MooLor wrote:Qantas16 wrote:MooLor wrote:
That is true of many industries, but I doubt aviation is one of them.
What concerns me is men putting themselves forward to be discriminated against, by being on the wrong side of the "affirmative action" equation.
So how do you explain the tiny percentage of pilots that are women? Do you believe that is all choice and that very few women genuinely want to be pilots?
In our country, females have equal opportunity to participate in cadetship programmes etc. But you must have the correct education to qualify. If you want to be a pilot cadet you ensure you get the right education - that's a choice.
However, females are under represented in the sciences. So there would be less opportunity to "fall into" a pilot career for the majority, or choose to go that way after high school. That's not the aviation industry's fault. But as I read it, it is the area AJ is suggesting be addressed - you ensure females who wish to become pilots follow the correct stream/s through high school, so that the best people can become pilots, regardless of their gender. I doubt he is suggesting there are fewer female airline pilots due to discrimination or a "blokey" culture.
Now, those taking the bush-pilot route are less likely to be female. A blokey culture or an aversion to the physical environment? A bit of both I suspect. Can that be fixed? Good luck with that, but it does seem to have been addressed in the mining industry - there are female engineers etc. now, whereas they were practically non-existent back when I worked in that sector. How has that come about? When I was at Uni the engineering student were animals - right up there with the "rugger buggers". That's the culture that needed to change in order to produce more female engineering graduates, and apparently it has.
Another source of pilots are third-world countries - and I'm thinking of India. That is an example of a country where a female does not have equal opportunity to gain an education. Nothing AJ can do about that.
So, what can AJ do to enable more females to become QF pilots? He doesn't want sub-par cadets via affirmative action / quotas. So he educates. And good on him.
I must confess, as someone who’s been in the industry for a decade now, and whilst my experience is first hand anecdotal (and a gay guy) - there is still and element of a gentleman’s club on many flight decks (and I’d add engineering also) are woman or others decrimianted against in an institutional manner? Not at all, however casual unintentional (hopefully) discrimination is still prevalent. But it’s an old guard who is either moving on or changing their opinions. As you’ve outlined better promotion of equal gender neutral education (not science, sports for boys, arts, English for girls) combined with a more welcoming environment will see a continued improvement in female (and LGBT) numbers in all areas of the industry. But due to the very nature of the career and length of training, it’s going to take years to truly see the numbers shift.
I welcome AJs comments and support to see more female tech crew, engineers, and rampies too I may add!!