The Importance of Women's Presence
Time and time again women’ s accomplishments especially ones in the past are looked over and underappreciated which should in fact be celebrated when looking at how far women have come today. One of these women is Amy Johnson who took strides unheard of in the world of aviation. She however first went to college and got her degree and was for some time a secretary before finding her true passion in flying.
As her interest in flying started to grow Amy joined the London Aeroplane Club in the late 1920’s to learn to fly but then her hobby soon turned into her life’s work. She then pursued her pilots license and was the first British woman to obtain her ground engineers license and with this her career soon took off. Not only was flying her passion but she also wanted to prove that women were capable of having jobs that were at the time male dominated and she was determined to succeed. She then began to test her skills and soon after set off on a flight that would name her the “Queen of the Air.” Amy dared to fly solo from England to Australia during the 1930’s in which the airplane industry was still fairly new, so this was a risky flight but nonetheless she became the first woman to travel that distance solo and managed to arrive safely. She later set some records for her other numerous solo flights until joining the Air Transport Auxiliary in 1939 to aid the Second World War.
Her job there was to transport the Royal Air Force’s aircraft's throughout England to the Royal Air Force bases for combat use and ended up playing such an important role that she rose to be a First Officer. Although she became an important person in the war effort, she unfortunately passed away during one of her routine flights not long after. There’s a theory as to what happened but what is said to have happened is that there were poor weather conditions which made it hard to navigate and ultimately resulted in her death. Today she is still commemorated and remembered as Britain’s most famous woman pilot.
Amy is an example of the women who worked so hard to fight sexism and inequality in the workforce and an influence to other girls to pursue their dreams even if it seems impossible. Amy achieved what no woman had before, broke record after record for her solo flights, and established herself as a dominant figure in her field. For a long time after she gained her ground engineers license, she was the only woman who held that license in England which just goes to show the roles women where expected to have or not have. Most women in this time period were expected to hold “women” jobs such as secretaries, as Amy was before her new career, but more popularly were expected to be homemakers. The fact that she also was able to graduate from college with a degree is also considered a great stride because back in those days’ women weren’t able to attend many colleges and were quite limited when it came to a higher education.
It wasn’t until during the Second World War that women actually started to work in “mens” jobs such as working in factories and even partaking in the war effort as nurses such as the famous Florence Nightingale. The war brought about a new era of women involvement that was unseen of before this period. It also brought about independence for women to have some sort of say in what they wanted to do for themselves. This was very much an era of uncertainty because of the war and the different roles women had to take on after all able-bodied men left to go fight in the war and the shortage of workers at the home front. Because of this it’s not surprising that Amy’s help was required during the war although she was not utilized directly in combat. This again goes back to women’s roles during the war, women weren’t allowed to be directly in combat, that was solely a role for men, but instead she worked to transport material vital to the war.
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