I'm finding all this fuss about the all female space walk sexist

[TrogL]

The implication is they are not competent. Didn’t they go through the same screening as everybody else?

[BumRushDaShow]

1. The "sexist" part was not having given more than one woman at a time the opportunity to do this

They are now doing such.

Like that $$$$ electric screw driver.

[hlthe2b]

2. That this is FIRST time because NASA had no spacesuits to fit them prior to this is pretty damned

noteworthy (and quite disgraceful, given how long women have been in the space program).

So, sorry if it bothers you that they are getting some attention, but they have EARNED it.

[Piasladic]

9. and they had to use stuffing to fit in the suits

because NASA did not have the right equipment for them

[StarfishSaver]

3. Yes, it's sexist and racist to celebrate the first time women and minorities have the opportunity to

do something.

Let's just not mention it and pretend they were never excluded from anything up until now.

Or, we can make a BFD deal of it because it is a BFD - not because we think they're incompetent but because it is outrageous that such competent people were blocked from the opportunity to show it before - and leave it to the people who feel uncomfortable about it to reflect on why it makes them uncomfortable.

[pnwmom]

10. +1000. n/t

[jcgoldie]

4. How does celebrating a historic accomplishment imply that they are not competent?

That makes no sense.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

5. Your inference does not make an implication.

[kcr]

6. Are you implying the fact it hasn't happened till now

must mean women aren't competent enough? Or do you think that somehow that was just a coincidence?

[TrogL]

7. Ok thanks I get it now

[Raine]

8. "Damned if you do and damned if you don't"

seems like anymore there's someone going to take offence no matter what.

[nolabear]

11. OFFS. Let me tell you a story.

When I was fourteen I watched the moon walk. I was a damn near suicidal teenaged girl in the South who had lost her mother and whose military father was depressed, had no idea what to do with me except whip me and put me down, and a culture who had just barely started to let girls wear pants to school, much less space suits. But I was so lifted up by what was happening, by the joy of humanity reaching right out of the troubled world, that I vowed to stay alive and see what happened.

But it took years for me to even imagine it could be someone like me. A woman. Sally Ride made me weep. Christa McAuliffe made me sob. They were the unicorns, so rare as to be almost unimaginable, and who could imagine we might one day not be rare, but the entire face of missions in space.

I was literally in the dentist’s chair waiting for the anesthetic to take hold when I watched part of that walk. All the voices were female. The way they cooperated was the way women do, even as they did the technical things they were trained to do. Just like they always did, when given a chance. Just like WE always do when given a chance.

We flew. Don’t try to take that away.