What 3 Mothers Had To Face For The Future Of Their Kids
- Imogen Cook
- May 12, 2023
- 5 min read
Hidden Figures tells the story of three women’s journey’s of fighting racial and gender prejudices in the workplace, while using their mathematical skills to help send the first American to space. Safe to say, there is a lot at stake, and the additional challenges these hard working ladies face make for a truly inspiring story!
Each of these women not only work full time, but they all have children as well. Having watched this movie a few times now, I’ve realised that these women not only made history, but their roles as mothers were equally as valuable!
In today’s blog, join me as we take a look at the lessons we can learn from these incredible women.
Katherine G. Johnson
Gifted with a brain to solve analytic geometry equations, Katherine is assigned to the Space Task Group, and helps calculate coordinates for space flights. Katherine’s story is most focused on throughout ‘Hidden Figures’ so we get a deep look at the hardships she faces.
Katherine does her job despite receiving a ton of backlash.
What I love about Katherine is how she holds herself, not only as a woman in a room full of men, but as an African American in a predominately white profession. Though so many things are against her, she still shows up to work everyday and not only does the work, but she absolutely excels at it.
She is tasked with calculating coordinates, but as she doesn’t have full clearance, she isn’t given the full information she needs to calculate the coordinates properly. This is a running issue for her in the movie until she is finally heard by her boss, Al Harrison, and he lets her join the high security meetings. This ultimately leads to a successful flight for Astronaut John Glenn.
She doesn’t complain unless absolutely necessary.
A big part of Katherine’s story is the fact that she needs to run half a mile across the NASA campus just to use the coloured bathrooms, as there are none in the building where she works. The scene where Al Harrison finally asks her where she disappears to every day leads to such a tear inducing scene that brings to light the challenges she’s been facing due to her skin colour. But in doing so, changes are made and all bathrooms at NASA become integrated. This certainly was a giant leap for mankind!
Despite working such a high stress job and long hours, she is still a loving mother.
After a rough day at work, Katherine comes home to find her three daughters not asleep, but arguing over who gets to sleep in the bigger bed. This is a beautiful scene where she ends up having a gentle heart to heart with her daughters, and learns of their worries from the day. Who wouldn’t be exhausted at this point of the day? Yet Katherine listens to her girls and still uses these few minutes to ease their worries, and have a laugh at the same time.
Mary Jackson
Mary is also a gifted mathematician, but has a dream to become an engineer. She is assigned to the space capsule heat shield team, and immediately helps them identify a design flaw.
She had a dream, she aced it.
Mary’s journey to becoming an engineer is in no way an easy one. She needs to face so many obstacles including petitioning the court to let her take additional courses at an all white high school, so she is able to have the necessary requirements to become an engineer.
What began her journey was appealing to a court judge, ultimately winning by explaining that by becoming the first ever African American woman to become a NASA engineer, she would be making history and the judge would be the first judge to allow it. And what happened? She graduated and became an engineer!
Her determination makes for a great role model.
Something about Mary (as seen in the point above) is that she has an incredible determination. She has two young children, and from a small scene at the church picnic, they seem to share their mum’s determination as they refuse their Dad’s rule to eat their greens. But of course, Dad and Mum win out on this argument.
But with Mary’s story as a whole, she is a true inspiration when it comes to chasing her dreams. Her determination is so admirable! Something I’m sure her children will also inherit as they grow in this tough world.
She knows that things aren’t as complex as people make them out to be.
I love this part of the movie. Not only did she get permission to attend night classes at an all white high school, but she challenges the teacher when he seems confused by her attendance. When Mary says she has access to attend this class, the teacher responds with “well, the curriculum is not designed for teaching a woman.” And she responds with “well I imagine it’s the same as teaching a man.” Boom, mic drop. She picks up her pen and sits prepared to listen.
Dorothy Vaughan
Dorothy also has a mathematical mind, and she works as the supervisor of the coloured group of computers. However, she has been filling in since the previous supervisor left, but her role and salary hasn’t been upgraded to supervisor status. Her story focuses on her journey to being recognised for this work.
She does what she can to progress things forward.
The arrival of the IBM 7090 electronic computer at NASA brings the issue that human computers will soon be replaced. This means trouble for Dorothy and her team yet the men who are putting it together aren't able to get it working. Dorothy knows that it’s only a matter of time before it will, as the world continues to adapt and change.
She takes it upon herself to learn about programming and teach it to the ladies in her group. This leads to her successfully starting the machine herself, getting the promotion to programming supervisor that she deserves. This also earns her overdue respect in the workplace.
She knows she can’t do it alone.
When Dorothy is promoted to supervisor, she is told to leave the coloured group and move to the programming department on her own. But as any good leader knows, she can’t be the most effective without her team. So she only accepts the position if the rest of the ladies can join her. This is such a great lesson on the value of community. No one can do it alone.
She teaches her boys truthfully and respectfully.
A great lesson comes when Dorothy takes her two boys to the library. She’s looking for a specific book that will teach her programming, but needs to go into the white only section to find it. Unfortunately, security comes and forces them to leave the library. On the bus ride home, Dorothy explains to her boys that just because it’s the way, that doesn’t make it right.
It’s a great reminder that even today, there are a lot of things that happen but it doesn’t mean they’re right. We live in a world that goes against God’s Word in a lot of different ways. We must hold tightly to God’s truth and stay firm in it.
Have you seen Hidden Figures? What have you learnt from these three mums that we could implement in our lives? Tell us in the comments below!
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