Wednesday, April 25, 2007

First Woman in Space

Was the Soviet Space Program a milestone for feminism or an esoteric footnote in history to be gawked at by academics?


By: Vanessa Uy


In today’s world where feminism is a living / breathing ideology, Why is it that virtually no one knows who is Valentina Tereshkova. Most feminists worth their salt within a stone’s throw from me don’t even know her. Even more surprising is that a majority of those who knew her exploits are men over 32. Isn’t that weird? She started working as a mill hand in Soviet Russia. Then probably served the mandatory required military service, which is quite common in the former Soviet Union. During her military service, Valentina Tereshkova became a skilled skydiver which didn’t go unnoticed by the powers- that- be in the Soviet Space Program. On June 1963, the then 26- year- old Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space almost 20 years ahead of the next woman astronaut, an American named Sally Ryde. Valentina Tereshkova made 48 orbits in the Vostok VI spacecraft. Later she became the bride of cosmonaut Andrian Nikolayev.

In the beginning of the 20th Century, almost yesterday in terms of advancement of women’s causes, feminists in England are brandishing their allegiance to Marxist-Leninist Socialism in the hope of advancing their cause. Isn’t Valentina Tereshkova the proof of Socialism’s amicability with feminism or is she just a casualty of the Catholic Church’s exercise of “Posse Comitatus” on Left-leaning views?

No comments: