The whole point of the book being to shed light on deserving women forgotten by history, Hidden Figures does too good a job and ends up reading like the prologue to several more in-depth biographies. I am glad I read their stories, but man is the intersection of misogyny and racism hard to take, even while Shetterly does an admirable job of framing it as yet another obstacle each of the formidable women overcomes instead of an insurmountable barrier. She does this while illustrating that […]
Hidden Heroes of History
When it comes to nonfiction I prefer history and I prefer female centered stories most of the time (hence why my husband calls me a feminazi, he doesn’t actually know he’s a feminist even though I regularly explain that yes he is). So a book about awesome women in history related to the field I work in? Sign me up! Hidden Figures covers the work done by black female “computers” during the 1940’s – 1960’s at Langley first with the NACA and then NASA. Ms. […]
Space and Race
Like most people who watched NBC’s (abysmal) coverage of the Olympics this summer I saw the preview for Hidden Figures starring Taraji P Henson and Octavia Spencer. Just as I was about to exclaim “How interesting” my husband muttered “ugh, Oscar bait” which means I’ll have to bring it home from Redbox a few months after it leaves theaters. Luckily for me, like most movies nowadays, there was a book used as source material. Margot Lee Shetterly’s Hidden Figures tells the story of the African American women […]