“I am going to watch it you should to.” A friend of mine made this suggestion to me yesterday concerning the movie, Amelia, a bio pic about Amelia Earhart. After a quick google search I realized that the movie was on Netflix and now the DVD is added to my queue (ha no it isn’t but remember when that was a thing?), I plan on streaming the movie this weekend on Netflix.
When Amelia Earhart fell in love with flying she could think of nothing else and she was told by almost everyone that women did not fly. That was a mans world. Amelia kept a scrap book as a child of women who did “man things” like, film directors and producers, lawyers, and mechanical engineers.
Amelia drew inspiration from the women in the images of her scrap book. I am sure that as the women were in film, law and engineering school they were treated not as well as the men, I am also sure that in their professions they were paid far less than the men. Today women are still treated poorly and paid less than their male counterparts and there are apologists who defend, maybe worse there are those who say it doesn’t exist! Sexism is still alive and well and women are still underpaid and treated poorly. Sexism like racism is still baked into the laws and culture of the United States. Defending sexism and hiding our heads in the sand only make things worse.
Amelia, the women in her scrapbook and women today face sexism in a major systematic way and it is through other woman breaking the glass ceiling and finding success that future generations find inspiration and inspiration is important. You may not think that being a successful attorney, producer, or engineer is a big deal but there could be a young woman out there clipping your picture and putting it in her scrap book.
The Corrigan Encore 