Gender inequality and discrimination against women

Gender inequality and discrimination against women

Gender inequality and discrimination against women is a social problem that has affected society for generations. Most of society regards women to be the weaker sex in terms of mental and even physical ability. Even though this has changed in modern times with the Rise of Women’s Rights movement groups, women faced oppression and discrimination due to their gender, with even worse conditions when the ethnic background was considered. According to Crenshaw, social problems affecting women as a class are often perceived as individual and isolated. This is because they failed to consider intersectionality among antiracist and feminist practices (p. 1242). By using experiences of black women, Crenshaw suggests that black women are uniquely disadvantaged because of the intersections of gender and race, making them be disregarded. Despite exploring intersections in gender and race, Crenshaw suggests including other factors like color, age, sexual orientation, and class (p. 1245). This concept has been utilized on many occasions in the film industry. Intersecting inequalities of gender, race, and class, are seen to impact the lives of African-American women, as seen in the film Hidden Figures (2016), directed by Theodore Melfi.

Hidden Figures film, based on a book with the same name by Margot Lee Shetterly, is the true story of the experiences of three African-American women living in a segregated America. The story focuses on the critical role they played as mathematicians at the National Aeronautics Space Administration (NASA) in sending the John Glenn, played by Glen Powell, to the moon when the space race was going on between Russia and the United States (IMDB). The film is setting is in 1961, when segregation of facilities such as transportation, employment, education, and housing in the U.S. was at its height. The stars of the film, Janelle Monae, Octavia Spencer, and Taraji P. Henson playing actual characters of Mary Jackson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Katherine Johnson respectively, are used to show the problems black women at the time went through (Melfi). These ranged from unequal pay when compared to other fellow white women, to the stereotypical treatment of women as being an inferior gender intellectually by men. Intersectionality presents itself in the film majorly in the challenges the three women had to overcome, not only the sexism portrayed by men but also the racism experienced in the 1960s.

The experiences of Katherine Johnson in the film represent instances of intersectionality. Her being skillful in mathematics was, at many times, overshadowed by the fact that she was a woman. In the film’s plot illustrating a budding friendship between her and Colonel Jim Johnson, played by Mahershala Ali, there is a clear indication of sexism when as she explains to him that she does complex calculations to enable launch and landing for astronauts at NASA (Melfi). In response, Johnson questions if women can handle such taxing jobs but are put down by Katherine until he apologizes for his remarks. Despite both Katherine and the Colonel being black and having experienced the same racist and discriminatory issues in a racist America, she could not escape the gender differences already in place. Crenshaw suggests that, it is the failure of feminism and antiracism to investigate race and antipatriarchy that has reproduced the subordination of women (p. 1252). In the scene where the three friends are stranded in the middle of the road in their car, the policeman is seen to at first profile them for being black when he asks for their identification. Upon learning that they worked at NASA, his suspicion is seen to reduce, but he is still critical, for he did not know that they hired women. Again, their role at NASA is ignored when the policeman acknowledges their male counterparts instead.

The film maintained this perception when she interacted with her colleagues at her workplace. On her first day, she is mistaken for being the cleaner by one of her male colleagues. The only other person who seems to acknowledge Katherine’s skill is Al Harrison, played by Kevin Costner, who at first challenges her on their first interaction. She rises to the challenge and impresses him, but this is not the case with other “computers” (Melfi). On several occasions, her co-workers used to blackout parts in their work as a way to undermine her since they did not include important information needed in her calculations. Being a woman disadvantaged her, and most of her actions are to rise above this. When questioned by Harrison, where she was most of her time, she retorts back with the bathroom speech highlighting where she has to walk to Timbuktu to access the nearest black washroom. Besides this, she shows the discrimination she has received; she being a black woman is not paid enough to afford pearls and again for being black since there was a coffee pot specifically for her. It is with this speech and actions that she was able to change some of the racist perceptions and behavior at the office.

Another character whose challenges exemplify the concept of intersectionality is Mary Jackson’s journey to being an engineer in a white male-dominated career. Her degree to being an engineer involves her petitioning the court to let her pursue her education farther. She convinces the judge to be “the first” and became the first African-American woman to get into an all-night school, which was segregated for engineers (Melfi). The film utilizes this stereotypical view of men on women when she goes to her first class when the professor expresses concern that the curriculum considerations did not include women. In all her efforts, she succeeds and becomes the first African-American engineer at NASA.

In conclusion, intersectionality is the motivation for most of Hidden Figures plots, characters, and settings. Set in a time when segregation between the whites and the blacks, the story presents the life experiences of Katherine Johnson and Mary Jackson, among others, with the aim to illustrate this. Irrespective of being a skilled mathematician, Colonel Johnson, the policeman, and other co-workers could not see past she was and kept challenging her intellectual abilities as a woman. Jackson’s challenges perspectives that women could not succeed as engineers prompting her court petition. The film is a clear indication of whether you are a white woman or a black woman, intersectionality still plays a critical role in choices made by the characters.