Please know that I am aware of the hazards. I want to do it because I want to do it. Women must try to do things as men have tried. When they fail, their failure must be a challenge to others.

This statement is associated with Amelia Earhart’s public defense of her decision to fly despite the obvious dangers, at a time when aviation was still experimental and fatal accidents were common. Earhart (1897–1937) became an international celebrity in the late 1920s and early 1930s for record-setting flights and for using that fame to argue for women’s equal participation in modern professions. The wording reflects her recurring insistence that women should not be protected from risk or ambition, but judged by the same standards as men—and that even setbacks can open doors for those who follow.

Earhart frames risk-taking as a matter of agency (“because I want to do it”) rather than spectacle or recklessness. The quote argues that equality requires equal permission to attempt difficult, dangerous, or prestigious endeavors—aviation standing in for any male-dominated field. Crucially, she redefines “failure” as socially productive: if a woman’s attempt ends unsuccessfully, it should not be used to bar other women, but should instead serve as evidence that women are participating fully in the same trials men have long undertaken. The line turns individual outcome into collective momentum, making perseverance a feminist ethic.