The Soviet Union put the 1st woman in space.
And the 1st person of African descent as well.
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"That's one small spacewalk for two women and another giant leap for humankind.
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There seems to be a little mansplaining going on in the comment section. Two people who also are women got to walk in space. Outside in the vacuum of space they went. Every time anyone does that it still amazes me. George Lucas is not working on the next sequel "Gender Wars". I'll know that we are ready to head to stars when the first kid in space gets to take their dog for a spacewalk. I know that will cause some cat lovers to cry foul.
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Sally Ride, my college years' spacewoman crush, co-authored half a dozen children's science books with her partner of 27 years, Tam O'Shaughnessy. Sally and Tam met in high school when both were aspiring tennis players. O'Shaughnessy was even coached for a while by Billie Jean King. What's not to admire about smart and accomplished women-loving women?!
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That is such an awesome pic!
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One giant leap for womankind!
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The first women astronauts (US and Soviet) did so, together with men, in 1984. Now, 35 years later, we have the first all-women spacewalk. Such amazing progress. One wonders what will happen next.
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Now THIS is a girls night out!
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Are you serious? You just spent the first several paragraphs of the interview going on and on about tampons and makeup? Seriously? I had to stop reading. NYTimes, please.
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@Annie
Everyone wonders about how men and women handle their bodily functions in space.
And male astronauts are allowed their own trivial pleasures in space, why not women.
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@Annie The content of these paragraphs are important in the history of female astronauts, which is what this article is about. You may think it silly, but what is sillier that women in a completely inhospitable environment exploring the mysteries of space were expected to look good. For who? Their fellow scientists? Aliens?
In addition it is also fairly ridiculous how men of science wouldn't know how many tampons to send for a week. These incidents have lasting effects on the work and treatment of female astronauts to this day.
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@Annie
Amen!
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An article about women astronauts and they have to have their freaking space make-up case. Jesus.
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@tundra
Male astronauts get to indulge in trivial pursuits in space, like getting sport scores, so why should female astronauts get their trivial indulgences, too?
It's not all hard work and discipline, they need their little pleasures, too. Those are well publicised, and no one complains.
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@AG the one woman quoted said she needed it because of how the media treat women without make-up, and to compete wit the male astronauts. Doesn't sound like a trivial pleasure to me.
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I'm a woman, and I'm sick of the snarky tone displayed in this article.
I'm also very sympathetic to the men, who are in a no-win situation, damned if they assume there might be a gender difference, damned if they don't, damned for asking, damned for not asking.
But that's what science is about, making hypotheses, getting data, and through trial and error, discarding the wrong ones.
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My sometimes-faulty memory tells me that the first "all-female" spacewalk occurred in 1984. Or was Svetlana Yevgenyevna Savitskaya not a woman and somehow did not perform an EVA.
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@Bodger : She had a male astronaut on EVA with her. But I agree, this is a silly "milestone."
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@Bodger OK. So maybe my memory is more faulty than I thought. Or maybe I fell into the real-time news buzz of the event. Seems that Svetlana wasn't doing the EVA alone -- she had a male colleague Vladimir Dzhanibekov with her but he was not the newsworthy one and his contribution was pretty well glossed over. Sorry -- I should have done more research. Mea culpa.
If this is happening because their names came up as next in line for this activity, fine. Just like in 1969 when Armstrong's name came up as next in line and became the first to walk on the moon.
If this is happening as a neo feminist/social engineering publicity stunt to demand that women get 50% of everything because they are women and men should be forever shamed for being men then it should be condemned.
Identity obsession is just as bad as discrimination.
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@Paul So, in this scenario, you're concerned about the theoretical men who may have been overlooked for this honor because of their gender?
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@Edward -thank you for you reply. Yes if these women were placed there because of neo feminist pressure, no if they truly deserved it and it was there time to go.
It is not rocket science.
Feminists in the 1980s changed the world for the better, neo feminists today have perverted it and it is one of the reasons we have an ego maniac demagogue like Trump in the WH today.
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Make-up for women astronauts is a cultural equivalent of Olympians in hijabs. It's repressive and I don't care if a woman thinks it's 'necessary.' Or it's incredibly vain.
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@tundra
Actually, it's the opposite of women in hijabs.
A hijab is meant to hide women's attractiveness.
Makeup is meant to enhance it.
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@AG except it's still meant to cover up a woman.
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My IQ has gone down 15 points by reading this article. Could we actually interview the female astronauts in question, instead of whoever happens to be around the office at the moment?
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I'm a middle aged man who is in college to change careers (to become a scientist). I'm attending a top tier public university. I was surprised to find that the vast majority of my classmates are young women. In some of my STEM classes, I'm the only guy. How refreshing!
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