Emily Calandrelli, an MIT engineer and TV host known as “Space Gal,” became the 100th woman in space last week.
In a video released by Blue Origin, Calandrelli — one of six space tourists to join the launch — looks out the window and gushes, “Oh my God, this is space.”
It’s a joyous, glorious moment in her life. Joyous and glorious to bear witness to, too.
Calandrelli called it a dream “decades in the making.”
But less than 24 hours after the video was posted, “hoards of men” online sexualized her emotional response. So many offensive comments were posted that Blue Origin took down its original video from the launch and replaced it with an edited one.
Calandrelli said she would not let online trolls ruin an experience that brought her “the most life-altering spectacular joy and awe.”
“I refuse to give much time to the small men on the internet. I feel experiences in my soul,” Calandrelli said in the post. “I will not apologize or feel weird about my reaction. It’s wholly mine, and I love it.”
Small men.
The world is filled with them these days.
Small, fragile, pathetic men who find strength and pleasure in denigrating the less fortunate, managing those who threaten their standing, rage against the economic and political rise of people who don’t look and sound like them, and cloak themselves in masculine tropes that only serve to signal their weakness and fear.
Can you imagine how loathsome, pathetic, and small you must be to bully an astronaut online because she is expressing joy?
I stand with Emily Calandrelli and every woman ever bullied or attacked online by these small, pathetic men who find comfort in their cowardly, anonymous attacks.
Their actions speak volumes about their self-worth.
They deserve to be ignored.
