In 1983 every American woman who'd ever been told that she wasn't good at science, technology, engineering, or math cheered as Sally Ride broke the astronautical glass ceiling with her journey aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger. Ride, who died on Monday at the age of 61 after a 17-month battle with pancreatic cancer, will forever be known as the first American woman in space. That's more notable than what most of us will ever accomplish in our lives, but Ride's legacy extends beyond what she achieved as an astronaut.
Ride surely faced countless obstacles along the way to that shuttle because of her gender. Nearly 30 years after her historic trip into space, girls are still too often discouraged from studying STEM and only 25 percent of jobs
