Lyceum & Book Club - Week 34 - Early Space Program - Part One
- Aug 15, 2022
- 8 min read
Updated: Dec 24, 2022
Lecture: How systemic bias works / points of inflection
Institutional Dominance
Let’s talk about institutionalized dominance.
Institutionalized dominance happens when the dominant sector of a population creates a system in which the established rules (accepted by all sectors) of the system perpetuate the status quo of who is in the power seat that gets to ultimately make the decisions of who gets to enjoy a greater portion of the resource pie and the privileges and power that goes with that greater portion of the resource pie. And it becomes self perpetuating.
If this system only benefits the small minority at the top of the pyramid, why would the rest of the dominant population go along with it? One, because once it has become entrenched, it is part of the accepted structure that holds everything up/ part of the mythology on how the machine that keeps us alive works - so no one can imagine it operating any other way - and this myth is accepted even by those who are in a persecuted minority on the bottom of that pyramid, so how can you expect those who belong to the dominant population to dare to question the very structural make up of the system? Two, those who do belong to the dominant population still get more privileges and material benefits than those in the out group, solely by the fact they belong to the dominant population - they are not giving up that small privilege card they have in their hand with no assurance they will not slide further down the power hierarchy. And finally, even those in the bottom tier who belong to the dominant population have the non-material benefit that says they are naturally superior and belong with the Winners, even if the connection is tenuous and dubious. The fact that you, living in a shack on the edge of town, share a common relative with the king 10 generations back, doesn’t change a thing about your daily life and the king has no idea you exist and if he does, probably wishes you didn’t exist - but in your small world - it gives you a small measure of cache (even if only in your own mind) to be able to say, you are innately superior to everyone else.
This happens in all societies, all regions, all nations, all people’s, all groups - no one is immune to this tendency. It doesn’t matter what religion the dominant population follow, it doesn’t matter what gender the dominant population is, what race, ethnicity, sexual orientation. It does not matter what economic system is followed or what political system is used - the degree to which individuals and society as a whole accept and perpetuate institutionalized dominance is the degree to which the whole ship is stymied in its forward motion and the degree to which it becomes ossified and can not react to a changing environment and existential threats.
And while who is part of the dominant population is different in every society; with almost unanimous certainty, every society has been set up from the beginning, when physical dominance was the single factor that determined who got to dominant their fellow humans, males have always been within that inner circle of power to the exclusion of females.
Institutional dominance allows those in the upper levels to even maintain a liberal attitude in opposition to the established rules, as long as at a certain point of real change, the system kicks in and prevents any further trespasses past that point. A smart leader of any dominant population knows just how much flexibility maintaining such a system must have to be sustainable. A good example is the Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran who was a master at manipulation of populations. Under his watch, oppositional newspapers flourished; up to a certain point, academic freedom and criticism was allowed to exist, but not gain momentum. As soon as you start with an absolute dominance of the whole population with no room allowed to vent, you create a united opposition that requires ever greater levels of suppression.
Life changes, crises happen in which the participation of groups who are normally kept on the bottom tiers are required if success is to be met and elevation of those groups to relative equality is given in order to achieve those goals. And once a group is given freedom outside a constrained existence inside a closed box, rarely does that population willingly go back into that constrained environment.
Even in areas, like the military or economics, in which the myth of innate weakness of the targeted population as the reason for their suppression must be blown up in order to meet the immediate crisis. In every situation in which a group faces an existential threat to their existence and requires every abled body person participating, you will find non-dominant populations on the front lines fighting alongside the dominant population, and the dominant population accepts and treats those fellow fighters from the non-dominant population as equals. Until the threat is over and the push is to re-establish the institutionalized dominance that existed before the crisis arose.
And that leads us to our focus today. We want to take one sector of the non-dominant population (women, specifically white women as belonging to that top tier by all factors but gender) in the U.S. and look at it in regard to the space program and its related areas that feed into the program. We want to examine the lack of inclusion of women, in both numbers and decision making positions of power within those agencies that govern the space program and how this came about in spite of the fact that when the entrenched male dominance of the system was disrupted by the situational need of WW2, there was an opportunity to make the transition to a more inclusive society that would have been accepted by the general population.
The space program developed after WW2 came out of a military need and for a long time to a great extent was, and still is, structured from a military perspective than a scientific one.
And the military, which throughout history has often been the entry ticket to achieving a rise in the power hierarchy, has always been, except in times of crisis, structured to benefit the dominant population via the myth of physical strength as the gatekeeper requirement that keeps women locked out of that pathway to equality and power.
After WW2, in which women were needed in order for the military to achieve its objectives, you found an enthusiastic portion of women who wanted to continue not only on a military path, but also an aviation and space exploration path. And they were barred from the military path which automatically barred them from participation in profitable commercial aviation and the space program. Institutionalized dominance - the system barred them. The goalposts moving every time women overcome any barrier that is said to be the reason (and not the sexism/ misogynous prejudices of the men in charge) they were not allowed entry.
But here was the problem for the space program (and the military). They know they will need women in the space program at some point in the future if there is ever long distance travel in space. Not because of women’s added perspective or talent / skills / intellectual contributions, but solely because of the assumption that you must satisfy the sexual urges of men if you want them to volunteer to achieve your goals. And so, the space program has always assumed that someday they will need women to volunteer for space duty - as sex objects upon which the men who are traveling to distant planets, can relieve their sexual needs. They would like to be able to avoid this possibility at all costs, even to the point that this hidebound institution at one point entertained the idea of having an all male homosexual space team. But in the end, they know they will need to have women want to join a dangerous difficult task of space travel and will need to entice them at the prospect of such a venture…… just not yet.
It’s kinda like a parent who wants to ensure their child someday helps with the cooking, but right now it is inconvenient to have their presence in the kitchen. They can’t outright forbid them and risk turning them off completely, but they don’t want to open a door that might lead to a situation they do not desire at the moment. So they do little gestures of the child participating - the child can set the table and take dishes out to the table. They can wash the dishes. The child can even have the authority to call everyone to the table. Sometimes, (maybe during vacations) they can even bake cookies under strict conditions that discourage anything beyond that point. And always telling the child that want them in the kitchen, but its just not set up physically for more than one person to work in right now. It’s not the parent - its the design of the kitchen that is at fault. As soon as we can afford to renovate the kitchen, the parent will be thrilled to teach the child how to cook, as soon as Christmas is over, as soon as the parent doesn’t have to work so many hours, and so on.
The problem for the parent in our illustration and for the military and space program is that points of inflection must be acted upon when they occur or the natural momentum for change that they represent will be lost. The child or group that you need to achieve your future objectives will find some other avenue or sponsor than you who will fulfill their needs. When you suddenly find you need fighter pilots or commercial air pilots or astronauts, that whole sector you expected to suddenly count on, has found an alternate path to leadership and fulfillment outside the military and space program and has no interest in what you are offering.
So let us take a closer look at where women aviators were at the end of WW2 when their interest and enthusiasm in the military and flying (and could have been the natural opening of the space program to include women from the beginning) was at an all time high.
We will focus on one event - the 1947 All Woman Air Show, held in Tampa,Fl, that was organized in response to women being barred from participating in any form in the All-American Air Maneuvers of Jan.1947 in Miami.
from wiki:
Following World War II, the annual All-American Air Maneuvers aviation event resumed in 1946 at Coast Guard Air Station Miami. The next year, women fliers were told they couldn't participate; so the women of the Florida Ninety-Nines organized their own air show at Tampa, Florida's Peter O. Knight Airport. The world's first All-Woman Air Show, held March 15–16, 1947. It included a transcontinental air race from Palm Springs, California to Tampa.
Proceeds were used to help young women obtain advanced aviation training through the Amelia Earhart Scholarship Fund. The event raised awareness of women in aviation and "prompted air derbies and air marking parties throughout the U.S. The tradition of annual women's air races was begun." (Not only did they)help to elevate women in the male-dominated world of aviation and getting women fliers back into the men's All-American Air Maneuvers the next year, in large part due to the success of the 1947 All-Woman Air Show.
In 1948, the 2nd Annual All-Woman Air Show (was) held June 4–6 at the Amelia Earhart Field in Miami, along with another transcontinental air race for female pilots, again raising money for the women's scholarship fund. The festivities culminated with the women fliers taking off from Key West, Florida for Havana, Cuba, 90 miles away, to continue their public relations efforts of promoting women in aviation.
Many of the participants came from the ranks of former WASPs - the military. But women in flying started long before they were useful to the military and allowed entry to overcome the current crisis the military were in. So let us first look at some of those early female pilots.
Comments