.’” Ebel reduced the career of a young, talented novelist to a single, slime-covered sentence concerning her appearance. Indeed, at one point in my own career, a male detractor also pointed to my popularity as a product of “hype.”
The Atlantic article continued, “Ebel’s piece points to a larger problem in the media: an asymmetric value system where men do, and women are. Elif Shafak, the author of 10 novels including 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World, told me that she was once interviewed by an American writer in Istanbul. They had a wide-ranging conversation about literature, history, and politics, ‘and then when his travel book was published, I saw in horror that he had mostly written about what he thought I looked like.’ In Shafak’s telling, ‘a male novelist is primarily a novelist. Nobody talks about his gender. But a woman novelist is primarily a woman.’” Women’s writing — no matter what it might cover — is often viewed as “women’s work,” and therefore is not seen as competitive with male colleagues’ projects.
How can we better amplify the voices of women in the spaceflight and tech communities? One simple way is just by sharing our work without reservations — either with other colleagues, or on social media. Too often, women’s projects and/or writing are seen as “women’s work” as stated above, and having our work not shared, diminished, or relegated to a less visible place makes us feel as if our work has less value. We shouldn’t have to beg anyone to share our work — it’s as easy as admiring it, and sharing it with others.
While progress has been made in how women’s work has been received and reviewed throughout the last decade, we’ve still got some ways to go. Please — feel free to share what I write, and please consider me in the same way you’d consider any other colleague. No better gift could ring in 2021.
