Since beginning
of science, men always had been looking the way to copy how birds flight into
the skies, from Leonardo (1480) to Wright brothers (1903), people, what constantly worked on machines
capable to mock the process to move in the air always were men, actually if we looked in the past, the most of scientist were men....
That is the part of history that we know but it could be a little bit different, on 1788 Jeanne Labrosse became the first woman to fly solo in a balloon, since that moment a lot of woman contribute to develop the aviation as we know it, on December 17th from 1903 when the wright designed his first model of an airplane was his sister Katherine whom help him to desig, promote y finance their project.
Throughout history exist many histories about how woman contribute on aviation develop, but also exist a bound between how people notice how aviation is and the real concept on modern aviation, since beginnings people on aviation environment reinforce the paper from man aviators in the develop from industry meanwhile the role from woman was on certain cases overshadowed in comparison with men role.
Through stereotypes and success histories
Aviation was a new profession in that era, with no male or female pilots in this moment, was a big opportunity to woman to demonstrate what they can do, as Amelia Earhart said in those years "There´s no reason why woman can´t hold any position in aviation, providing she can overcome prejudice and show ability".
For many of those, fligh was an unbelievable possibility to pave the way to a new era in which gender equality. Woman could demonstrate their abilities and be evaluated by their own merits, but it had a big risk for each brave people that risked their lives to demonstrate it, because as i said previously, aviation at this moment was growing up, thats mean no security devices or preventive actions existed to mitigate all kind´s of dangers involved in flight.
Probably aviation has been biggest amounts of successful stories about the role of women in aviation but in my opinion the most interesting and exciting was the Amelia´s, who was one of the most important pilots in that era, she was born on 1897 in Atchison, Kansas and was the first woman to cross the Atlantique ocean by airplane as pilot from Canada to Ireland, her main achievements were:
First woman to flight over atlantic ocean - 1932.
First woman to flight from California to Hawaii - 1935
Ninety-Nines foundation
Altitude record for women at 14,000 feet (4,267 meters)
The legacy
Amelia fought for woman rights on aviation, for that reason she helps to found the organization "Ninety-Nines" that promote the inclusion and help to improve the professional development of each of its members, it name came from the ninety nine woman that was founding the organization and which objective still alive and represent a symbol from female empowerment, Its main objectives are:
Promote participation for woman in aviation (Piloting and other related fields)
Mentoring and support to female aviators in their careers
Offering educational programs and opportunities to improve aviation safety.
Today the organization still active and are a symbol to each woman.
Woman in modern aviation
From first flight of commercial aviation the woman participation had been decreases due to the US men´s union pressure whose allegate was that woman can not flight during bad weather, they also consider that woman can not fly during 9 day because of their menstrual period, at this moment the only woman certificated for flight on commercial flights was Helen Richey, who was expelled from aviation, since that moment to 1973 any woman has participated on commercial flights.
Since that moment a bound was imposted to woman to participate in positions related with fligh an airplane and condemned to fly only as a flight attendant wich are the hire in the first times to serve passengers, at this time another stereotype was born "woman as a service figure on flights", since that moment companies demanded to woman a complete list of requirements, for instance:
Stewardesses had to be young, single, and retire by age 30.
Uniforms were stylish and emphasized femininity, often including heels, gloves, and hats.
Sexist marketing practices advertised beautiful women to attract customers.
Today, woman in aviation represents a differentiation factor in which woman participate actively since engineer to investigation, few years ago, watch a
woman fixin an airplane could be unbelievable because that kinds of jobs was consider as a man job due to people has the misconception to it is a dirty job or just because people consider woman as weaker than man, but today they demonstrate that woman could do the job as well as man for that reason aviation companies develop strategies to include more women in the industry.
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