Women Fall From the Sky

March 31, 2018 10:51 PM

Parachuting women have been around quite a while. The first link is heavy on European history, especially France. This next link is of Chinese women, although there is no info on whether these are real women or stylized artistic painting: Chinese women parachuters

And I found a blog post from a few years ago about the new sport of skydiving for women in Iran: Iranian women parachuters

posted by MovableBookLady (5 comments total)

The article mentions Sophie Blanchard, but doesn't mention that she and her husband were early experimenters of the parachute (along with their ballooning exploits) soon after it was invented.
posted by eye of newt at 11:02 PM on March 31, 2018

Ahh man, it’s like the socialists discovered Instagram filters before the capitalists did.

Those are some ruddy cheeks!
posted by notyou at 11:02 PM on March 31, 2018

Dolly Shepherd, Edwardian parachutist.
posted by Segundus at 11:29 PM on March 31, 2018 [2 favorites]

There's also Jeanne Geneviève Labrosse. Became, I think, the first woman parachutist in 1798, although during the drop she remained in the gondola of her balloon.
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 1:33 PM on April 1, 2018

I was always grimly fascinating by this tombstone in Whitchurch cemetery in Cardiff. A 14 year old girl who was killed in 1896, performing a parachute stunt from a tethered balloon. It was such a strange and sad thing to stumble across during a morning walk, and felt like a reflection of how cheap life was in the 19th century. There's more information on it here.
posted by howfar at 4:38 PM on April 1, 2018 [2 favorites]