# The Fun of It/Chapter 11

WOMEN AND AVIATION
AT a woman’s club not long ago I was asked to talk about opportunities for women in commercial aviation. When I had finished painting the picture as best I could, the chairman remarked,
“Well, you certainly spoiled all my illusions. I thought girls could get any jobs they wanted in aviation by just asking for them.”
In any discussion of the subject one must first separate actual flying and some special positions from all other types of employment in aviation. Also it will be necessary to explain that “aviation” includes aircraft divisions of various allied indus­tries—such as precision instruments manufacture, for instance. Even with these widened boundaries the number of women employed in all is very small. Their proportion to men as given by a Labor Bureau survey is about one to forty-four. Some concerns do not employ women at all, and in those which do, they are often paid only about half as much as men.
Most of the feminine labor is used in the wing departments for sewing the fabric used in wing covering. There are, however, several women weld­ers and some inspectors in engine planes. The Naval Aircraft Factory in Philadelphia lists sev­eral women employees, and in the building of the dirigibles, the Shenandoah and the Akron, women were employed in the construction of the gas cells ​and in the application of gold beater’s skin to them. There are a few one-of-a-kind factory jobs, exist­ing perhaps because of an individual’s unusual abil­ity and because such a worker doesn’t interfere much with men’s employment.
As I have indicated before, the aircraft divisions of rubber, petroleum and instrument companies, to mention only a few of the ramifications of the in­dustry, utilize women in various capacities. Closely allied to aviation as a useful parasite, is the man­ufacturing of parachutes. There women almost exclusively cut and sew the fabric but men pack the finished products into covers.
Aside from factory work, there is clerical help to be considered. As in all industries, much of it is now designated definitely as “women’s work”, and so wherever filing, stenography, and similar tasks are necessary, women are found. The offices where they work are not always in town. Often they are on or adjacent to an airport or testing field where the staff can see something of actual flying activities.
Many people think of aviation as composed al­most entirely of pilots. They overlook the great non-flying group of workers who are necessary to build the planes, and keep them running. With increasing air travel on the part of the public, an army of traffic men, ticket sellers, accountants, and mechanics, all under trained heads, besides pilots, are needed to operate the country’s great network of airlines. In this group as well as in factories and ​executive offices, women play their part, but their part is almost without exception in the clerical end.
If I were to count only pilots, there would be not one woman discovered in the cockpit of any scheduled airplane. (By scheduled I mean time­-table operated, i.e. the regular service of aircraft leaving a port at a given time to arrive at another similarly.) However, there are women who do earn their living by flying. They sell airplanes, they ferry planes about the country, they carry pas­sengers, they instruct, they fly in the promotion department of a few companies who use airplanes for advertising and for transporting their execu­tives.
As to special positions, there are a number worthy of mention. Several women own or man­age airports; several conduct schools, alone or with their husbands; several hold traffic positions of varying importance; one designs the interiors of passenger airliners. There are two women exami­ners in the medical staff of the Aeronautics Branch, Department of Commerce. A number of women are associated with the journals of the trade. One conducts a special page, another is assistant editor, others write articles for use inside and outside this special field. There are one or two women pub­licity writers and of course many touch aviation through advertising. One of the most able and accurate artists on aircraft drawing for advertising (or any other work for that matter) is a woman. Two airlines employ women as hostesses on their ​large cabin planes. Everyone is familiar with the number of women who manage travel bureaus throughout the country. Most of these handle air­line tickets now, and there is one with a feminine owner which caters only to air travelers.
Despite the number and variety of those posi­tions, it must be admitted there is definite prejudice against women in certain departments. Possibly it is no greater than in other industries. At any rate, I shall not attempt to go into details concerning it except in regard to actual flying. There I think some explanation might be of interest, as training, practise and tradition are involved.
Since the early days of flying not many women have received as adequate training as men. The best schools in many ways at least, are the Army and Navy, and they, of course, are closed to women. Commercial institutions until recently apparently did not particularly welcome feminine students and had little conscience about their adequate instruc­tion.
It has always seemed to me that boys and girls are educated very differently. Even from the early grades, they take different subjects. For instance, boys are usually put into woodworking classes, and girls into sewing or cooking—willy-nilly. I know many boys who should, I am sure, be making pies and girls who are much better fitted for manual training than domestic science. Too often little at­tention is paid to individual talent. Instead, edu­cation goes on dividing people according to their ​sex, and putting them in little feminine or mascu­line pigeonholes.
Outside of school, similar differences are notice­able, too. In the home, boys and girls usually follow the pursuits which tradition has decreed for the one and the other. As different as what they do are ways of doing it. Girls are shielded and sometimes helped so much that they lose initiative and begin to believe the signs “Girls don’t” and “Girls can’t” which mark their paths. Mrs. Ber­trand Russell puts this fact very forcibly when she says women are bred to timidity.
It is not surprising then that as boys and girls grow older their backgrounds become more and more unlike. Consequently, it seems almost neces­sary to evolve different methods of instruction for them when they later take up the same subjects. For example, those courses which involve mechani­cal work may have to be explained somewhat dif­ferently to girls not because girls are inherently not mechanical, but because normally they have learned little about such things in the course of their education.
I could illustrate this idea the other way around. I once watched the progress of a boys’ cooking class. The teacher started out with the same method of approach as she used for the girls. What happened? Her pupils were so stupid she was almost ready to believe the masculine mind incap­able of comprehending the rudiments of boiling eggs. However, being a resourceful instructor, it ​didn’t take her long to find out what was wrong. Of course boys didn’t know dishwater should be soapy. Of course they didn’t know ovens should be hot for biscuit, and of course they didn’t know a dozen other fundamentals that girls picked up before they ever came to class.
So—by including some explanations unnecessary for girls in the general method, pie-making went on apace. In the same way, feminine students in flying schools might gain more if courses were modified or adjusted to their educational needs.
Just as there may be some handicaps in training, so there may be in finances. Most girls are not able to earn as much as boys, particularly around airports, yet they must pay the same price for fly­ing lessons. No one wants a feminine “grease mon­key” around the hangar to do the odd jobs which may partly pay for a young man’s aviation train­ing. Then, too, with fewer outlets to earn money after they have their flying license, they must hesi­tate longer about deciding on an aviation career.
There are also minor hindrances in the construc­tion of airplanes. Such things as brakes and start­ers are sometimes so obviously designed or located for masculine hands or feet that small women pilots have discomfort if not difficulty in using them. Some of the smallest women have to stuff pillows around them to make the cockpit fit.
Probably the most profound deterrent of all is tradition which keeps women from trying new things and from putting forth their whole effort ​when once they do venture forth. It also makes men unwilling to recognize women’s abilities. Con­sequently they sometimes feel that they must do foolhardy or silly things just to prove they can.
There are 472 licensed women pilots in the United States. Of these about fifty hold the trans­port or highest grade. 472 seems a large number when it is remembered there were but twelve women licensees in January, 1929. However, it shrinks to a proportion of about 1 to 37 in the face of the entire pilots listing (men and women) which is 17,226 strong (October, 1931). Taking into consideration only the 50 transport licenses, for none other can really be counted as offering com­mercial possibilities, the number of potential can­didates among women for available jobs, if any, is exceedingly small.
Despite these figures, there are more women flyers in the United States than in all the rest of the world, and it follows more in commercial avia­tion. Further, it appears they do more together in this country than anywhere else. They not only compete in exclusive racing events, but have re­cently conducted several entire air meets by them­selves. Besides organizations composed of women interested in aviation generally, there are some for women pilots only. Oldest among these is the Ninety-Nines, open to any woman holding a cur­rent Department of Commerce license. Another is the Betsy Ross Corps, established to train picked ​women for service to their country in time of need. The Women’s Air Reserve of California is another specialized group.
Among non-professional clubs is the Women’s National Aeronautic Association, with chapters in nearly every state. This group has done especially appreciated work in providing comfortable quar­ters at many airports for other women who arrive by air.
Because there are still comparatively few of these, facilities for feminine comfort are all too often overlooked at flying fields. To me, it is some­times worth going a hundred miles out of the way to land at ports like Akron, Ohio, where the Women’s Aeronautic Association has furnished a pilot’s lounge complete with everything from pow­der puffs to showers. Usually when pilots and passengers are so well treated, motors and airplanes can find adequate care, also.
In any discussion of women and aviation, the means by which some of the pilots have earned their licenses should be included.
Many and varied these have been. Perhaps more have labored within the ranks of the industry than outside, for sometimes a connection, even on the fringe, has made possible special encouragement in the way of rates or use of equipment. Often just being with a group who doesn’t think flying strange, is a help in itself. Jean La Rene of Dallas, one of the best known southern fliers, dem­​onstrates this theory for she is secretary for an aviation school, and gets in considerable flying by just being on hand.
As to those who earn money for their flying in totally different fields, their occupations range all the way from selling real estate to acting. The names of several school teachers now appear on the pilot’s list and bookkeepers and stenographers, too. One girl I know of waited on table in a restaurant to gain her license, and another won a scholarship to a private pilot’s rating. Still another sold the idea to business men of her home town that they should underwrite her training. More than one newspaper woman has used her writing ability to pay for a course of instruction.
As well known as any of this plucky band is Viola Gentry. She was a cashier in a Brooklyn cafeteria and saved enough to get a license. After this she toiled to promote and prepare a refueling flight with another pilot. Through no fault of hers the plane cracked up and she was painfully injured. It has taken her many long months to recover sufficiently to return to her job, and it will be longer still before she can regain her license.
Bobby Trout, co-holder of the women’s refueling record, is another pilot who has worked hard for what she has accomplished. She owns and operates a service station in California.
Now and then, girls marry into flying and be­ come wives of men who can and do teach them. That is one way to get the coveted lessons, but ​probably not advisable unless the gentlemen in question possess other charms in addition to being good instructors.
By the way, I have not yet heard of a wife teach­ing her husband to fly, but Mary Alexander of Lynchburg, Virginia, should qualify for the next award as she has a nineteen-year-old son whom she has instructed. She is famous too for being a very young flying grandmother, for her son himself is the proud father of an infant. Mrs. Mary Bain, wife of a mining engineer, is the other flying grand­mother I mentioned.
Some of those who haven’t actually held posi­tions, yet belong to the determined-to-fly group, are women who have saved their money from allow­ances or household expenses. I know one girl who spends most of what her father gives her for clothes, on flying. He loves to have her well dressed, but has just about given up hope of seeing her in any­thing other than monkey suits.
While it may be difficult enough to learn to fly if one does not have an airminded Santa Claus in the family, often the hardest part is keeping on fly­ing after the instruction period is over. Renting equipment is expensive and many a long day goes by before an employer can be persuaded to risk his airplane on a novice pilot’s skill—much less pay him to fly. You wouldn’t lend your nice new shiny automobile to someone who had just learned to drive, or hire a chauffeur who didn’t have a record of long experience. Neither should I, and the air­​craft owner, airline operator or manufacturer, feels about a hundred times as strongly as we do.
However, one girl who has made good almost from the start is Dorothy Hester. She was taught to stunt by Tex Rankin of Portland and found to be an apt pupil. She and her instructor now give exhibitions at meets and she is developing into an excellent performer.
Those who have worked for their flying are not the only ones, by any means, who have put energy and skill into it. Some of the best pilots among women are non-professionals of whom Betty Huyler Gillies of New York is an excellent example. Her husband is chief engineer in an aircraft fac­tory and an ex-navy flier and both he and she have planes.
Maude Tait, winner of the Aerol Trophy race in 1931, is a newcomer among pilots, but certainly a skilled one. A “borderline” case is Florence (Pancho) Barnes of California. She qualifies as a sportsman pilot, I am sure, but now and then also accepts special commissions. For instance, she did some of the flying in the motion picture, “Hell’s Angels.”
With these brief histories of a few of today’s women fliers, it looks as if nearly everyone who really wants to fly somehow manages it despite ob­stacles. Perhaps what is necessary for success is a large quantity of the same kind of enthusiasm which actuates a young flying couple I met re­cently. The feminine partner confided to me her
Courtesy Underwood & Underwood
Ruth Law Greeted by General Leonard Wood on her Arrival at Governor’s Island
Katherine Stinson
​family objected strenuously to her flying because they thought she couldn’t earn her living by it.
“Well,” she said as she glanced at a big cabin plane nearby, “when my husband and I started out we had nothing—nothing at all. Now we have this ship to use for instruction and charter trips.”
“We’ll take anybody anywhere anytime,” her husband spoke up.
“What fun you must have adventuring to­gether,” I said.
“Well, we do—most of the time,” she answered. “Of course, now and then it’s hard to get along. But I’d rather be poor and fly than have more and do something else.”