Gender Bending Halloween

I never got the skimpy sexy Halloween costume phenomenon when I was younger. Now in "middle age" (gasp!) I get it in a "Oh, okay, you don't really feel sexy most of the time and this is your one day to be what you really want to be" way since that is how I always interpreted dressing up for Halloween. It's a day to be something you could never actually be: a famous person, a fictional character, an animal, a flower. There's also being horrifyingly scary like a zombie with a machete in its head and flesh falling off. I've always appreciated the topical joke costumes, too, especially at parties where they make fantastic conversation starters. But mostly I followed "the being what I could never be" impulse and even as a little girl, I wanted to dress as boys. The only costume picture from my childhood is of me as a cowboy. Not a cowgirl, a cowboy. When the first Pirates of the Caribbean movies came out, I went to a party as Johnny Depp. I not only dressed like him, I acted like his character the entire night with his accent and naughty tendencies. It was an absolute blast!

Somehow, I never questioned my right to dress as a man for Halloween. When I was in high school, one of the costumes I was most excited about was Charlie Chaplin. I was a sophmore and had just discovered his movies. I studied his comical walk and cane twirling and carefully compiled a costume complete with fake mustache and proudly went to school. I couldn't wait for people to recognize me! I was quite sure there wouldn't be any other Charlie Chaplins. To my dismay, I was mistaken the entire day for Hitler. I tried to tell people that Hitler copied Charlie Chaplin's mustache because Chaplin was one of the biggest movie stars of the day, but to no avail. They scoffed at me and wrote me off as some kind of psychopath. Thus began my love/hate relationship with Halloween. More times than not, I've boycotted the entire event.

But years later, the itch to dress up on Halloween overrode my usual reticence. I think it may have been around the time that Phantom Menace came out (1999) and Star Wars fever had been revived. I remembered how I worshiped and adored Han Solo was when I was kid and decided to be him. I studied pictures online and found everything at thrift stores. My boyfriend and I joked that he should go as Princess Leia and to my delight he agreed! There is nothing more fun than dressing as the opposite sex and trying, at least for a night, to walk in the others' shoes. My man was the cutest Princess Leia and I was so proud to be with him that night.

So imagine my delight to see fifteen years later, a man and his daughter doing exactly the same thing. I love that a grown man can submit to the request of his little girl because, "Equality goes both ways." I read comments online from a lot of men complaining about women wanting more rights as if there's a limited number of rights in the world and we women are going to use them all up! The fact is that the freer one group is, the freer we all are to be not who our culture or our society or even our government tells us to be, but who we really are.

Courtesy goodmenproject.com

Balancing Work and Family

Is it just me or has equality for women suddenly become a very mainstream topic? It seems like every day there's a news story about it. It's like we finally got fed up of living the lie that we've achieved equality and decided to just tell it like it is. This week, Jennifer Garner opened her mouth to utter a simple truth. In every interview she gives, she's asked about work-life balance and yet no one has ever asked her husband, Ben Affleck, that question. "And we do share the same family." She says, "Isn’t it time to kinda change that conversation?"Absolutely, it is about time.

Courtesy people.com

Hooray for the Baby Daddy

I like Jude Law, I really do. He's handsome, he has a great voice, and he's a wonderful actor. But it disturbed me when the many press stories that he was about to become a father for the fifth time was  greeted with nothing but hoorays and congratulations and what-a-wonderful-person comments on Facebook. Literally every celebrity, media outlet and even my friends were posting this as good news.

I'm thinking, if this was a woman having her fifth child with the third father, two of whom she not only didn't marry but didn't even stay with long enough to still be in the relationship when she got pregnant, after cheating on her first husband and leaving her first family, we would crucify her. She'd be called a slut, irresponsible, a horrible person, and not fit to be a mother. And those are probably the nicest things she'd be called.

Courtesy zimbio.com

"Whilst they are no longer in a relationship," Law's rep said, "they are both wholeheartedly committed to raising their child."

What? He's wholeheartedly committed to raising a child with this woman, the last woman and the first mother of his three children? Seriously? Is anyone buying this? It's just not logistically possible if what we're talking about is raising a child. But then I realize that isn't what we're talking about. All he is expected to do, as a man, is to pay for the cost of raising the child and show up every once in a while to take them on an outing. And that's the other side of this double standard: What a woman does for her children is never enough and what a man does is insignificant as long as he pays up.

Birds in NYC

I can't remember how I came across this sweet little blog called Bird. Young women in their 20s and 30s are interviewed about their jobs and careers. They talk about their boyfriends. They talk about living in New York. They talk about their lives so far. The beautiful photography, typography and layout all contribute to creating an intimate look into how other people live and how young women are making their mark in the world.

Courtesy birdnyc.co

Bias That Blinds Us

I'm in the San Francisco Bay Area looking for a job. I lived here back in 2008 after being hired by eBay for what promised to be the coolest job, combining my love and experience in filmmaking and my talents and experience in marketing. The job didn't pan out and I left. I wish I'd somehow persevered in this dream idea but there's something about not fitting into a box, not doing a job that has a title or not calling yourself one thing or another, that can be debilitating.

The human brain wants to categorize things. It's how we make sense of the world and it's what makes us smart. But it can also make us blind. Google made a video about this bias and how it affects the workplace and especially innovation but I think it applies to all areas of our life. How many of us are shut out because we can't be seen? And what or who are we shutting out because of our own biases? Even more important, what about ourselves are we denying because it doesn't fit? Wouldn't the world be a richer, more diverse and interesting place if we could keep our minds open?

Another (Not So) Radical Idea

When I graduated from college twenty years ago, I wrote a senior thesis. I was in the Women's Studies program and even though we could take a senior seminar to complete our degree, I volunteered to write a thesis because I wanted to challenge myself. The subject of my paper was "Why We Need to Include Men in the Feminist Movement." At the time, it was a radical idea and not one that was well received by my peers. I was, in fact, ridiculed by my professor in my thesis workshop. I didn't report that incident because I knew it was an unpopular idea and I knew I would take crap for it. But I also fervently believed that it was ludicrous for 50% of the population to get together to talk about their rights without including the other 50% in the discussion. In the minds of those who were threatened by my idea, including men would be "asking for their permission" or "allowing them to dominate the conversation," and both of those fears are completely justified.

But what I was suggesting was that we take care not to pit ourselves against men, that we don't stereotype them the same way we have been, that we don't assume all men are sexist. I knew, from my personal life, that they are not. I knew that there was a lot of support out there from men, men who wished their lives could be different as well. Post-college, I noticed a trend. Nearly all of my intimate relationships were with men who had been accused of being gay at some point in their lives; because they cared about their appearance, decorated their apartments, liked to cook, made friends with women, hugged in public, or just liked to talk about something other than sports, beer or women. There was never a question of whether they actually were homosexual. They were not. Never had been, never would be.

The fact was that because they didn't fit into the stereotype of what society expects men to be -- and in my mind they are far more desirable than the stereotype -- they must be gay. There must be something wrong with them. It's not normal for a man to be like that. So it made perfect sense to me that men and women should work together to denounce these stereotypes, to be ourselves (whoever we are) and to stand up against treating people one way or another based on their bodies. It's no different than treating people based on what language they speak, what country they're from, what color their skin is or what kind of car they drive. People are people and we're all different. But we're all people. We should all have the same rights and no person should have rights over another person.

Emma Watson, an elegant, intelligent, talented young woman, has been tasked by the United Nations to tackle this issue and she has come up with the same idea I had twenty years ago: To include men in the feminist movement. I could look at this as if we haven't come very far but I don't. At the time, my statement was made to one classroom and a single faculty member at one University in one state in the United States. Now, the statement is being made to the United Nations and the entire world. I hope people hear the message and respond. Enough is enough!

I'm a Feminist Too

I just discovered Laci Green. The Internet is so vast. We see things flying around on Facebook and have this illusion that we're "seeing what's going on" in the world. The fact that we have shared online experiences tricks us into thinking that we've experienced everything that's going on when in fact, we're just partying in the same room while a whole world is outside. It's both the benefit and the detriment of social media. While we can more easily share ideas and rally behind a single action, we can also more easily ignore and miss other ideas and fail to put our attention where it might be more useful.

So back to Laci Green. She is doing what I would be doing if the technology existed when I was her age. It's the reason I started this little blog. I started my senior thesis in college, twenty years ago (!), with the same sentence that she starts this video with. In essence, my name is and I'm a feminist. Because it was then and still is a "dirty" word. I'm sickened by the comments that people have made on the YouTube page. Hateful, violent things presented as some kind of logical argument by people who probably consider themselves to be normal and nice. People who use those mouths and hands to love people and do jobs and drive cars. But in the privacy of their home, they virulently defend a social system that oppresses men and women and is the main cause of social inequality.

All of the the ills of the world -- war, slavery, poverty among them -- are the result of these dichotomies that force men to fight instead of talk and women to fuck instead of lead. Excuse my language but clearly the world is not right and I'm glad that Laci Green has the guts to say it. As many times as it needs to get said!

Tell It Like We See It

This is a great little video made by students at a university in Canada as a class project. My guess is that they were tasked to bring in ads from magazines that stereotyped women in objectified, submissive roles and men in cold, dominating roles. And my guess is that it wasn't difficult. It is shocking when you see these types of ads placed side by side. Even more shocking is when we aren't shocked; when we experience these ads cool or sexy because we're so desensitized to these extreme roles.

A Husband's Permission

The sixties may seem like an aeon ago, especially to young women. But in the span of human history, it isn't very long ago and the changes that have happened between then and now are monumental. The young women of today who don't want to call themselves feminists may not realize what the feminists of the sixties achieved. To see what they came out of to where we are today is astounding.

Courtesy CNN

They literally brought women into the world. We were sequestered away as an accessory of husbands. Our job was to keep that home and that's it. Women didn't have choices like we do now. And if they did choose to do something different, rest assured that their way was made very difficult.

When I was in college, one of my professors told us that when she was first married (in the seventies) she went to the local library to get a card and was told she needed her husband's permission. As a married woman, she had the rights of a child! So, as a reminder, here are five things women couldn't do in the sixties.

Bringing Booty Back

I'm incredibly late to this party (156 million views!) but this is a very catchy sixties style doo-wop that got in my head and I can't get it out.



What's even cooler than this fun little song, though, is the story behind it. Meghan Trainor shopped the song around for a long time before a producer told her that she needed to record the song. She did and the rest is history!

Regret At Age Fifteen

When asked what their biggest fear is, some of these teenage girls replied with the expected heights, bugs and crowds, but a majority answered with shockingly adult answers. Death. Not fulfilling their dreams. Not being happy with their life when they're older. Failure. The future.

These are things that I fear, as a forty-year old! At their age, I don't remember thinking about failure. Even while pushing through adversity I only thought about what I was going to accomplish. Though these fears may have always been there I'm sure I wasn't aware of them until quite recently. It makes me wonder what these girls will fear when they're my age. Perhaps, having lived through these fears, they won't fear anything at all!

Courtesy rookiemag.com

Helping the Eager Beaver

I recently watched a great History Channel series on DVD, America: The Story of Us. It made me sad to hear that when Europeans fanned out across the new America, they found beavers in the millions. Long ago hunted almost to extinction in Europe, beavers were hunted here for their thick pelts and to make men rich. Their numbers quickly dwindled.

But even today they’re considered a pest when they interfere with our plans and designs. All too often, instead of looking for creative solutions, we simply kill animals considered pests. Even though it was us who invaded and changed their natural environment.

Courtesy history.com

When we take the time to study the behavior of any wild animal though, we often find that they are incredibly beneficial to our environment and us. But it takes time, curiosity and a love of animals to understand their role and to make the changes necessary to thrive together. Figuring out how to share our world with animals challenges our traditional notions of success. For hundreds if not thousands of years, humanity has focused on conquering nature, not living in it. We’re quickly learning, though, that this way of living has dramatic unintended consequences.

Courtesy pbs.org

This was the focus of another great TV show, Nature: Leave it To Beavers. Beavers, it turns out, are enormously important in our changing climate! They keep water from trickling away from areas that desperately need it. They build elaborate dams, create ponds, attract and protect wildlife and develop lush wetlands. To reintroduce these creatures to wild areas, scientists trap and relocate them from suburban areas. The women who do this work have the opportunity not only to help the animals but humanity and the planet as well.

Little girls who love animals invariably want to be veterinarians when they grow up, wanting to work with dogs, cats or horses since those are the animals they’re most likely to interact with. Some fall in love with dolphins and dream of being a marine biologist. But there are a multitude of female scientists studying and helping wild animals in their natural habitats or helping to restore their habitats. Working in some of the most stunning landscapes in the world, these women are improving the lives of animals through hands-on involvement. It can be as rewarding and as heartbreaking as being a parent. Another fantastic show I've been watching on PBS is about the men and women who have become devoted parents to wild animals. New episode on tonight: My Wild Affair.

To prepare for this work, kids can make a practice of observing and wild animals in their own environment, visiting protected wild spaces and learning about the wild animals that live there and how our livelihoods are symbiotic. Understanding that wild animals have families, homes, favorite foods, things they’re afraid of and things that they’re good at makes it easier to appreciate them. They really aren’t so different from us!

The stereotype of a scientist is someone in a lab with goggles on, looking at the world through a microscope. But more and more, scientific minds are being used to study our natural world and design ways to live better, longer, and happier lives. Getting a college degree in biology, microbiology, physics, chemistry, math or statistics is now a very versatile choice, offering the most diversity in careers and allowing future job seekers to be part of team working to help animals. For we now know that when we give animals our love and understanding, everyone is better off.

How To Get Started As A Geek Girl

I've always said that I never want to be the smartest person in the room. It's the reason that I've left a number of jobs. Not that I was smarter than everyone else but that my learning opportunities had dwindled. If I'm not stimulated, challenged and given opportunities to learn, I grow frustrated and bored. In personal and professional situations, I'm happiest when surrounded by interesting, smart and curious people who are always learning new things. One of the major benefits of cultivating relationships with this type of person is that they're a font of valuable information.

Just today, I was trying to register for an Instagram account and got a message that my email address was already in use. I did a search in my email and found that someone had tried to open an account using my address -- by accident, I presume. They were unsuccessful and so the account is no longer active but Instagram wouldn't let me create another. I searched their Help page but could find nothing about this issue there. And I could find no way to contact anyone at Instagram by email or phone. Frustrated, I went to Facebook and posted the problem there. Within a few minutes, a smart web developer friend of mine had a fix. I tried it and it worked! I thanked my lucky stars, once again, for having smart friends who know things that I don't.

A couple of weeks ago, another smart friend of mine wrote a blog post of resources for her friend's "11-year-old daughter who is interested in getting into the gaming industry." What a seriously great idea. All I could think is how lucky that girl is to have a mom who has cool, smart friends to reach out to for help. I think like-minded people naturally find each other but cultivating quality friendships still takes work and time. You have to be willing to share your own knowledge as well as have the courage to act on the experience and knowledge of others. You have to be a good friend who listens, keeps confidences and gives good advice when it's asked for. More importantly, you have to be willing even eager to not be the smartest person in the room.

Courtesy of amysmartgirls.com

My Favorite Position

A commonly held belief in Hollywood, I've heard, is that unless there's a sex scene in a movie there really is no reason for a woman to be in it. Despite the fact that it's mostly women who choose what movies to watch and at least half of the movie watching population is female, the people who make movies are still overwhelmingly male. So unless a movie is written, directed or produced by a woman, there's a very good chance that any women in it are serving as eye candy.

What's sadder is that this belief isn't limited to Hollywood. There's a very real and pervasive view of women as sexual objects even even while they're being politicians, doctors, teachers or writers. So when Lauren Conrad, author and TV personality was asked by a fan what her favorite position was, it could have been another in a series of humiliations that women face when trying to be taken seriously. But Conrad shot back "CEO" and changed the game.

Conrad's response launched an experiment to find out what other women say is their favorite position. Not surprisingly, she isn't the only one who chose CEO. So, what's your favorite position?

Courtesy mic.com

A Woman In Space

When I was a sophomore in high school, someone at the school interrupted our class one day to announce that there had been an event. She wheeled in a television and we all watched a news report on the space shuttle Challenger, which had just exploded in midair killing all seven people on board including, Christa McAuliffe. McAuliffe, 37, was the same age as my mother. She wasn’t an astronaut, she was a teacher; a regular person who had won the incredible opportunity of going to space. Only she never got to space.

Watching the explosion and the aftermath, seeing the faces of the astronauts on board, and imagining all their hopes and dreams for going to space was devastating. I was reminded of the stories my mom had told me about the day President Kennedy had been killed. She too was in school. She was almost exactly the same age that I was when it happened. At the time, as a self-absorbed teenager, I wasn’t really aware of those coincidences; all I knew is that it was my first experience with a national tragedy and I would never forget it.

Two years before, my family had gone to see the space shuttle Challenger land at Edwards Air Force Base not too far from where we lived. We drove several hours to the hot California desert and then stood, windblown, on the flat barren earth for about 40 minutes listening to transmissions from the control room. Then, people started pointing at the sky. It was hard to see but there was just the tiniest speck of something up there. A bright light glimmering in the biggest, bluest sky I’d ever seen. It made a wide slow arc and then we heard two loud booms. Before my dad had finished explaining what a sonic boom was, the Challenger had stealthily approached and was on the ground trailing a cloud of dust. We roared with applause. Moments later, the astronauts disembarked and it was like watching aliens land on earth. They came from outer space.

©2014 by Angelique Little

I had only the faintest idea then that I was witnessing history. Sally Ride had become the first American woman to go to space. Following the Challenger explosion and the death of Christa McAuliffe, the uniqueness of a woman in space was brought to the fore and I knew then without a doubt that more than the sound barrier had been broken. Growing up, I’d always envisioned astronauts as men. I drank my milk out of the Apollo glasses issued in 1969 to commemorate Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walking on the moon. Sally Ride hadn’t just been the first American woman in space; she was a physicist with a PhD. She was young and pretty and brilliant. And she was an astronaut. When she finished her maiden voyage, the controllers corrected their statement, “All five crewman doing a walk around inspection,” to “all five crew members.” Powerful changes began occurring in the hearts and minds of all Americans.

Courtesy of Wikipedia, Buzz Aldrin

Of course, I didn’t think about any of this at the time. I was only vaguely aware of women doing amazing things but I was acutely aware of inequality. At four, I proclaimed a desire to be the first woman president. As I near the age when that I could feasibly be the president, I find myself thinking much the same thing. It's time and why haven't we voted a woman into that office? My mother became an engineer in 1984 so I was more aware than some about what it took to be a pioneer but it wasn’t until many years later that I really appreciated what she, Sally Ride and even Christa McAuliffe were doing for girls and women.

By pursuing and achieving their dreams, regardless of their sex, these women profoundly affected the rest of us. By living their lives the way they wanted and not the way others may have wanted, they were forging new paths that women after them would follow. In a male-dominated world, it takes many, many firsts, examples and role models for girls and women to understand that they can do anything; that they too are brilliant and talented and can contribute. It wasn’t until this week, when I heard a radio interview about a new biography on Sally Ride, that I even really thought of and appreciated this amazing woman.

Courtesy of Wikipedia, Sally Ride

We desperately need heroes and far too often they’re out there and we simply aren’t aware of them. In the interview about her book, Lynn Sherr talks about the jokes that were made on the Tonight Show every night about Sally and how they, at some point, ceased to be funny and even elicited boos from the audience. “The idea of a woman as astronaut,” she says, “went from being a punchline to a matter of national pride.” It’s critical that we hear, tell and inspire stories of remarkable women until, quite frankly, they become unremarkable.

Make Me Beautiful

I love this. A young woman, Esther Honig, sent a barefaced picture of herself to photo editors in 25 different countries and asked them to modify it as they might in a magazine, to make her closer to the ideal female beauty. Many came back with surprisingly little done; a little color here and there, smoothing of skin tone, etc. But a few are so radically altered as to be unrecognizable.

Courtesy of Esther Honig

One editor in the United States shockingly infantilized her, making her look like a girl rather than a woman. Check out the fantastic side-by-side comparison of each to the original. Definitely a thought provoking exercise. I also think it would be interesting to ask artists in different countries to draw or paint a woman of idealized beauty to see how they differ or resemble each other.

Come Fly With Me

This morning, I heard an interview with Amelia Rose Earhart, a pilot, who is planning to circumnavigate the globe in a single-engine airplane. At 31, she’ll be the youngest woman to do it and, inspired by her namesake Amelia Earhart, she’s taking nearly the exact route mapped out but never completed by the more famous Earhart in 1937. That Earhart disappeared over the Pacific Ocean and her remains were never found. Amelia Rose is confident that she won’t meet the same demise. She described the route and says one of the things she’s most looking forward to is all the places she and her co-pilot will be landing and staying including Trinidad and Tobago, Senegal, Brazil, Tanzania and The Maldives. I imagine it will be pretty exciting for the witnesses on the ground as well, especially girls and young women, to see Amelia Rose step out of an airplane flying around the world.

Courtesy of Amelia Rose Earhart

Then she explained how she got her name. Her father’s last name is Earhart and though he is not related to Amelia Earhart, he and his wife thought that giving their daughter the name was a unique opportunity. Imagine what this girl could accomplish with the name of a famous female role model! Growing up, people always asked Amelia Rose if she was going to be a pilot and she always replied no until the day she did decide to learn to fly. And loved it. Ten years later, Amelia Rose has become the role model she was named after. Not only is she embarking on Earhart’s voyage, she is going to be the first person to share the experience live via social media. She hopes to inspire girls to pursue aviation and, because she struggled to pay for her own lessons as woman in her twenties, founded Fly With Amelia, a non-profit that introduces flying to teenage girls and helps pay for their lessons.

Courtesy of Amelia Rose Earhart

I first flew as a passenger in a single-engine airplane a few years ago, on a date. Not usually the type of person to trust others with my life – especially someone I’ve known such a short period of time – it must have been love because from the moment Jacob started talking about flying, I wanted to do it. On our fifth date, we planned a trip from the Oregon coast to the San Juan Islands in the Puget Sound, Washington. It’s about a two hour flight in his Cessna 182 and we’d land directly on Center Island compared to a laborious 10-hour journey in which we’d drive from the coast, through Portland and Seattle traffic, to Anacortes to wait for a boat shuttle to the island.

After loading up and getting the plane out of the hangar, Jacob showed me how to buckle up (you use a three-point seatbelt like in a racecar), put on my headphones, and position the microphone. The microphone is vital because it’s the only way you can communicate while the plane is in flight. Small planes are pretty bare bones – compared to a large commercial plane – so they’re loud. You're inches away from a 230 horse-power engine. The headphones allow the pilot and the passengers to hear the radio, talk to others via the radio and talk to each other in the plane. Jacob went through a long laminated checklist. This took a while but it comforted me to see how methodical he was. He said matter-of-factly, “If there’s anything wrong, I don’t fly. Ever. No matter how badly I want to get where I’m going.” I smiled and admired him for his conviction. He didn’t take this lightly and nor should anyone.

The checklist comprised of physical checks of various components outside the airplane, checks at the control panel and listening to the engine. A seasoned pilot can tell instantly if something is amiss. Pilots and planes are far more regulated than automobiles and there are far fewer pilots than drivers so going strictly by percentages, it’s far safer to put your life into the hands of a pilot than a driver. I felt safe. Finally, all the checks cleared and we taxied out to the runway. I expected to be scared but I was afraid I’d be sick. Since I was a little girl, I’ve experienced motion sickness. I never feel good as a passenger in a vehicle, buses are a nightmare and I’ve actually used the sick bag on an airplane. For me to travel by boat it has to be a ferry, a large ship or I have to be medicated and flat on my back. I found that out during a romantic sunset sail around Lake Washington in Seattle on a gorgeous 26-foot sailboat. I didn’t see anything but the sky directly above me.

©2014 by Angelique Little

To my surprise, taking off was smooth and easy, nothing like the gas-guzzling thrust of velocity a commercial jet has to get going to take off. A small plane feels more like a glider. We took off into the wind – you always do – checking the wind direction with the bright orange windsock. Though, to be fair, on the coast the wind is always coming from the west or the north so pilots using this runway always take off going west. Once airborne, Jacob turned the plane towards our destination and we were on our way. Taking off and landing is most of flying; staying in the air is fairly easy providing you have enough fuel, can see where you’re going and have alternate landing spots available in case there’s engine trouble.

Jacob is VFR (Vision Flight Rules) rated which means he has to have visibility or he can’t fly. To fly without visibility, a pilot has to be IFR (Instrument Flight Rules) rated which means extensive instrument training, accompanied flights and staying current by clocking IFR hours. When you hear about a plane flying into a mountain, it's more than likely the pilot flew from (Visual Meteorological Conditions) VMC into I(Instrumentmore than likely flying IFR. The part of our brain that tells us how far away something is when we see it and how quickly we need to move to avoid it is ancient and highly developed. It’s our animal brain. The part of our brain that can read instruments, do mathematical calculations and make decisions without our senses is quite new and well, just not as reliable. I'm not sure I would have felt safe if I couldn’t see where we were going.

©2014 by Angelique Little

This trip certainly would not have been as enjoyable if I couldn’t see the gorgeous landscape spreading out around us. Flying between 9,000 and 13,000 feet, a small plane enjoys the most spectacular view. Below the cloud line, you rarely see the big jets flying at 30,000 feet and above. Small clouds traveled at our level and below, their perfect shadows moved along the ground across fields, roads, farms and towns. I watched out own shadow crossing rivers, following mountain ridges and flying through clouds. A tiny rainbow encircled our shadow at all times and I took pictures of it. To our left, the ocean opened up in a fantastic brightness, reflecting the sun back at us. In Washington, mountains rose, canyons deepened and I could see tiny rivers trickling through them like on a 3-D topographical map.

©2014 by Angelique Little

I felt like Peter Pan soaring above lakes, watching tiny cars drive on tiny roads, watching little dots of animals grazing on miniature pastures, and seeing the work of decades of gardening laid out as patches of color and greenery. It was just incredible. I also loved listening to the radio, though. As we passed through towered airfields, we might hear from air traffic control (ATC), checking in and letting us know if someone was coming up on our left or right or straight ahead. Part of the co-pilot’s job is to watch out for other aircraft. Usually, you’re flying at a slightly different altitude so it’s pretty easy to avoid getting in anyone’s way. In a bigger flight zone, however, like Seattle’s Sea-Tac airport, it’s not uncommon for ATC to ask you to change altitude or modify your path slightly to avoid oncoming traffic. Their job is to land planes at the airport. To do that, they need to know what everyone else in their airspace is up to. And in their airspace, you do what they tell you to do.

©2014 by Angelique Little

After a beautiful flight, we were at our destination and ready to land. I’d already taken a lot of pictures out the windows but Jacob asked me to make a video of our landing. He does this himself quite often with his cell phone, in its mount on the window. I pointed the phone at the front window and the propeller looked really weird in the video. It’s there and then it’s not there. It doesn’t look continuous, it looks like it’s appearing and then disappearing. But I had to focus because apparently, this happens really fast. We were nearly on the ground! I usually would brace myself and breathe deeply, maybe even closing my eyes, but he’d asked me to video so I was holding my phone and watching instead. To land a small plane, you basically starve the engine of fuel to slow it down. The trick is to slow down enough to land but not enough to stall – in which case you can still land but you have less control over the plane. The moment before landing is almost silent as you glide towards the ground. I saw some people on the side of the runway waving at us. “Is that your family?” I asked and then, we were on the ground. I didn’t hear or feel a thing. We gently slowed and pulled into a spot off the runway and then Jacob stopped the plane. Smoothly, perfectly.

©2014 by Angelique Little

On the return trip, we talked more about flying. About how he’d always wanted to do it and when he had a good job, he bought a plane. It’s not cheap but it’s not the most expensive hobby either. If your priority is to fly and you are willing to spend less on a car, house and vacations, it’s definitely possible. If you rent a plane rather than buy one, it’s something most anyone with a good job could do. One of Jacob’s flight instructors was a woman but the percentage of licensed pilots who are female is 6%, similar to other male-dominated occupations. The biggest reason could simply be that flying hasn't been marketed to women and girls and they simply don't think to do it. I'm guessing that after the media blitz with dozens of pictures of the lovely Amelia Rose flying around the world, that could change. Though she's just one of many female pilots working to get girls interested in flying, she is certainly the most high profile.