Fly Girls

Fly Girls: How Five Daring Women Defied All Odds and Made Aviation History by American journalist Keith O’Brien chronicles the singular, prolific, and courageous lives of an assortment of women who were key to the origin of aviation science and the advent of flight as a method of personal transportation. For each of the women profiled, the path ahead was never clear; their environments were influenced by oppressive gender norms and doubts as to the capabilities of women who wanted to excel in the emerging field. Nonetheless, the women overcame these unfair obstacles and became the first to earn pilots’ licenses. Their hard work elevated them into direct competition with the foremost male aviators, in a profession that was perilous and highly publicized. O’Brien shows that the first female aviators did feminism a service by capturing the hearts and minds of the public imagination.

Fly Girls begins by describing the various challenges of the working environments in the early aviation field. Aspiring pilots had to deal with single-propeller aircraft that were literally on the verge of falling apart. Their instruments were so complex that they could not be efficiently prepared and reassembled without wasting too much time and resources; as a result, the women O’Brien surveys dealt with terribly unsafe flying conditions, risking their lives each day. These risks and frustrations were compounded by the opposition they faced from men, many of whom even teamed up, out of pure contempt, to thwart their ambitions.

O’Brien details how women first got into aviation, navigating the complex maze of rules and regulations to compete and win. Luckily, no explicit ban was in place on women’s participation in air races. The sport became hugely popular almost overnight, due in part to wealthy men who generated interest in it, including Cliff Henderson. O’Brien notes, darkly, that not all of the fans of air racing were there just to see pilots excel; in fact, many came eager to see the all-but-inevitable plane crash.



Later, as the air racing sport grew into an industry, there was increased pressure to regulate air racing like any other mainstream sport and bring along their regressive gender norms. Unfortunately, Henderson used his power to ban women from competing in air racing. The women who were shut out of the pastime they loved so much worked together to assert their right to participate. Their activism worked as a sort of proxy for women’s equality in general, reverberating through future women’s rights movements related to labor and political power.

One of the most famous aviators O’Brien profiles is Amelia Earhart, who famously went missing during an attempt to circle the globe in 1937. Before her tragic disappearance, Earhart was the first woman to make a successful transatlantic flight in 1932. Outside the field of aviation, Earhart was known for her kindness and intelligence. O’Brien also brings up Ruth Nichols, a young woman from an affluent family who saw her family’s expectations and wealth as a cage. She broke away from her family and became an especially daring pilot. Florence Klingensmith, an aviation mechanic, became a prodigious stuntwoman. Louise Thaden, formerly proprietor of a coal business and busy mother, studied for and earned a pilot’s license in her few hours of free time. Ruth Elder, a beautiful actor, broke away from preconceptions of what a female actor was capable of doing, almost beating Earhart in her transatlantic voyage. Fly Girls is an inspiring and deep review of the lives of these female aviators, who excelled despite the odds that were stacked against them.