A Girl Named Hillary

Being a Girl

Hillary worked just as hard at things she wasn’t naturally good at. She loved playing baseball but she had trouble hitting the ball due to her poor vision. Her father helped by spending hours pitching balls to his daughter until she learned to hit. In fact, Hugh included Hillary in all of the activities he did with his sons. This included fishing, shooting tin cans, and playing sports at the family’s cabin in Pennsylvania.

From a young age, Hillary was very ambitious. She always dreamed of becoming an astronaut. When Hillary was little, she and her brother used to pretend they were on missions to Mars—with Hillary at the controls. When she was fourteen, Hillary sent a letter to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). She wanted to find out how she could get into an astronaut training program. Unfortunately, they responded that she couldn’t because she was a girl. There were no women astronauts, and the government had no plans to change that. This came as a shock to Hillary, who had been raised to believe she could do anything she wanted to. And this wouldn’t be the last time she was treated unfairly just because she was a girl.