Fly Girls

I'm definitely an advocate for women's rights and putting an end to gender bias practices, so when I saw the documentary "Fly Girls" I had to watch it. Plus it helped that it was at the public library so I didn't have to pay to watch it.

This documentary is about the first women to become aviators during WWII. In 1941 over 1,000 women trained to become aviators and went to fight with Great Brittan. Then in 1942 the United States started their own program called the WASPS (Women's Air force Service Pilots). These women served their country by flying military planes stateside so their male counterparts could join the war over sea. The women of WASP were not considered military armed service members, but were stationed at military bases and received military aviation training. Thirty-eight women died while this program was run and the U.S. military did not return their bodies home, give their families death benefits, a flag, gold star, or even a military burial. Although the military did use these women as aviation instructors, trainers, and test pilots. In 1944 women were used to "show" male military aviators that flying the B29 was safe and could be used as described in its manual for war time efforts.
Overall I enjoyed this documentary and would say that it is what I think of as a "traditional" documentary. The films agenda was to simply educate the viewer about women aviators during WWII, which it did. The information was given for you to think what you like of it, and to take what you wanted. This was empowering to see so many women during that time rise to the occasion and represent women in the field of aviation. I wonder why this was not part of the curriculum when I was educated on WWII.