The lesson one day last week was on the history of the atom over time.
How have the scientists since the Greek Democritus
added to our knowledge of the atom and to our
models of atoms today?
Seems simple enough.
And it usually is.
I list the scientists on the board and tell what they added to the growing knowledge of the atom up to today.
But there are no ladies in the list.
After 21 years of teaching, this week one little voice said,
"Mrs. Wright, why are there no women scientists"
I had to stop and look at the face behind the voice.
I have been wanting someone to start this subject for a very long time.
of course the thought was distracted, or maybe just punctuated by a boy shouting out
"because they are not as smart"
but
when I looked him straight in the eyes, he quickly added,
"they weren't allowed to go to school"
I said, "that's a better answer!"
and then proceeded to tell this class of how I wished to take Chemistry in
high school and how the counselors tried to talk me out of it and said that it was probably better if I took shorthand, or
typing for the jobs that I was going to be doing after I graduated.
I said, "I would never take a job that required shorthand and therefore I will never took the course."
It wasn't until we moved to Richfield HS my senior year that I was able to take Chemistry.
I may have been the only female in the class, I can't rightly remember.
but I went on to take Chemistry at Utah State University.
I told this 7th grade class that one of my college professors, when I asked for help in better understanding a concept, that he answered quite surly,
"Why do you need to know this when all you need to know is how to get dinner on the table on time!"
A couple of the 7th grade girls actually gasped at the air and said, "Is that true!"
I said "Yes"
and that
I left the professor weak at the knees and sick to my stomach and slowly over the next
few months, because of that statement and a few other happenings, I began to cave in and change my major from medical technology to
Liberal Arts
__________
Do the girls today realize what some women have fought for and done for their equality?
It really isn't unusual to hear female students now who wish to grow up to be doctors or engineers.
Do they know how precious that choice is?
I wish I would have had the courage to pursue my medical dream.
Instead, I let myself believe in their belief that I was a useless member of a useless gender.
However, as it usually is in life:
I didn't know that it wouldn't be over for me.
The social mores were changing and I was standing, whether I knew it or not, on the front line.
During my stay at USU, the early 1970's, it was the hot years of the Equal Rights Amendment campaigns.
I was just at the right age and at the right time and place
and I needed a job during the summers while attending USU.
I was hired by the Federal government, Bureau of Land Management
to fight forest fires.
I was the token female in a 5 person crew of 1 Native American, 1 Latino, 1 Female and 2 white males.
My parents said maybe I could just be the dispatch?
I was not going to give in this time.
I not only lasted the season, but I hiked mountains on fire, slept out in tent's surrounded by fellow fighters, had men line up in front of me with their backs to me so I could squat and take a pee.
I was dropped out of helicopters, splattered by pink fire retardant,
and have sharpened many a shovel and Pulaski.
I went back the next summer for a second season.
Some of the men in the BLM office would come out to me working in the yard and tell me viciously how I should not be there and should quit and why wasn't I married and on and on.
I never had a better feeling than when the men had to come to me, the at the beginning of the season I did not return, and ask if I would at least come back and show them how to run the pumper truck.
I laughed and said, "no way, you guys go figure it yourself like I had to".
Then in 1978, I was working as a supervisor in the Criminal Records Department for the State of Utah when I heard there was a job opening for a female narcotics agent
for a new undercover crew the State was assembling.
I already had time in as a State employee, I had a college degree, I was 25 and I was single.
Perfect, Perfect, Perfect.
I got the job.
First female undercover narcotics agent for the Department of Public Safety for the State of Utah.
Now the discrimination was palpable.
I thought I had felt discrimination at college, I thought I had conquered it at the BLM.
No, working with over-sexed, over-stimulated, over-egotistical cops
can be the very best and the very worst of times.
I lasted 5 years undercover.
I married my partner
who is still the one person in my life who always thought of me as an absolute equal if not superior to him.
He didn't push me to do things, he made me believe I could do anything I put my mind to.
and I will always love him for that!
ANYONE CAN DO ANYTHING THEY WANT TO
as long as they want it bad enough to work for it!
oh, and P.S. - women in the sciences has made for some remarkable contributions to the base of scientific knowledge today!
