Women pilot Lucknow's first Metro run (passenger trains, India)

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/lucknow/Women-pilot-Lucknows-first-Metro-run/articleshow/55715025.cms

is the link to a news story from the Times of India stating that two women train "pilots" were given the job of piloting this Lucknow Metro.

India is a country that's not that kind to women, for all that supposedly there are more women doctors in India then there are in the United States. India has that "Untouchables" thing going on, as well as the "Dowry" thing going on, where if a woman doesn't have a dowry she can't get a husband, etc. (Easiest solution to that would be to abolish the dowry system, but I guess it's "cultural."

I'm sharing this story here because it's very much a part of The Freedom Stea ethos - women sitting in the command chair and proving their mettle.

A couple of days ago I did a search on "Women Pilots' from 1900 to 1910, at the digitized newspaper repository Newspapers.com,  because I wanted to see when the term "pilot" for the pilot of a plane first came into use - the Wright brothers referred to themselves as "operators" and in France they were "aviatiors."

I was shocked to find - in the headlines - mentions of "women pilots" as early as 1907 - well before the first women had taken to the skies.

Turns out the news articles were referring to *steamboat* pilots. In the early 1900s there were a handful of women pilots of steamboats - in fact the term pilot itself, used for everything else, has its originations in nautical activity.