Sunday, June 07, 2009

And Something To Muse Over






That's a suitable pastime for women, is it not? Being the muse and musing. So amusing. Yes, I'm very tired right now, almost deliciously delirious (change but one letter and the world changes! heh).

This is what happens when I can't really write for a week, so sorry.

I happened to get hold of a book on early women aviators (Women Aloft). Great stuff, and I shall write more about its contents later. But right now I want to quote from one page in the book, page 13:

When Germany's first woman flier, Melli Beese, took the test for her license in 1911, male colleagues at the flying field tried unsuccessfully to sabotage her by tampering with the plane's steering mechanism and partially emptying the gas tank; for a woman to fly, said one of them, "would take the glory away from us."

That's a deep statement. It hits right into the heart of something that we still see: Having the girls share in some endeavor cheapens the endeavor for certain types of men. Why is that the case?

The only answer I can think of is that those men think women are inferior. If women, even just a few among all women, can do something, then that 'something' must be easy and not worth doing. That's how the glory is stripped from them.
--------
Picture of Elinor Smith