Happy International Women’s Day. I am so thankful to women near and far for inspiring, moving, entertaining, awakening, teaching, challenging, and opening my eyes ever wider, with your courage, wisdom, tenacity and fierce intelligence.

I wanted to share a sprinkling of recent great reads:

Hot of the presses here in Scotland today: Nasty Women: A collection of essays, interviews and accounts on what it is to be a woman in the 21st century. From working class experience to racial divides in Trump’s America, being a child of immigrants, to sexual assault, Brexit, pregnancy, contraception, identity, family, finding a voice online, role models and more.

‘An essential window into many of the hazard-strewn worlds younger women are living in right now.’
– said Margaret bloody Atwood, no less!

Carly Findlay: Inspiration and objectification of people with disability – a resource for teachers and parents

Kira Cochrane: Life Lessons From Extraordinary Women

Mara Glatzel: Tending To My Future Self

Jac McNeil: How white privilege shows up in our marketing

Karen Walrond: Being Photographed By Mario Testino

Orangette: March 8

From the Instagrams: Cristi Smith-Jones and her 5 year old daughter recreated portraits of 28 iconic women of color to celebrate Black History month.

Day 18. Katherine Johnson, “The Human Computer,” is a mathematician and physicist, known as a pioneer for black women in the STEM fields. Katherine was born in 1918, in West Virginia, and proved to be extremely gifted with numbers at an early age, finishing 8th grade at the age of 10. In her hometown, black students were not given the opportunity to go to high school, so her parents moved the family to Institute, West Virginia, where she was able to graduate at just 14 years old. She then attended West Virginia State College, a historically black college, where she took every math class offered, even having courses added just for her. She graduated summa cum laude, with degrees in math and French, at only 18. She then began teaching at a black public school. In 1939, Katherine was chosen, as the first black woman, to integrate the graduate school at West Virginia University. She left after one term to start a family with her husband, having 3 children. Katherine decided to pursue a career as a research mathematician, first teaching, then later was hired by the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA, which would later become NASA.) She was quickly transferred to the flight research division, staffed by white male engineers, and from 1953-58 she worked as a “computer,” achieving success. During this time she dealt with such issues as workplace segregation and the death of her husband, though she would go on to remarry. From 1958, when NACA reformed as NASA, until her retirement in 1986, Katherine worked as an aerospace technologist. She calculated the trajectory of the space flight of Alan Shepard, the first American in space; calculated the launch window for his Mercury mission; was used to verify the calculations by early electronic computers, being asked for by name to verify them by John Glenn, before his orbit around Earth; performed calculations for the Apollo 11 moon landing; and helped with contingency procedures that led to the safe return of the crew of the Apollo 13 mission. She helped develop NASA’S Space Shuttle program, and Earth Resources Satellite. Katherine Johnson coauthored 26 scientific papers; holds a number [cont…]

A post shared by Cristi Jones (@mskittifatale) on Feb 18, 2017 at 9:44am PST

Also out today, a completely free and beautiful ebook called Voices Rising. Brought together by Sas Petherick and featuring a rich array of writers, it contains almost 100 pages of stories, poetry, art and prayers. “The heartfelt intention behind this collection, is to inspire you to believe in, and use your voice.”

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