Last week I was visiting someone in the hospital and the conversation ran to all kinds of things. The movie Hidden Figures was recommended as a must see. It was a story, a factual and true story, about women in an age when they were merely asterisks on the stage of life, support systems, behind-the-scenes citizens who had to stand in the shadow of man. When the question, “Why didn’t we know about them?”was asked, I gave my standard answer to her question, “There’s a reason it’s called His story (History).”

No one bought it.

As I’ve mentioned in an earlier post, I concentrated in history and somewhere along the way, was given the explanation that most text books, which were written by men, contained the exploits of men. It seemed to be true. Only in the last few decades have women taken a more visible role and are no longer burned off the pages.

When I got home and relayed the conversation to my husband, he began googling the definition of history but couldn’t come up with more than; the word comes from the Greek historia. Greek=pre-socratic=Athens & Sparta=men. He couldn’t disprove my theory, any better than I could prove mine.

I felt vindicated to some degree a couple of nights later. As we were watching an episode of Jeopardy, one of the categories was titled U.S. HerStory.

I looked over at my husband and just laughed.

I’m glad that women are finally being recognized for their accomplishments, that they are seen as independent and capable. Because we are.

Faith

P.S.

I watched the movie, Hidden Figures just last night. It’s a brilliant portrayal of brilliant women who were able to break through the limitations put on them. If not for their efforts, the space program might have lost quite a few good men before NASA found success.  It took over fifty years for the story to come to light.

Ironically, I started a biography about Sally Ride, the first woman astronaut before I saw the movie.  Another example of an intelligent woman who was also able to cut through the stereotyping of her day.