About the Movie

Based on a true story, Hidden Figures, a movie set in the 1960s, follows female African American mathematicians and their important roles in the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. During this time, the United States is racing against Russia to launch an American astronaut into orbit and bring him back home safely. The film focuses…

Character: Katherine Goble Johnson

As an African American woman, Johnson experiences differing layers of discrimination and marginalization. From a notably early age she showed great mathematical abilities. More specifically, the very first scene of the movie shows a sixth grade Johnson solving complex math problems in a high school classroom, illustrating exactly how great her skills are. These talents…

The Cycle Between Culture and Science

Racial and gender expectations and values are ingrained in our society. Western culture has historically asserted that the white male is a superior being in comparison to other races and sexes. These ideologies have affected a multitude of institutions, including the scientific field. Science tends to be taught as and thought of as objective, however,…

Katherine Johnson Scenes: Racially based biases

Race based biases have been a long standing, critical part of Western culture. The ideals that discriminate against African Americans influenced scientific research and vice versa. As touched on by Londa Schiebinger in “Nature’s Body”, in early studies on the relationship between apes and humans, it was believed that the course of evolution went from…

Katherine Johnson Scenes: Gender based stereotypes

Along with racial discrimination, Johnson experiences discrimination based on her gender. As explored in chapter one of Susan Basow’s “Gender Stereotypes and Roles”, masculinity is associated with competency, assertiveness, and being achievement-oriented, whereas femininity is associated with expressiveness, nurturance, and submissiveness. As with racial biases, gender biases are also ingrained in our culture, with men…

Epilogue

Katherine G. Johnson: Despite all of the struggles she went through, Johnson was able to complete calculations for NASA’s Apollo II mission to the moon and the Space Shuttle. It is shared in the epilogue that she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama in 2015, and that a computational building was…

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