Dr. Carolyn Huntoon was known as the mother hen to the women astronauts in Group VIII. In Ava’s post, she mentions how Huntoon advocated for the women and chose to make waves – something many previous women had avoided doing to lessen the backlash for them stepping outside of their prescribed gender roles and stereotypes. Foster writes that Huntoon “knew that strong encouragement to eligible women was crucial if highly qualifies women were to be selected as NASA’s first female astronauts,” touching on an idea we’ve discussed in class – how helpful is it to be a “trailblazer” if you don’t help and encourage other women in the field?
The effects of this kind of motivation were clearly presented in Foster’s article. When the actress Nichelle Nichols began campaigning for women to apply to the astronaut program and normalizing the idea of women in space, the numbers increased significantly. Of course, not all media attention was liked. While it probably helped future generations of female astronaut, the actual women of Group VIII apparently hated how differently they were treated, reported as an oddity. I think this begs the question; is it more effective to normalize equal gender representation as Huntoon advocated, or treat it as the groundbreaking phenomenon it is? On this topic, I think the article presented some mixed messages. In terms of the technological components, Foster made it obvious that changes had to be made to accommodate the women and cater to their personal and specific needs. From a personnel perspective, anecdotes like Kathy Sullivan’s make it clear that the women wanted to be treated no differently than their male coworkers.
