Amelia Earhart was an inspiration to women everywhere. In a world where men dominated operating machinery, Amelia was not afraid to demand to be included too! This was pre-WWII, and therefore it was almost unheard of for women to be interested in working on planes flying planes. Why would they? Aren’t they meant to be at home feeding children and cleaning the house? Earhart said no to these misogynistic questions, boarded her little Lockheed Vega 5B aircraft, and flew across the Atlantic to a farm in Culmore, Ireland, where a confused farmer asked her “Have you flown far?” to which she replied “from America”. This farm is now the site of a small museum dedicated to Earhart’s journey. After Earhart’s disappearance many theories were brewed up of where she disappeared too. One of these theories that aired on the National Geographic Channel is that she is still alive, moved to New Jersey and changed her name!
From 1960 till 1980 the amount of women pilots went from 4,218 to 26,896 pilots. when it comes to comparing the progress of commercial women pilots to other professions that are male dominated, the progress is small. Interestingly, the percentage of commercial women pilots is half of the percentage of female boat captains and operators (8.2%), a quarter of the percentage of female police officers (15%), and about one eighth of the percentage of female doctors (31.8%).
[via]