The Misogyny Is Coming From Inside The House
A recent spaceflight milestone, unfortunately, highlighted how far we are from gender parity in the field.
It should’ve been a joyous occasion: Emily Calandrelli, known as The Space Gal on social media, recently became the 100th woman in space during a recent Blue Origin New Shepard mission. However, as we’ve seen far too much during this last decade, Internet trolls were more than ready to dump all over an accomplished woman’s milestone: Blue Origin was forced to remove the video of Calandrelli’s spaceflight experience on all of its social media platforms due to distressingly sexualized comments by predominantly men. You would think that these comments would be kept to a minimum on a spaceflight-oriented page, but in 2024, this behavior is more the “new norm” than the exception, more than 40 years after the first U.S. woman entered space and more than 60 years after the first woman orbited the Earth.
We’ve seen how women are belittled and bullied for their enthusiasm and accomplishments in many fields, from space to exploration in general to rock music. We’ve seen how women’s achievements are reduced to shallow soap opera-esque tropes, pitting women against women as well. More disturbingly, we’ve noted an alarming amount of internalized misogyny — indeed, the misogyny is coming from inside the house, like a horror movie — directed by women to women in the space community, internalized misogyny that can even manifest itself in pathetic attempts to derail other women’s successes.
Some of the more offensive comments — from both men and women — stemmed from Calandrelli’s decidedly glamorous appearance. But we all know that if the pendulum had swung the other way and she hadn’t fulfilled traditionally gendered beauty norms, she would also have received hostile comments on social media. It seems none of us can do anything right by anyone’s standards; to quote the now-famous monologue by America Ferrera in last year’s Barbie movie, “It is literally impossible to be a woman…Like, we have to always be extraordinary, but somehow we’re always doing it wrong… Not only are you doing everything wrong, but also everything is your fault.” So what do we do?
I’m not entirely sure what to blame this issue on. The U.S. political situation is certainly no help, but this has been happening for quite some time — years, decades, even. The Calandrelli incident surely shares DNA with NBC’s Tom Brokaw referring to astronaut Judy Resnik as “too cute to be an astronaut” in a 1981 television interview and Sally Ride being asked if she’d “cry” in space during a pre-flight press conference in 1983. Within the last decade, cosmonaut Elena Serova was asked how she’d upkeep her looks in space at a press conference, showing the other side of the pond isn’t much more civilized than we are. As for women-on-women sexism, entire careers have been dedicated to studying the phenomenon of how oppressed people sometimes cope by aiding and abetting their oppressors, at best a terrifying version of the trend gripping Threads right now: “Women in Male Fields.”
Here’s how you all should’ve reacted to Calandrelli’s spaceflight — and indeed any accomplishment made by a woman in the field, whether it’s completing a certification or, say, publishing a book:
· If you can’t be happy about someone’s achievement, you don’t have to have a hot take about it on social media. Mind your business.
· Bear in mind it’s this person’s time — regardless of their gender, even — to enjoy their moment and revel in their achievement. Their accomplishment doesn’t mean you won’t reach your career goals. Neither does it subtract from your own unique achievements.
· You have no idea what the person with the accomplishment endured before they did “the big thing” they achieved. They probably had a lot of losing seasons and missed goals before they won their version of the Stanley Cup. And they probably worked pretty hard to get where they got.
· You and you alone are responsible for your feelings, words, actions, and behavior. None of those things have anything to do with the person you’re attacking.
· Accountability can feel like an attack when one is not ready to acknowledge how one’s behavior harms others. Read that again.
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