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Mercury 13

New Netflix Documentary, Mercury 13, Reveals Women Had The Right Stuff, But Apparently Not The Right Gender

Remember that time Nasa considered letting 13 female pilots join their space training program but then decided against it for no actual reason beyond the fact that they were women? Yeah that.

One small step for man, one giant step for mankind… or so they’d have you think.

What if the first person on the moon hadn’t been Neil Armstrong, and had in fact been a woman? Would the universe have imploded? Or would we have raced toward the concept of feminism and equality at an appropriately faster pace?

Would millions of young girls throughout the seventies and eighties have been able to legitimately dream about becoming astronauts, and not just astronaut wives? The short answer, of course, is yes.

The opportunities robbed of these younger generations is just the tip of the iceberg when you consider the experiences denied to the female pilots at the driving seat of what eventually turned into a revolution.

Back in 1962, the space race wasn’t just a case of the USA vs. Russia – in the heart of America and at the core of the issue was a gender battle between men and women that was quickly playing out in favour of one particular side…

A new Netflix documentary, Mercury 13, is set to shine a light on a hidden story, which saw a number of highly qualified female pilots lose out on the opportunity to travel into space like their male counterparts.

Get ready for goose bumps, and anger bumps… is that a thing? It should be.

The documentary runs through everything from the personal stories of the women, to their legal battles before Congress, which saw these highly trained individuals argue the case that they were prevented from further space training based on grounds of sexual discrimination.

Before I commend these women for not sitting down and being quiet about the injustice they experienced, just think about what it feels like to know you’re more than capable of doing something truly amazing, something you feel you were born to do, only to have the opportunity stolen from you because of your gender.

Where does that lead you? What are the next steps? Do you accept defeat and return to what society thinks your life should be in a time where the world was only starting to consider women’s rights?

I can’t help but think about the scenes peppered throughout The Right Stuff, where the female characters in the film were relegated to their roles as housewives, roles that existed solely as support systems to the male characters.

The women clutched nervously at their hankies and handbags as they waved goodbye to their husbands, before resuming life as the primary caregiver to their children while the head of the family was away.

Luckily for us, these women decided get up, stand up, and make some noise.

Dreaming of the stars.

Wouldn’t you have done the same thing if you’d literally passed the exact same psychological and physiological Nasa procedures as the male astronauts, but still been denied the opportunity?

Some of these women were even better pilots than their male equivalents, but  their testing was conducted using private funds and in secret, without Nasa’s approval.

Ultimately, when Nasa found out what was going on, they refused to extend the project, and the dreams of these women were shattered.

The outcome of that decision has been felt ever since.

While it took another 20 years for a woman to finally get to space, it’s evident the effect this gender disparity presented to the greater world lasted for decades.

During the early-nineties, two close acquaintances of mine (both male) went to Space Camp in Orlando Florida, not far from Cape Canaveral.

Yes, how adorable.

Each has commented numerous times on the fact that the ratio of boys to girls in attendance sat at roughly 70/30 – numbers I’m sure took a long time to shift.

While theirs is a genralised statement , it’s still a lived experience based on the memory of two young boys, who at the time, were witnessing first hand the fallout of girls believing they weren’t meant for space becasue they were brainwashed into thinking it was a male-only environment.

There are so many films and television shows based around the space programs, and we only ever see men represented in the leading roles.

The men of The Right Stuff.

There’s a reason for this.

But just like Hidden Figures did two years ago, Mercury 13, aims to give us some insight into just how tough it was for women to try and infiltrate the boys club.

It’s important that we highlight just how significant the inequality surrounding women and their roles were during these times, and that we now do what we can to uncover the stories of the girls who wanted to change the world but were denied the opportunity to even try.