PASSION... DARING... ADVENTURE...

"Sexism: Alive and well in scuba diving" by Jill Heinerth
refers to Agnes Milowka with reminiscence to Jill Heinerth "The Essentials of Cave Diving" book. Quote:

"In writing about Agnes, I was observing a shift in technical diving. Although it may have resulted in her untimely death, there were things that were coming to the surface that I felt were really positive. Younger divers seemed to be more gender blind. There was a welcome growing perception that women explorers were not less capable than men. There was no reason to sit in the bleachers when you could take the bull by the horns and blaze a trail. A writer asked, "Does anyone feel Agnes (an attractive female) was treated differently or encouraged differently than if a young male would have been doing the same level of dives at the same age/experience level?"

A pioneering cave diver responded, indicating that Milowka had truly reached gender equality, "The sad fact of life is, Agnes died because she was out to prove she could do anything men could do. Well, she did, she died trying to prove something, like a lot of guys have done in the past."

published by Diver Magazine, 2015, Volume 40, Issue 7