Would You Have Flown With Her?

The intrepid woman that was Amelia, ran out of time

One of the funniest stories my daughter and I share was when we saw a film about Amelia Earhart.

Our daughter (who will remain anonymous) and I live in different cities so at that time we shared thoughts by telephone.

The night after she went to the movie, she called in a state, as they say. Without preface, she burst out, “She died?”

I laughed but then realized she was serious. One of those tragicomic moments. Thankfully, years later, we both think it was funny.

All of us die, but Amelia Earhart’s death was especially poignant. On the last leg of her historic flight around the globe, she disappeared over the Pacific.

Since then, aviation experts and explorers have offered several explanations of the tragic end of her life.

Probably the most reasonable is, she and her navigator, Fred Noonan, unable to locate Howland Island, ran out of fuel and crashed into the ocean.

World War II changed many things including women’s aviation

It will come as no shock, the United States military was (is?)systemically misogynistic. In the build-up to World War II, women did stuff, but only at home in the factories. (Remember Rosie the Riveter?)

Women were also the foundation of care for the wounded. Without the combat nurses, many more would have died.

But to pilot a plane? In combat? Unheard of.

Jaqueline Cochran, in 1938 was considered the best woman pilot in the US. But, if you can believe it, only learned to fly while working as a hairdresser in the salon at Saks Fifth Ave.

(I point that out because, in Women’s History Month, we tend to illustrate celebrities. We need to remember also the millions and millions of unsung females who make our lives what they are.)

In September of 1939, Cochran wrote a letter to First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt with a proposal to start a women’s flying division of the Army Air Forces.

As a result, the Women’s Auxilliary Ferrying Squadron was formed and flew missions under the Air Transport Command. The WAFS later merged with Cochran-trained Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPS).

Women pilots may be at the controls of your flight

Women in Aviation International reports, in 2020 there were 58,541 licensed female pilots, almost 8,000 of whom were commercial.

Meanwhile, Cochran had become the first woman to break the sound barrier in an F-86 jet, Jeannie Leavitt flew an F-15 as the first woman combat pilot, and Sally Ride crewed the Challenger as a mission specialist, the first US woman in space.

Women in aviation have a long history. All around the globe, women have flown. Progress opened for females in aviation.

Women’s History Month should, once again, open our eyes

The United States, not surprisingly, dragged its feet. Russia’s Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space 20 years ahead of Sally Ride.

Not unlike other areas of life in the US, women also face gender-unique social pressures, double standards, and systemic barriers that deter their entrance into aviation.

As Kimberly Perkins writes in Seattle Business:

We need men to stop justifying the behavior of their sexist colleagues and start defending the disenfranchised. At the very least, instead of being shocked, be outraged.

Non-other than John Glenn voted against admitting women into the astronaut program of NASA. Scott Carpenter, also opposed, even went as far as making a crude comment about women on space flights.

Women’s History Month makes sense. Women’s place in our world, however, needs to be a constant awareness.

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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.

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