Mary Shipko

In this memoir, Mary Shipko focuses chiefly on her extensive training in flying, and on the discrimination that she faced in spite of her qualifications and skills. This was happening in the era before sexual harassment was recognized as a problem, let alone made grounds for legal action. It is important for women, particularly young women, to understand the struggle that trail blazers faced, and which contemporary women still face to a lesser degree.

It sobering to see the hostility that the men felt for Shipko purely because she was a woman, and the way that sex is so often used by them as an expression of hatred. Makes a real case for celibacy.

I thought that the book would have been a little more interesting if Shipko had included a little more of her life outside of flying. A caption mentions that the family often flew for movies, but there are no anecdotes about this. At one point she gets married, but the husband mysteriously disappears. I would like to know a little more about his reactions and sympathy (or lack of it) for her struggle. I understand that her focus was on establishing her credentials and her struggle with harassment, but it would have been a somewhat livelier book.… (mehr)