Reading Corner: 6-Year-Old Girls Already Have Gendered Beliefs About Intelligence

Let's change the narrative! Thanks to theSkimm for putting this into their daily newsletter despite everything else going on in the world, and thanks to ideas like the book Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls for doing their part.

Sometimes I wonder what made me defy the stereotype, and clearly I have to thank my parents and teachers who always ensured me that I was smart, so there was no room for doubt. My early report cards always say how I was a pleasure to teach, and my parents fought to get me IQ tests and placed into the gifted program at an early age.

(This is on my wish list. Put it on yours too! https://www.rebelgirls.co)

Check out the article below! (I hope to start finding more of these articles and writing a response to them, but not sure I can add to this today!)

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/01/six-year-old-girls-already-have-gendered-beliefs-about-intelligence/514340/

Woman Crush Wednesday: Mae Jemison

On November 17, I had the chance to see astronaut Mae Jemison give a speech at my alma mater, Lafayette College. Once she walked into the room I had this weird moment where I realized wow, this person who is in this room with me right now, has physically left this planet that we fight about so much. Really puts everything into perspective! I had a friend tell me that this phenomenon is called the "Overview effect": "It refers to the experience of seeing firsthand the reality of the Earth in space, which is immediately understood to be a tiny, fragile ball of life, 'hanging in the void', shielded and nourished by a paper-thin atmosphere. From space, national boundaries vanish, the conflicts that divide people become less important, and the need to create a planetary society with the united will to protect this 'pale blue dot' becomes both obvious and imperative." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overview_effect)

I'd like to give a brief summary of Mae Jemison's life and also reflect on the speech she gave, which primarily focused on her current endeavor, 100 Year Starship (https://100yss.org/).

Mae Carol Jemison was born October 17, 1956 in Alabama, but grew up in the southside of Chicago. As a young girl, she always assumed she would get into space. Her parents were supportive of her interests, but when learning that she wanted to be a scientist, her kindergarten teacher said "Don't you mean a nurse?" But no, she wanted to become a scientist and a scientist she became.

Jemison entered Stanford University at the age of 16, and graduated in 1977 with a B.S. in Chemical Engineering and the requirements for a B.A. in African and Afro-American Studies. She had issues being a black woman majoring in engineering, with some professors just ignoring her completely, but credits her "I'm going to do this and I don't give a damn" attitude.

She obtained her Doctorate Degree in Medicine from Cornell in 1981 and worked as a general practitioner in Los Angeles. Then, in 1983, she joined the Peace Corps and served as the Medical Officer until 1985, serving in Liberia and Sierra Leone.

After Sally Ride's flight in 1983, Jemison decided to apply to NASA. She was also inspired by African-American actress Nichelle Nichols who portrayed Lieutenant Uhura on Star Trek. In 1987, she was selected as one of fifteen candidates out of 2,000 applicants. Prior to her shuttle launch, she worked on launch support activities and verified the Shuttle computer software.

From September 12 to 20, 1992, Jemison flew her only space mission on Endeavour as a Mission Specialist on the 50th shuttle mission. She was the co-investigator on a bone cell research experiment and conducted experiments on weightlessness and motion sickness. With this flight, she became the first African-American woman in space.

She resigned from NASA in 1993 to pursue her interest in how social sciences interact with technologies.She has been a professor at both Dartmouth College and Cornell University. In 1993, she founded the Jemison Group that researches, markets, and develops science and technology for daily life. In 1999, she founded BioSentient Corp to develop a portable device to allow mobile monitoring of the involuntary nervous system. And then, in 2012, she became the principal for the 100 Year Starship organization.

One last thing before I discuss her lecture: in 1993 she became the first real astronaut to ever appear on Star Trek, as Lieutenant Palmer on Star Trek: The Next Generation.


The main thing Mae talked about was how we need to get people from more varied backgrounds into the sciences, because perspective really matters. For instance, she remembers hearing doctors say "you can't just go cutting stuff off" when they discussed treatment for testicular cancer, yet the most common treatment for breast cancer at the time was a mastectomy. So we need lots of different people at the table to interpret the data differently.

This is reflected in her team at the 100 Year Starship project, which has the goal of making the capability of human travel beyond our solar system a reality within the next 100 years. There is a need to not only have people from different races, genders, and places across the globe, but also to have people from various different disciplines working on these ideas. For instance, someone who is going to figure out the key to getting enough energy to go interstellar (whether fission, fusion, or antimatter) may not be the best person to determine what clothes the voyagers should be wearing or what food they can grow on their trip that will last years and years if it ever ends at all. And currently some of the better people to work on data compression issues are those who work in the video game industry. So it won't just be scientists and astronauts who will figure this out, but everyone who has something to bring to the table.

Another interesting point was that the technology needed to go interstellar will greatly benefit our own world. Figuring out how the astronauts can be self-sufficient will help humanity stay self-sufficient. This has already happened; a lot of the technology we use today was originally developed for space travel. So we should be putting money and effort into both developing the technology for space travel, and just learning about space, as this will only benefit life on earth.

Mae said that one thing we need to come to terms with is that we are all Earthlings, first and foremost. And we are already all in space. So a lot can be learned about our own planet and sun and solar system by studying other planets and suns and solar systems. Perhaps we can learn more about where we came from, and, more importantly in my opinion, where we are going. At the end of the day, MOST of us are going to be staying on this planet for the rest of our lives. So we need to be better about working together so that we can do something bigger as a whole.

Finally, one last quote from Mae's talk that made me laugh: "[Going interstellar] is not impossible in terms of the physics... but the engineering is rough."

References:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mae_Jemison
https://100yss.org/mission/team
http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/jemison-mc.html
http://www.biography.com/people/mae-c-jemison-9542378
http://www.makers.com/mae-jemison

Woman Crush Wednesday: Hillary Rodham Clinton

Today I would like to pay a final tribute to a woman that I think I know a lot about, but probably know nothing about at all. This biography will be strictly the life story and accomplishments of a trailblazing lady. Are there a plethora of scandals that we can delve into? Sure. But the election is over; she's not going to be our first Madame President. For my purposes here, there's no point in rehashing all the conspiracies.

I just want to learn about a woman who, over this past year or so, has inspired me to get involved more so that I have before, to find the causes I deeply care about and fight for them, and perhaps to eventually start my own political journey

SO without further ado, may I present Mrs. Hillary Rodham Clinton:

Hillary Rodham was born in Chicago, Illinois on October 26, 1947. Her father, Hugh, managed a small business where he designed, printed, and sold draperies. He was a World War II Navy veteran and a lifelong Republican. Her mother, Dorothy, was a homemaker. Hillary also has two younger brothers, Hugh and Tony. Hugh is a lawyer and Tony a businessman. The family lived in Park Ridge, Illinois as a middle-class family, and were part of the the Methodist church.

During her school years, Hillary was a Brownie and a Girl Scout. She attended a public high school and was part of the student council, school newspaper, and the National Honor Society. In her junior year, she was the class vice president, but she lost the election for class president her senior year. As a senior, she graduated in the top five percent of her class and was voted "most likely to succeed."

Hillary was raised in a politically conservative household, which led to her volunteering for Republican candidate Barry Goldwater in the 1964 presidential election. In 1965, she enrolled in Wellesley College as a political science major, and served as the president of the Young Republicans club as a freshman. However, as the American Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War became forefront, Hillary, who described herself as "a mind conservative and a heart liberal", started to shift her political views to the left. She became president of the Wellesley College Government Association, and worked with Wellesley's black students to recruit more black students and faculty following the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. Some of her fellow students believed that she might one day become the first female President of the United States.

When she graduated from Wellesley in 1969, she became the first student commencement speaker in the history of the college. Her speech received a seven minute long standing ovation, and she was featured in Life magazine.

After college, Hillary attended Yale Law School, where she met and began dating fellow student Bill Clinton. She interned at the law firm of Treuhaft, Walker and Brunstein who supported constitutional rights and civil liberties causes, with Bill cancelling his summer plans to live with her during her internship. The following summer, Hillary and Bill campaigned in Texas for George McGovern's presidency. After receiving her Juris Doctor degree in 1973, Bill first proposed marriage, but Hillary declined.

Post graduation, Hillary served as staff attorney for the Children's Defense Fund. She was also a member of the impeachment inquiry staff in Washington, D.C. She was viewed in Washington as someone with a bright political future, especially by Democratic political organizer and consultant Betsey Wright who thought she had the potential to become President. But then she failed the District of Columbia bar exam while passing the Arkansas exam, so she "chose to follow [her] heart instead of [her] head" and followed Bill Clinton to Arkansas, becoming one of only two female faculty members in the School of Law at the University of Arkansas.

At the university, Hillary gave classes in criminal law and became the first director of a legal aid clinic at the school. Meanwhile, Bill kept proposing marriage but she was concerned that her separate identity would be lost and her accomplishments viewed in the light of someone else's. Hillary finally agreed to marry Bill in 1975, but she kept her maiden name, Hillary Rodham, to keep their professional lives separate.

In 1976, Bill was elected Arkansas Attorney General and the couple moved to Little Rock. Here she joined the Rose Law Firm, specializing in patent infringement and intellectual property law, while also working pro bono in child advocacy. In 1978, Bill became Governor and Hillary became First Lady of Arkansas. She also became the first woman to be made a full partner of Rose Law Firm this year. Then on February 27, 1980, Hillary and Bill became parents to Chelsea.

While campaigning for Bill's re-election in 1982, Hillary began calling herself Hillary Clinton or Mrs. Bill Clinton due to the concerns of Arkansas voters, and took a leave of absence from Rose Law to campaign for him full-time. As First Lady of Arkansas, she was named chair of the Arkansas Education Standards Committee and successfully established mandatory state standards for curriculum. She then introduced Arkansas's Home Instruction Program for Preschool Youth to help parents prepare their children for preschool.

During this time, she was the first chair of the American Bar Association's Commission on Women in the Profession to address gender bias, she was twice named one of the 100 most influential lawyers in America, she served on the boards of the Arkansas Children' Hospital Legal Services and the Children's Defense Fund, and held positions on the corporate board of directory of TCBY, Lafarge, and Wal-Mart. She was the first female member on Wal-Mart's board and pushed successfully for Wal-Mart to adopt more environmentally friendly practices.

Then, in 1992, despite the beginning of the controversies surrounding Bill's affairs, and Hillary's comments on pursuing a career and not staying home baking cookies, William Clinton became the 42nd President of the United States, with Hillary as First Lady.

She was the first First Lady to have earned a postgraduate degree and have her own professional career. Critics found it inappropriate for the first lady to play such a central role in matters of public policy, but supporters pointed out that voters were aware that she would play an active role. Bill Clinton even gave a campaign promise of "two for the price of one".

In 1997, Hillary along with Senators Ted Kennedy and Orrin Hatch, passed the State Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) which provided state support for children whose parents could not provide them with health coverage. Along with Attorney General Janet Reno, Hillary helped create the Office on Violence Against Women at the Deportment of Justice. She also initiated the Adoption and Safe Families Act, the Foster Care Independence Act, and hosted White House conferences on Child Care, Early Childhood Development, Children and Adolescents, Teenagers, and Philanthropy.

As First Lady, Hillary traveled to 79 countries, including her famous trip to the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing where she declared "it is no longer acceptable to discuss women's rights as separate from human rights," despite pressure from the administration to soften her remarks. This speech became a key moment in the empowerment of women around the world. She later spoke out against the treatment of Afghan women by the Taliban and helped to create Vital Voices, and organization to promote the participation of women in the political processes of their countries.

In 2000, at the urging of several prominent Democratic figures, Hillary ran and became the Democratic candidate for the New York Senate seat. After visiting all 62 counties in New York on a listening tour, she easily defeated opponent Rick Lazio and was sworn in as U.S. Senator on January 3, 2001 WHILE STILL SERVING AS FIRST LADY (albeit for only a few weeks longer).

As a Senator, she built relationships with senators from both parties and served on five Senate committees. Following the September 11 terrorist attacks, she fought to obtain funding for the recovery efforts and security improvements, and later took a leading role in investigating the health issues faced by the first responders.

In 2008, Hillary finally ran for President of the United States, but Senator Barack Obama, despite a close race, ended up with enough delegates to become the presumptive nominee of the Democratic party. Hillary stayed in the race until this point because, according to one advisor, "She could accept losing. She could not accept quitting." Hillary conceded on June 7, 2008 and gave a speech supporting Obama at the Democratic National Convention.

After Obama won the presidency, he appointed Hillary as U.S. Secretary of State, making her first former First Lady to serve in the United States Cabinet. As U.S. Secretary of State, Hillary visited 112 countries making her the most widely traveled secretary of state. She brokered a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas that averted a war, and made advancing the status of women and girls around the world a core part of U.S. foreign policy. In a speech before the United Nations Human Rights Council, she recalled her prior speech and declared that "gay rights are human rights", and that the U.S. would advocate for gay rights and legal protection of the LGBT community abroad.

Finally, in 2015, Hillary ran for President again, becoming the first women to be nominated for President by a major U.S. political party as the Democratic nominee. I think we all know how that went.

In 2014, Hillary became grandmother to Chelsea's daughter Charlotte. And, in 2016, she became a grandmother again to Chelsea's son Aidan.

It's unknown what is next for Hillary Rodham Clinton, but if she decides to retire from public life and enjoy her grandchildren, I hope she does so knowing that she has accomplished so much more than most!

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillary_Clinton
https://www.hillaryclinton.com/about/hillary/
http://www.biography.com/people/hillary-clinton-9251306#related-video-gallery
http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/10/opinions/hillary-clinton-biography-carl-bernstein/

Throwback Thursday: Sally Ride

I don't recall why or where I read it this week, but I once again heard the statement (unsure if proven fact) that, before her one week long space mission, NASA engineers asked Sally Ride if 100 tampons were the right number. So now I got Sally Ride on my mind and decided to learn more about her for this week's Throwback Thursday!

Also of note, when verifying the above I found the following link and I really enjoyed the quote from Ann Friedman while talking about Sally Ride: "to be first is to relinquish the complicated specifics of your story and become a caricature, a stand-in for the ideals of a movement or for the hope and pain of a moment in history." I'm sure many of my Throwback Thursday ladies could relate to that statement!

Sally Ride was born May 26, 1951 in Los Angeles, California. She was fascinated by science, and credited her parents for encouraging her interests. She attended the private Westlake School for Girls in Los Angeles and was a nationally ranked tennis player. After high school, Ride attended Swarthmore College for three semesters, then took physics courses as UCLA, and finally entered Standford University as a junior. While at Stanford, she earned a Bachelor's Degree in English, and a Bachelor's, Master's and Ph.D in Physics.

In 1977, while Sally was earning her Ph.D at Stanford, NASA began looking for women astronauts. She saw an ad in the school newspaper inviting scientists and engineers, including women, to apply to the astronaut program and decided to apply... along with 8,000 other people. 35 new astronauts were chosen, including Ride and 5 other women. In 1979, Ride became eligible for assignment as an astronaut on a space shuttle flight crew after a yearlong training and evaluation period. And then on June 18, 1983, Ride became the first American woman in space aboard the shuttle Challenger. (Preceded only by two Soviet women, the first all the way back in 1963!)

Aboard the Challenger, Ride's job was to work the robotic arm, which she used to help put satellites into space. Prior to the mission, Ride was asked questions such as "Do you weep when things go wrong on the job" at a press conference, yet she insisted that, despite the historical significance of her presence on the mission, she only saw herself as a fellow astronaut.

Her second space flight, also on board the Challenger, was in 1984. Ride had completed eight months of training for her third flight when the space shuttle Challenger disaster occurred, halting the mission. Ride served on the Presidential Commission to investigate the tragedy and, according to General Donald Kutyna after Ride's death, provided Kutyna with key information about O-rings which led to the identification of the cause of the explosion. Ride retired from NASA in 1987 with 343 hours in space.

After NASA, Ride first worked at Standford University Center for International Security and Arms Control, and then became a professor of physics at the University of California, San Diego, and director of the California Space Institute. Ride was a long time advocate for improved science education, and co-wrote seven science books for children. She also led two public-outreach programs for NASA, the ISS EarthKAM and GRAIL MoonKAM projects, which allowed middle school students to request images of the Earth and moon.

In 2001, she co-founded Sally Ride Science, a company that creates entertaining science programs and publications for upper elementary and middle school students, with a particular focus on girls. She served as the president and CEO until her passing.

Sally Ride died on July 23, 2012, at the age of 61, seventeen months after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. After her death, her obituary revealed that her partner of 27 years was Tam O'Shaughnessy who co-founded Sally Ride Science and currently serves as the CEO. O'Shaughnessy was also the co-author of six of the previously mentioned book. Sally chose to keep her relationship and other details of her life private during her lifetime, but with this revelation she also becomes the first known LGBT astronaut.

Among many other tributes, Sally Ride was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame and the Astronaut Hall of Fame. On November 20, 2013, Ride received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the United States. The medal was presented to her life partner Tam O'Shaughnessy, in the presence of Sally's mother and sister. In 2014, Ride was inducted into the Legacy Walk, an outdoor public display that celebrates LGBT history and people.

Finally, I found some quotes attributed to Sally Ride that I would like to leave you with:

"I never went into physics or the astronaut corps to become a role model. But after my first flight, it became clear to me that I was one. And I began to understand the importance of that to people. Young girls need to see role models in whatever careers they may choose, just so they can picture themselves doing those jobs someday. You can't be what you can't see."

"If we want scientists and engineers in the future, we should be cultivating the girls as much as the boys."

"I felt very honored, and I knew that people would be watching very closely, and I felt it was very, very important that I do a good job."

"I would like to be remembered as someone who was not afraid to do what she wanted to do, and as someone who took risks along the way in order to achieve her goals."

I felt very honored, and I knew that people would be watching very closely, and I felt it was very, very important that I do a good job.
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/s/sally_ride.html

I felt very honored, and I knew that people would be watching very closely, and I felt it was very, very important that I do a good job.
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/s/sally_ride.html

References:

http://gizmodo.com/nasa-engineers-offered-sally-ride-100-tampons-for-a-7-d-1594243379
http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/ride-sk.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sally_Ride
http://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/k-4/stories/nasa-knows/who-was-sally-ride-k4.html
https://sallyridescience.com/about/dr-sally-ride
http://io9.gizmodo.com/the-secret-life-of-sally-ride-the-first-american-woman-1586255004

Woman Crush Wednesday: My Story

In addition to Throwback Thursday, I would like to start featuring more modern women who are actively doing things. And first and foremost, every woman should have a woman crush on herself, right? This week I shared my story with BSGU's Let Girls Learn initiative.

BSGU (Bowling Green State University) Let Girls Learn (link here) is "a theatre class project aimed at raising awareness about girls' education around the world. As part of our 'take action' campaign, we hope to share the stories of young women from around the world who have experienced successes and/or barriers to their education. We are looking for women willing to tell of their experience through video and written forms."

And Let Girls Learn (link here) is a United States government initiative to ensure adolescent girls around the world get the education they deserve. Launched by the President and First Lady in March 2015, Let Girls Learn "brings together the Department of State, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the Peace Corps, and the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), as well as other agencies and programs like the U.S. President’s Emergency Fund for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), to address the range of challenges preventing adolescent girls from attaining a quality education that empowers them to reach their full potential. Let Girls Learn combines the necessary political will, diplomacy, grassroots organizing, and development expertise to create lasting change."

This is my face. I took this picture while visiting my college campus recently for a weekend event, and joked about there finally being more women than men on the Electrical and Computer Engineering floor... because no one else was there.

The story I provided to BSGU Let Girls Learn:

My name is Lauren, and I grew up in the suburbs of Philadelphia. Fairly conservative area, but despite that no one in my family or in my school fed me any of the stereotypes associated with being a woman in engineering. I just knew I liked math better than English, so I took the AP math and AP physics courses. For AP Physics in particular, I did notice that there were more boys in the class than girls, but didn't really think about it. In my junior year, the AP Physics teacher had the opportunity to send some students for free to an engineering camp at Widener University. Some male and some female students were selected, myself included, and I have no memory of the camp putting any focus on gender. There were definitely male and female students in all of my classes, there wasn't any special seminar for the girls, and everyone had fun and learned things and made friends.

At that camp I had the most fun building circuits, so I decided to go to college for Electrical Engineering (which, at Lafayette College, ended up being Electrical and Computer Engineering). The ONLY inkling I had before starting college that my chosen path was abnormal was my father saying "this is what you want to do?" while taking a tour.

But then I got to college and oh man, was I an anomaly. I was the only female ECE student in my year, and there were no females the year above me and no females the year below me. For someone who is very shy and likes to fade into the background, this was a bit uncomfortable. It's kind of hard to hide when you are the only person on the entire floor with boobs. I definitely got discouraged while at school (and still do at my web developer job) when I couldn't figure something out, because I felt like (and feel like) I'm proving a point about my gender. Whereas if one of the guys struggles, it only reflects him.

Me being the only girl on the floor (and even today, one of the few females in my company) definitely forced me to develop a thick skin. Not that anyone was mean, but more that they didn't realize how an easy joke could make me second guess myself. Like joking that I didn't belong in Computer Engineering because I didn't play video games like the rest of them. It's true. I don't fit the stereotype. The few females that were Computer Science majors blended in more. They played video games, they wore jeans and t-shirts, they watched shows like Archer and Adventure Time... I wear dresses. My laptop is pink. My favorite shows are New Girl and The Mindy Project. I haven't played a video or computer game since middle school. But none of that has anything to do with my ability to code.

If I had known going into it that my very existence in this computer science world would be such an event, I'm not sure I would have done it. I didn't want to be the center of attention. I didn't want to have to make sure to be in the lab during Saturday tours so they could show people I existed. But if I could do it all over again, I still would. I've had to grow a lot as a person, which was good for me.

But I fear that other girls are discouraged from even entering this coding world because they don't fit the part. So I'm trying to do MY part to change the narrative. Still figuring out the details of the "how", but I did start my Facebook and Instagram: it's Had Me @ Hello World (@hadmeathelloworld). To show that you can watch romantic comedies by night and develop software by day!

Fierce Friday: Scars To Your Beautiful

I heard this song by Alessia Cara on the radio a few weeks ago, and actually sat in my car until it was finished because I was like "yaaaaas". (Not really, I don't say that. But I feel it!) I still don't understand "scars to your beautiful", but mostly due to the grammar/sentence structure (is 'beautiful' a noun?)! But I love the underlying message and so it's a nice chill yet empowering song for a nice chill Friday!

Empowering Lyrics: "And you don't have to change a thing, The world could change its heart"



Full Lyrics:

She just wants to be beautiful
She goes unnoticed, she knows no limits,
She craves attention, she praises an image,
She prays to be sculpted by the sculptor
Oh she don't see the light that's shining
Deeper than the eyes can find it
Maybe we have made her blind
So she tries to cover up her pain, and cut her woes away
'Cause covergirls don't cry after their face is made

But there's a hope that's waiting for you in the dark
You should know you're beautiful just the way you are
And you don't have to change a thing
The world could change its heart
No scars to your beautiful, we're stars and we're beautiful
Oh-oh, oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh
And you don't have to change a thing
The world could change its heart
No scars to your beautiful, we're stars and we're beautiful

She has dreams to be an envy, so she's starving
You know, "Covergirls eat nothing."
She says, "Beauty is pain and there's beauty in everything."
"What's a little bit of hunger?"
"I could go a little while longer," she fades away
She don't see her perfect, she don't understand she's worth it
Or that beauty goes deeper than the surface
Ah oh, ah ah oh,
So to all the girls that's hurting
Let me be your mirror, help you see a little bit clearer
The light that shines within

There's a hope that's waiting for you in the dark
You should know you're beautiful just the way you are
And you don't have to change a thing
The world could change its heart
No scars to your beautiful, we're stars and we're beautiful
Oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh-oh
And you don't have to change a thing
The world could change its heart
No scars to your beautiful, we're stars and we're beautiful

No better you than the you that you are
(no better you than the you that you are)
No better life than the life we're living
(no better life than the life we're living)
No better time for your shine, you're a star
(no better time for your shine, you're a star)
Oh, you're beautiful, oh, you're beautiful

There's a hope that's waiting for you in the dark
You should know you're beautiful just the way you are
And you don't have to change a thing
The world could change its heart
No scars to your beautiful, we're stars and we're beautiful
Whoa-oh-oh-oh, whoa-oh-oh-oh, whoa-oh-oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh-oh
And you don't have to change a thing
The world could change its heart
No scars to your beautiful, we're stars and we're beautiful

~ http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/alessiacara/scarstoyourbeautiful.html

Throwback Thursday: Edith Clarke

For this week's Throwback Thursday I am honoring Edith Clarke! I couldn't find anyone inspiring to talk about last week (it's not that they don't exist, it's that they are hard to find! Which is why I'm doing this), but Edith certainly turned that around this week!

Edith Clarke was born in 1883 in a small farming community in Maryland as one of nine children. Unfortunately by age 12 she was an orphan. However, despite living in a time when it was almost unheard of for a woman to acquire a college degree, she was able to use her small inheritance to enroll in Vassar College at age 18. She studied mathematics and astronomy, and graduated in 1908 with Phi Beta Kappa honors.

After college, Clarke taught mathematics and physics at a private girls' school in San Francisco and then at Marshall College in West Virginia. "Wanting to be an engineer, however, Clarke enrolled in the civil engineering program at the University of Wisconsin in 1911. A summer job as a mathematical computing assistant at AT&T changed those plans, though, as she decided to remain full-time at AT&T... Clarke eventually became the manager of a group of women 'computers' who made calculations for the Transmission and Protection Engineering Department during World War I. During that time she also studied radio at Hunter College and electrical engineering at Columbia University". (www.agnesscott.edu)

In 1918, Clarke left AT&T to enroll at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in their EE program, and in 1919 became the first woman to earn her master's degree in electrical engineering from MIT. Upon graduation, however, she found the the opportunities for women in the engineering field to be very limited, so she went to work as a "computer" again, this time for General Electric (http://msa.maryland.gov).

During this time, she filed a patent application describing her invention of a graphical calculator to be used in the solution of electric power transmission problems. In 1921, frustrated with her inability to obtain a position as an engineer at GE and wishing to see more of the world, she left GE to teach physics at the Constantinople Women's College in Turkey. But then in 1922 she was re-hired by GE as an officially recognized salaried electrical engineer in the Central Station Engineering Department, making her the first professionally employed female electrical engineer in the United States.

She worked at GE for 26 years until 1945, at which point she retired to join the electrical engineering faculty at the University of Texas-Austin. This made her (you guessed it!) the first female professor of Electrical Engineering in the country. She retired from teaching in 1956, and Edith Clarke died in October 1959 at the age of 76.

Additional accomplishments among her long list of "firsts" include being the first woman to present a paper before the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (later to become IEEE) in 1926. Her paper had critical national importance, as she applied a mathematical technique called the method of symmetrical components to model a large power system and its behavior. (http://www.edisontechcenter.org)

Additionally, she became the first woman to be elected a fellow of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers in 1948, and then, in 1954, she received a lifetime Achievement Award from the Society of Women Engineers "in recognition of her many original contributions to stability theory and circuit analysis." (http://www.engineergirl.org) Her two volume work, Circuit Analysis of A-C Power Systems, was published in 1943 and 1950. Edith Clarke was also the first female engineer to achieve professional standing in Tau Beta Pi. In 2015, Clarke was posthumously inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.

After that exhausting list of "firsts", I'll leave you with an Edith Clarke quote:

"There is no demand for women engineers, as such, as there are for women doctors; but there's always a demand for anyone who can do a good piece of work."




As always, if you have suggestions for future "Throwback Thursday" women, you can email hadmeathelloworld@gmail.com, comment below, or comment on the Facebook page!

References:

http://www.edisontechcenter.org/Clarke.html
http://www.engineergirl.org/Engineers/HistoricalEngineers/4399.aspx
http://ethw.org/Edith_Clarke
http://msa.maryland.gov/msa/educ/exhibits/womenshall/html/clarke.html
https://www.agnesscott.edu/lriddle/women/clarke.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edith_Clarke