Sally Ride, the first American woman in space, died last week, as most of you no doubt know. On The Thinking Housewife, Laura Wood uses the occasion as an opportunity to bash lesbians, feminism, and Ride herself. Wood begins her most unusual eulogy by quoting Gloria Steinem, who once said of Ride:
“Millions of little girls are going to sit by their television sets and see they can be astronauts, heroes, explorers and scientists.”
Wood scoffs at the very notion, suggesting that
Steinem’s real point, in keeping with her intense dislike of women, was that women should want to be astronauts and there was something wrong with them if they didn’t.
So we’re off to a great start here. Wood then offers this patronizing assessment of Ride’s life – which nonetheless turns out to be the nicest thing she says about the legendary astronaut.
Ride, who had a warm, radiant smile and is said to have served ably in her two missions in space, died Monday at the age of 61.
After this bit of faint praise, Wood moves on to her main point: Ride was lesbian, and therefore a terrible person, so she’ll quickly be forgotten.
For all the fanfare that once surrounded it, Ride’s story will likely fade into history and her life ultimately inspire very few girls. This will be so not only because women do not excel at space science or the physical demands of space travel as men do but also because, as Ride’s obituary proved, she did not lead a full life. Ride was in a lesbian relationship with a childhood friend for 27 years.
Yep, apparently lesbians don’t live “full lives,” whatever that means. Are women only living “full lives” if they are filled up on at least a semi-regular basis with their husband’s penis?
Wood continues:
To her credit, Ride did not make her lesbianism public and was private about her personal life in general. Her sister and the woman with whom she had a relationship, Tam O’Shaughnessy, have released the information to the world and now Ride has the double distinction of being both the first woman and the first lesbian in space. O’Shaughnessy was Ride’s friend since the age of 12. Ride was briefly married to another astronaut, but they were divorced. So while Ride accomplished much in her career, thanks in part to the spirit of affirmative action, she seems to have never fully emerged from childhood.
Huh? Are lesbians inherently childish, or is Ride supposed to have been a perpetual “child” because she married her childhood friend?
Then Wood says one of the strangest things I’ve ever heard:
The only good reason for a normal woman to go through the grueling rigors of becoming an astronaut is that NASA is a great place to meet men.
Sorry, but I’ve got to pull out the Don Draper gif again: What?
Wood elaborates:
Ride’s life, however, does not even offer that slim hope to little girls, that wonderful compensation for dreary days in a control cabin. Ride flew into space but never experienced other thrills that are as great or far greater. She never gave a man such necessary and life-sustaining love that he was able to do great things, such as fly into space.
So apparently the real, true purpose of becoming a female astronaut isn’t to fly into space, but to inspire the dude you’ve married to fly into space?
She never looked up at the stars with her own children and encouraged their wonder. She did not pass on her love of space to a son or daughter or grandchild.
I guess inspiring girls around the world doesn’t count? (And I can only imagine that the thought of Ride now inspiring gay children strikes Wood with dread.)
Though she performed capably in her public position as a Role Model of the Century, Sally Ride’s example will likely be the exact opposite of what NASA and Gloria Steinem predicted. She will serve as a reminder of at least some of the very good reasons why women don’t want to be astronauts.
Because becoming an astronaut might make them lesbian?
The vast majority of women would sooner love an astronaut than be one. And given that most men are destined to perform inglorious jobs for most of their lives, women will come to see that the dream of conquering space rightly belongs to men.
A lot of men do crap jobs, so therefore only men should be astronauts? I can’t even pretend to understand the logic here.
Here’s Ride’s web site, and her official obituary.
This woman calls herself the THINKING housewife? Thinking?
This woman is fucked in the head. I’d say more but it would all be rage-fueled keysmash.
PS: I have some problems with Gloria Steinem, problems I seem to have currently misplaced, but I have never heard that she had any kind of “intense dislike of women.” Hello, projection, so nice to see you again.
My only response is WHAT THE FUCK??!!??!!??!!
Pardon my french, fellow posters, but an acronym just doesn’t begin to cover the paucity of intellectual activity on display by The “Thinking” Housewife.
The vast majority of women would sooner love an astronaut than be one
I’m not sure why this is so infuriating, but it is super infuriating. Usually I just laugh at the illogical crap these people spew but this particular comment is turning me into Steele.
EXCU-HUUUSE ME. HOW VERY DARE YOU. MY HONOUR DEMANDS THAT YOU RETRACT THIS REMARK, YOU VILE SLANDERING EVIL VILE VILLAIN. I WILL NOW PROCEED TO SLAP YOUR FACE WITH MY GLOVE, LAURA “VILE” WOOD.
Ok, I actually feel better now. For the record, I would rather be an astronaut than love one. About six hundred billionty times rather. I am betting Laura Wood has never commissioned a poll of a representative sample of a vast majority of women.
“When you grow up, you can be become whatever you want”
“Don’t tell me what to do!”
This has got to be fake, right? Please let it be fake.
She’s got us there, folks. I distinctly remember watching Sally Ride on television as a girl and thinking “wow, it’s fantastic that a ladyperson like me can be an astronaut, but wouldn’t it be EVEN MORE FANTASTIC to clean house and raise kids for an astronaut?”
Except NO, I DID NOT THINK THAT AT ALL. (And, despite Gloria Steinem and her rampaging woman-hatred that I am only just now learning about, I never wanted to be an astronaut except in the same way I wanted to be a fairy princess, and learning that Sally Ride was one did not ruin my non-aspirations, thx.)
The “Thinking” Housewife also seems to be treading dangerous ground with this whole “yeah, it’s great to be an astronaut, blah blah, but it’s also great to be the lady backing up an astronaut” – because after all, Tam O’Shaughnessy had Sally Ride’s back for decades. Surely she’s a great role model for “astronaut family support”, except oh noez! lesbian!
My dad got our whole family up to see the various takeoffs and landings and moon shots.
I loved sf, and would have loved to go into space (health problems, and complete doofiness at science and spatial things generally made that impossible, but that’s NOT sex–the vast majority of men cannot quality to be an astronaut either).
And the Thinking Housewife deserves to live with herself and her nasty little attempted smearing of a woman who did amazing things, and inspired MILLIONS of girls/women.
Sheesh.
YOU DID NOT JUST TALK SHIT ABOUT SALLY RIDE.
I can’t even.
Yeah, call me when loving an astronaut means I get ZERO GRAVITY POWERS, huh?
If that was true, then why is Wood trying so hard to convince women they shouldn’t be astronauts? If no girls were ambitious and good at science, then people like the thinking housewife wouldn’t need to try so hard to convince girls that they’re meant to be submissive and confined to a kitchen.
Uggghhh… all I have to say to that is: fuck her. She claims Steinem hated women but it’s clearly the other way around, she outright says women are inferior to men in regards to being astronauts. Here’s a hint to her: any woman who becomes an astronaut doesn’t think control cabins are “dreary”, you’re training to do something that involves traveling into orbit as fast as any human has ever traveled in history and see the earth in a way only a few hundred people have ever seen it in person. To say that any woman would do such an amazingly cool thing just to impress a man shows she believes all women are incredibly shallow and only interested in men and babies. So who hates women? The person who want women to pursue their dreams, whatever they are, or the one who denies that women even have those dreams?
I wanted to be an astronaut when I was a kid and Sally Ride was one of my heroes. In fact I would still love to travel to space and if someone offered me a 1 way trip to Mars with a less than 50% chance of survival I wouldn’t think twice about it, just for the possibility to live on another planet.
In the comments section, this exchange happened.
Somehow, this symapthy seems empty to me, in the context of the post.
There’s also this.
Basically, Laura’s upset that her personal view of how all women should be (house wives and married to sucessful men) was not glorified and advocated for by Sally Ride. In the same breath that Laura opines that women’s lives are unfulfilled without a husband… What a weird set of mental gymnastics. Science is a good thing, but you can’t be for it while also trying to address inequality of opportunity for women. Because you can’t do both at once aparently, and inspiring a love of science in young girls is unrelated to showing those young girls that being a home maker isn’t there only option in life, so they should pursue their interests. And if you do try to show that being a home maker isn’t the only option, you are personally attacking Laura Wood.
Argh…
@thebionicmommy:
Laura, like many other nuts, believes that advocacy of a thing is the same as brainwashing young children into believing the thing. Even though women naturally just want to be submissive to husbands, they might be tricked into thinking other things are better and that would be terrible.
You misunderstood. Men work ALL the crap jobs (not some) and therefore, men are allowed to hope that they might become astronauts as compensation for being willing to work all the crap jobs. Women don’t work at crappy jobs–that’s what they have men for–and therefore they don’t need or deserve the hope that they might one day see the Great Wall of China from orbit.
But they should be encouraged to try out for the space program nonetheless because it’s a great way to meet men who are good at math and science and peeing in zero-G without splattering everywhere.
See? And I’ll bet you thought she was saying something silly.
Also, it’s wrong to insist that little girls have something wrong with them if they want to be astronauts (agreed.)
Because it takes away valuable instructional time from insisting that little girls have something wrong with them if they don’t dream of children. (Oops.)
This whole thing is a baffling combination of horribly insulting and batshit insane.
I don’t think I know a woman who *didn’t* want to go into space as a kid. I mean, it’s SPACE. HOW IS THAT NOT AWESOME.
Also, who becomes an astronaut to meet men? Are these women brilliant enough to go to space but stupid enough they don’t know where to find OKCupid?
@Donnie:
Laura was saying that it’s wrong to insist that little girls who want to be house wives have something wrong with them (agreed, but it’s complicated).
She also insisted that Sally Ride, in advocating for girls to enter science and in being female while in space, was doing that (what the fuckity fuck).
Peggy Whitson spent 376 days in space, so obviously women are quite capable of being astronauts. Heck, women have piloted space shuttles. So what can the men do that women can’t? The Thinking Housewife needs to watch Star Trek, especially Voyager, because that’s what space exploration will eventually look like. Women aren’t going to be left in Earth’s kitchens.
Now I’ve got to go watch Contact.
I feel irrationally annoyed that the rape apologist likes one of my favorite books.
Only the movie adaptation. It’s okay. If she liked Carl Sagan it would be on.
Why would you want to be an Astronaut’s Wife? If you marry an astronaut he’s gonna go to space, get possessed by aliens, come back all weird and kinda rapey, impregnate you with his alien seed, then possess you so you’ll raise his creepy alien twins who are probably going to invade the earth or something? I kinda forgot the whole point of what the aliens were doing.
I’d much rather just go to space myself thanks.
I don’t understand why Ruby likes Contact at all, there’s hardly any hi-larious prison rape in it.
I saw the title of this post and thought it was going to read “The Thinking Housewife Tries to Think, Fails.” I was pretty much right.
Go the the rigors of NASA training to meet men–what planet is this bitch on?
Molly Moon – Oh man, that was the second worst movie I’ve ever seen.
(The worst was Crash, with its uplifting message of “racism consists of one person from each race doing exactly one good thing and one bad thing. like if a guy rapes a black woman, but then he rescues her from a fire, we’re even-stevens, right?”)