Poppy Northcutt was the first woman to ever work in an operational support role at NASA’s Mission Control Center. At the Girls in Tech Catalyst Conference in San Franciso USA yesterday, 19th June 2019, the NASA engineer told girls not to be hidden figures.

 

Back in 1968, Northcutt worked at a contracting company for NASA. She and her teammates created a quick and accurate flight path for the Apollo 8 program crew. It was because of their help the crew found their way back to Earth from the moon.

 

Northcutt while speaking at the event said, “At the time, it was a very big deal that there was a woman in there. No one had ever seen a woman in Mission Control before.”

 

 

She did not just work on the Apollo 8, but on Apollo 10, 11, 12 and 13. Northcutt spoke on her experiences and the lessons learned during her career. She said, “What the media wanted to know then, and what I’m still asked today, is what was it’s like to be in that room full of men.”

 

“I expect almost all of you who are working in the field already know that, and if you’re going in the field, you’ll soon discover it,” she chimed.

 

Northcutt explained that she became a radical women’s rights activist after her experience on the Apollo program.

 

She said that there weren’t a lot of books or conferences on gender discrimination and sexism at the time. However, she was able to learn first-hand about s*x-role stereotyping.

 

Gender roles in STEM

After she got her bachelor’s degree in math, she had a job role of a “Computress.” This is pretty much the same job a computer does, but it was gender specific because she was a woman. She had to do the regular, number crunching, graph and chart making, as well as run data.

 

 

Northcutt said, “I was, to a certain extent, a gendered computer. I thought, ‘This is really strange.’” She learned that it could get difficult for her in the industry because the engineers were not willing to be helpful.

 

“I was crossing that invisible line between being a computress and being an engineer. Women are expected to take instructions and provide answers,” she explained.

 

Northcutt, however, did not take this as a deterrent. She said she continued asking more questions and began learning more. At some point, she said it occurred to her that she was just as smart as the men she worked with. But, she made way less money and could not afford the luxuries that they did.

 

 

Standing her ground, Northcutt says she went against all odds to continue long hours. This was despite a working time limit place on women. She was later promoted to the role of Engineer.

 

The NASA engineer urged women to not cower but stay visible and express unequalled tenacity.

 

According to a research, women make up a meagrely 30% of the tech workforce in America. The percentage of African women in core tech roles will probably be steeper.