In April, Christina Koch became the first woman to travel to the Moon, flying around its far side aboard Artemis II. Two months later, NASA named the crew for the next mission, Artemis III, and not one of them is a woman, despite the fact that women make up roughly 40% of the astronaut corps.
One giant step for womankind… and then an unexpected drop-off.
This is the reality of the women’s leadership labyrinth.
Nearly 20 years ago, Alice Eagly and Linda Carli gave that analogy its name. The path to women’s leadership, they argued, is no longer a glass ceiling, but a labyrinth that is navigable, yet full of turns, dead ends, and systemic challenges from discrimination to childcare. NASA just seemingly walked women as an entire gender into another unexpected turn.
But here is what I’ve came to know after spending a career in aerospace and completing my doctoral research on the women who have reached the top of the most extreme profession on Earth: the labyrinth is real, and while we must champion systemic change, waiting for the system to evolve is a losing strategy. The path through the leadership labyrinth is built from countless small, deliberate acts that happen in community.
