No sooner had the first intrepid aviators safely returned to the earth,it seemed, than women, too, were smitten by an urge to fly.From mere spectators they became willing passengers and finally pilots in their own right,pitting their skills and daring against the hazards of the air and the skepticism of their male counterparts.(1)_______________________.However recognition of their abilities did not come easily.“Men do not believe us capable,”the famed aviator Amelia Earhart once remarked to a friend.“Because we are women, seldom are we trusted to do an efficient job.”Indeed, old attitudes died hard:when Charles Lindbergh visited the Soviet Union in 1938 with his wife,Ann—herself a pilot and gifted proponent of aviation—he was astonished to discover both men and women flying in the Soviet Air Force.Such conventional wisdom made it difficult for women to raise money for the up-to-date equipment they needed to compete on an equal basis with men.(2)_______________________.Ruth Law, whose 590-mile flight from Chicago to Hornell, New York,set a new nonstop distance record in 1916,exemplified the resourcefulness and great demanded of any woman who wanted to fly.(3)________________________________,her plainspoken words testified to a universal human motivation that was unaffected by gender:“My flight was done with no expectation of reward,” she declared,“just purely for the love of accomplishment.”
