Ambassador Samantha Power

I was scrolling through my twitter feed on Monday when I came across these two tweets from United States Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power.

The tweets caught my eye for a couple of reasons. I had no idea how many women served as their nation's delegate to the United Nations! Women from across the globe, including Nigeria, Kiribati, the Central African Republic, Pakistan, Oman, the Czech Republic, Argentina, Belize, Singapore, Jordan, and Australia, comprise the 40 women who represent their countries.  

Ambassador Power has long been an advocate for women's rights globally. I rely heavily on the networks of women I have in my life, and think it's awesome that Samantha Power a) clearly values her colleagues in the UN and b) is using the United States' role as a leader within the UN to bring them together.

How lucky is her daughter to get to share in these incredible experiences?!

Ambassador Power's formal title is Permanent Representative of the United States of America to the United Nations, with the rank and status of Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, and Representative of the United States of America in the Security Council of the United Nations. She's been our representative in the UN since 2013, and before that worked for the National Security Council from 2009-2013.

She spent several years as a journalist before attending Harvard Law school where a paper she wrote served as a basis for A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide, which won a Pulitzer Prize. Ambassador Power was a Professor at the Kennedy School of Government and the Founding director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the Kennedy School. This is all incredibly impressive, especially since Ambassador Power is only 45. I admire her tireless commitment to promoting women's rights and LGBT rights. 

Check out her official State Department bio here.

Gloria Steinem interviews Sally Ride

March is Women's History Month, and while we're focused on contemporary women here at Girls Like You and Me, we love learning about women's work and contributions. Last week I visited the Kennedy Space Center in Florida as part of the NASA Social program to view the launch of an Atlas V rocket and Cygnus spacecraft bound for the International Space Station. I had never seen a launch before. It was awe-inspiring! 

I have a ton of photographs to sift through, and lots to share about the cool work that NASA is doing. You can check out some of my photos on our Instagram. I met quite a few women doing really cool work with rockets, robotics, and NASA's upcoming manned flight program, SLS. I got to learn about some of the work that is going toward SLS.

In the meantime, I wanted to share this interview between Gloria Steinem and Sally Ride from 1983. Sally Ride is most famous for being the first American woman in space, but did you know that she was (and still is!) the youngest American astronaut? She was just 32 the first time she went into space in 1983. Ride was a mission specialist on two missions. Unlike the first astronauts, who started off as fighter pilots, the shuttle program (and missions to the ISS) include experts in a variety of scientific disciplines as mission specialists. Sally Ride was a physicist who helped develop Canadarm, the space shuttle's robotic arm.

Sally Ride interviewed in 1983 by Gloria Steinem. The beautifully animated video is from Blank on Blank's special series The Experimenters.

Even though this interview is more than 30 years old, I think it still sounds fresh and timely. Many women have become astronauts since then, and the new class of astronauts for SLS is comprised of 4 women and 4 men.  Sally Ride talks about her love of science, not realizing she wanted to be an astronaut until the opportunity presented itself, but jumping at the chance when it did, and the aspect of the becoming an astronaut that most pulled her out of her comfort zone- it was the media attention! 

You can read more from the interview, and more about Sally Ride's story here.