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All three women in the film, had to run to their colored women's bathroom across the campus in obligatory heels and run back because they were needed.

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"In 2017 America, black women earn 64 cents on every dollar white men make, Hispanic women earn 54 cents, and white women make 80 cents. The pay gap was front and center this weekend as millions of women marched around the globe in support of women’s rights." (Our Economy, Poff, 2017)

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It's set to be one of the biggest films this year, but from the pay gap to unequal education Hidden Figures isn't as historical as you might think

Big hair, big personalities, and big ideas - Hidden Figures is out in the US and it's made a splash. The film takes us back to the 1960s and the birth of NASA. But it's so much more than just a feel-good history film.

It's a great story. Three African-American 'computers' - as in, people who do math by hand, not the machines - work for the NASA space program when racial segregation in the American South is still common. They can't use the same bathroom, or even drink from the same coffee pot as their colleagues, yet through their talent and determination, they manage to break down racial barriers and their work plays a big role in the Space Race.

Taraji P. Henderson, Octavia Spencer, and Janelle Monae breathe life into three characters that had been pretty much forgotten by history. The story is straight feel-good - progress in the personal and professional lives of three women: Katherine Goble, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson. It will give you all the feels - I laughed, I cried, I even cheered out loud.

The film's success, and the fact that these women's stories are finally being told might seem like progress, but have we really come as far as we think?

The story of the pearls

All three women are part of the all black, female, West Computing Group at NASA's Langley research center. Katherine Goble, the main character is moved to an all white, overwhelmingly male, Space Task Group to check all their calculations for rocket trajectories. When she is reassigned she's told she can no longer wear jewelry - just a simple string of pearls. As a single mother of three Katherine can afford no such thing, so she simply goes without.

For Katherine, the string of pearls becomes a symbol of her difference from the other people in the team. What economists call 'signaling' - having the right clothing (like a string of pearls) - can still be a real barrier in the workplace, especially for women on a low-income like Katherine. Without the right clothing, or hair, you may not get the job.

But, having the 'right' image at work isn't just a question of money - it's about gender and beauty norms as well. Think about bans on black hairstyles or women being told to wear heels at work.

Access to books

All of the people working as computers, black and white, are worried they may be out of a job when NASA acquires an actual computer, an IBM, that can do calculations faster than they can think. Dorothy Vaughan wants to protect her career by learning to program the new machine. The black library has no books on the subject, so, she has to go to the white library for information - and gets kicked out

While all public libraries in America are obviously desegregated now, access to education is still radically unequal. Students of color are much more likely to attend schools with fewer resources, including books, and are much more likely to drop out. Less education means lower paying jobs, lower paying jobs means poor neighborhoods, poor neighborhoods mean poor schools, and poor schools means the cycle starts all over again with their children.

The childcare conundrum

All of the women in Hidden Figures are mothers, but this becomes a particular problem for Mary Jackson. Mary had been working for the engineering group designing the astronaut's capsule. She is encouraged by her boss to apply for NASA's engineering program because of her contributions to the design work. When she does apply she is informed that NASA has a new policy requiring graduate level night classes.

Luckily, her husband can watch the children at night, but childcare is a never ending problem for women, who still bear the brunt of that responsibility. Paid childcare is expensive too - it is not uncommon for families to spend between 10% and 25% of their total household income on childcare. But having someone watch the children is a necessity for parents who work. Often poor parents, and especially mothers, find themselves in a catch-22: working requires childcare, but childcare is more than they make working.

Mind the pay gap

It's only discussed briefly in the movie, but it's clear that the women in Hidden Figures are making less than their white counterparts. In 2017 America, black women earn 64 cents on every dollar white men make, Hispanic women earn 54 cents, and white women make 80 cents. The pay gap was front and center this weekend as millions of women marched around the globe in support of women's rights.

So what's the verdict?

All of the characters in Hidden Figures overcome the challenges in their lives through personal sacrifice, perseverance, and community support. The movie only hints at the civil rights movement that's going on at the same time as these women's personal struggles, and it does take some poetic liberties with the sequence of events.

It's been a hit with critics and at the box office, taking $2.8m in its first weekend, and getting Oscar nominations in the Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Supporting Actress categories. It might not follow history exactly, but that allows it to have the feel-good feeling of the upbeat biopic we all like to watch. Although to be fair, we'd watch an economics lecture if it had Octavia Spencer in it anyway, right?

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It's set to be one of the biggest films this year, but from the pay gap to unequal education Hidden Figures isn't as historical as you might think Big hair, big personalities, and big ideas - Hidden Figures is out in the US and it's made a splash.

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This article further explains how the main character of the film have to face disproportionate challenges to have a job at NASA. It speaks on the white female supervisor of one of the characters and how by staying neutral to an injustice she stands on the side of those of inequality. As Davis, states "when women who are at the bottom, trans women, muslim women, etc. when people who have suffered begin to rise, we all rise with them..." The NASA needed these black women mathematicians in order to save lives of astronauts. Yet they were treated as second class citizens that had to work in hostile environments to get their job done.

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For me, one of the most powerful moments of came near the end: the protagonist, Katherine Johnson (Taraji Henson), an incredible mathematician, has just checked through some vital calculations under immense pressure. Her accuracy is a matter of life or death for astronaut John Glenn (Glen Powell), about to be blown into space. She runs to the control room from the segregated West Campus and, panting, relinquishes her work into the hands of a white man-and the door closes on her. Hidden Figures illustrates how equality benefits everyone, with NASA's ambitious goals making the truth unavoidable: that equal opportunity is necessary to find the best person for the job, and that it increases productivity and innovation.

However, despite NASA's need for the skills and intelligence of the three central characters-historical figures Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer) and Mary Jackson (Janelle Monae), all black women-we are shown again and again their work accepted and appropriated without reward or recognition. Mathematician Paul Stafford (Jim Parsons) blocks Katherine from putting her name on their joint projects while, despite Dorothy's supervisory work being vital to the efficiency of her team, she is denied the title or pay of a supervisor.

The film demands audiences to confront flaws in their own thinking, rather than feel detached. Racist and sexist characters abound, but are understandable rather than demonised, contextualised within an oppressive system. While we understand his ambition, systemic inequality facilitates Paul exploiting his privilege to obtain unfair career advantages: here, competition and inequality form a toxic combination.

Vitally for a film about the black female experience, it pulls no punches in demonstrating the importance of an intersectional approach to examining inequality. The white women are hyperaware of the fragility and novelty of their own place within NASA, and understandably but destructively neglect to use what privilege they have to raise up the black women around them. This is most clearly explored through the relationship between Dorothy and her manager Vivian Mitchell (Kirsten Dunst), with the latter clearly apathetic about Dorothy's application for a supervisory role, and about black women at NASA in general, whose careers she callously admits will be ruined by the installation of a mechanical computer.

When Vivian tries to colour her wilful apathy as harmless, claiming, "I have nothing against y'all." Dorothy's response, "I know you believe that," elegantly sums up the truth of the matter: by remaining neutral in a situation of injustice, Vivian has chosen the side of the oppressor, and it is only her racial biases that have enabled her to tolerate this blatant unfairness so comfortably. Her worldview is jarred by Dorothy's insistence that she will only accept a promotion if she can protect the black women she supervises. We also watch the black men learn to raise up and support the women in their lives. Jim must respect Katherine as a mathematician and mother before she will accept his proposal, and Mary's previously disparaging husband comes to support her career and education, presenting her with mechanical pencils before her first class at a white evening school.

The impact of apparently mundane discrimination plays out beautifully during sequences of Katherine running for half a mile in the obligatory heels to the nearest black women's bathroom, often mixed into montages of her team hard at work. Linking these to Pharrell Williams' song 'Runnin,' highlights the needless repetition to which she is subject and the ridiculous amount of time consumed by such a banal task. Crucially, it is because of her reduction in productivity and own impassioned arguments that the bathroom is de-segregated. It is comically satisfying when we see a white man sent running this same half mile to fetch Katherine, when her skills are needed. Watching them run back together, we hope at least this one man may question these unnecessary obstructions. But they reach the door, he goes through without her, and it slams in her face.

The three central characters are warm, strong and exceptionally hardworking, dancing, joking and laughing together despite terrible injustice. Mary is particularly entertaining, seizing the chance for a police escort to work and declaring, "Three negro women are chasing a white police officer down a highway in 1961. That is a God-ordained miracle." We cannot help but admire them, but are kept constantly aware that how hard they have to work is disproportionate to what they are allowed to achieve. They can receive the education they need only by pursuing ground-breaking court rulings, or stealing books from the white library, children in tow. When a room full of white men, plus Katherine, are told they are going to be working overtime for no extra pay, we know that the burden will not fall evenly, nor is ordinary pay remotely the same for her as for them.

Hidden Figures allows us to root for these women's struggle and rejoice in their triumphs, while never letting us forget how hard-won those were, or feel comfortably separate from the problems they face.

Thank you!

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Intersectional feminism triumphs in 'Hidden Figures' - Cherwell

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For me, one of the most powerful moments of came near the end: the protagonist, Katherine Johnson (Taraji Henson), an incredible mathematician, has just checked through some vital calculations under immense pressure. Her accuracy is a matter of life or death for astronaut John Glenn (Glen Powell), about to be blown into space.

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This article defines "intersectional feminism". Intersectional means there are various forms of inequality that come together and exasperate each other. Feminism serves as a catalyst for digger deeper into social, political and economic problems that are faced by all those who are minorities in society.

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From the disparate impacts of the COVID-19 crisis in communities around the globe to international protests against racism and discrimination, current events have shown that we are far from achieving equality. Trying to interpret and battle a multitude of injustices right now may feel overwhelming. How do we take on all these issues, and why should we? Intersectional feminism offers a lens through which we can better understand one another and strive towards a more just future for all.

Kimberlé Crenshaw, an American law professor who coined the term in 1989 explained Intersectional feminism as, "a prism for seeing the way in which various forms of inequality often operate together and exacerbate each other," in a recent interview with Time.

"All inequality is not created equal," she says. An intersectional approach shows the way that people's social identities can overlap, creating compounding experiences of discrimination.

"We tend to talk about race inequality as separate from inequality based on gender, class, sexuality or immigrant status. What's often missing is how some people are subject to all of these, and the experience is not just the sum of its parts," Crenshaw said.

Intersectional feminism centres the voices of those experiencing overlapping, concurrent forms of oppression in order to understand the depths of the inequalities and the relationships among them in any given context.

In Brazil, Valdecir Nascimento, a prominent women's rights activist, says that, "The dialogue to advance black women's rights should put them in the centre." For 40 years, Nascimento has been fighting for equal rights, "Black women from Brazil have never stopped fighting," she says, noting that black women were part of the feminist movement, the black movement, and other progressive movements. "We don't want others to speak for black feminists-neither white feminists nor black men. It's necessary for young black women to take on this fight. We are the solution in Brazil, not the problem," she says.

Using an intersectional lens also means recognizing the historical contexts surrounding an issue. Long histories of violence and systematic discrimination have created deep inequities that disadvantage some from the outset. These inequalities intersect with each other, for example, poverty, caste systems, racism and sexism, denying people their rights and equal opportunities. The impacts extend across generations.

Sonia Maribel Sontay Herrera is an indigenous woman and human rights defender from Guatemala where systematic discrimination against indigenous women has gone on for decades. Herrera has felt the consequences of these historical injustices since she was a girl.

At ten years old, she moved to a city to attend school, an opportunity most indigenous girls don't get, she says. However, Herrera was forced to abandon her native language, K'iche', and learn in Spanish, which she experienced as an unjust burden for an indigenous woman, since it was the language of the colonizer. After finishing her studies, as Herrera searched for professional work, she immediately encountered racism and sexist stereotypes. Since she was an indigenous woman, some said that they only had work for her in the home.

"They see us as domestic workers; when they see an indigenous woman, they assume that's all we can do," she explains, outlining the ways in which she experiences compounding forms of discrimination based on her identity.

"Those who are most impacted by gender-based violence, and by gender inequalities, are also the most impoverished and marginalized-black and brown women, indigenous women, women in rural areas, young girls, girls living with disabilities, trans youth and gender non-conforming youth," explains Majandra Rodriguez Acha, a youth leader and climate justice advocate from Lima, Peru. That marginalized communities are the most impacted by natural disasters and the devastating effects of climate change is not a mere coincidence, she stresses.

While issues ranging from discrimination based on gender identity to disparate environmental burdens may seem separate at first, intersectional feminism illuminates the connections between all fights for justice and liberation. It shows us that fighting for equality means not only turning the tables on gender injustices, but rooting out all forms of oppression. It serves as a framework through which to build inclusive, robust movements that work to solve overlapping forms of discrimination, simultaneously.

As concurrent, ongoing crises unfold across the globe today, we can use an intersectional feminist lens to understand their linkages and build back better.

Intersectional feminism matters today because:

The impacts of crises are not uniform.

Countries and communities around the world are facing multiple, compounding threats. While the sets of issues vary from place to place, they share the effect of magnifying pre-existing needs such as housing, food, education, care, employment, and protection.

Yet crises responses often fail to protect the most vulnerable. "If you are invisible in everyday life, your needs will not be thought of, let alone addressed, in a crisis situation," says Matcha Phorn-In, a lesbian feminist human-rights defender from Thailand who works to address the unique needs of LGBTIQ+ people, many of whom are indigenous, in crisis settings.

In the context of the coronavirus pandemic, the challenges of the virus have exacerbated long standing inequities and decades of discriminatory practices, leading to unequal trajectories.

Rather than fragmenting our fights, taking on board the experiences and challenges faced by different groups has a unifying effect; we are better able to understand the issues at hand and, therefore, find solutions that work for all.

Injustices must not go unnamed or unchallenged.

Looking through an intersectional feminist lens, we see how different communities are battling various, interconnected issues, all at once. Standing in solidarity with one another, questioning power structures, and speaking out against the root causes of inequalities are critical actions for building a future that leaves no one behind.

"If you see inequality as a "them" problem or "unfortunate other" problem, that is a problem," says Crenshaw. "We've got to be open to looking at all of the ways our systems reproduce these inequalities, and that includes the privileges as well as the harms."

A new 'normal' must be fair for all.

Because crises lay bare the structural inequalities that shape our lives, they are also moments of big resets - catalysts for rebuilding societies that offer justice and safety to everyone. They provide a chance to redefine 'normal' rather than return to business as usual.

Taking an intersectional feminist approach to the crises of today helps us seize the opportunity to build back better, stronger, resilient, and equal societies.

"COVID-19 has presented us... with a rare opportunity," says Silliniu Lina Chang, President of the Samoa Victim Support Group, who has been advocating for improved services for victims of domestic violence during the pandemic. "[It is] a time for all of us to reset. Think outside of our comfort zone and look beyond to the neighbour that is in need."

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explainer-intersectional feminism-what it means and why it matters

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Intersectional feminism: what it means and why it matters right now

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From the disparate impacts of the COVID-19 crisis in communities around the globe to international protests against racism and discrimination, current events have shown that we are far from achieving equality. Trying to interpret and battle a multitude of injustices right now may feel overwhelming.

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The police and state have continuously failed women of color in protecting them against the threats of society. Black women marginalized and are in particular risk of battering, rape, sexual harassment and stalking.

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Black Feminists Have Already Created a Blueprint for Abolition

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Black feminists and abolitionists teach us to demand more, even in a moment when it seems like we’re already fighting for so much.

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Angela Davis emphasizes the difference between feminism and revolution. A feminism that is the most represented in our society. Women of color and different minorities have brought attention to intersectionality of personalities and especially across social justice struggles.