To your recent blog about news stories that promote women, I would add these comments: Yes, all-female flights or fake or minor women’s firsts have multiple negative aspects including the one you mentioned, “Imagine that. They could actually do it.” But also it gives an impression that women have just arrived in the industry as the eternal beginners.
Good essay Ms. Goyer.
I’m not sure I understand what miss Goyer is saying.
What the heck is “gender balance”?
Egalitarianism in aviation.
Nearly every ism that exists is the result of other isms. Don’t care for sexism? Better eradicate chauvinism, egoism, exclusivism, skepticism, and a few others first if you want to purge it from the boardrooms, media, cockpits and small minds of society.
Life unfair? It’s really just a ruse. A man can’t do anything a woman can. I know that, and I’m at peace with it. Employ isms like self-determinism, optimism and meliorism. You’ll be fine.
Ah, reactionary bullshitism.
You are absolutely correct! However, to not be perceived as extraordinary events, there has to be one standard, and one standard only. Pilot first, gender, race, ethnicity, etc. somewhere else. Otherwise, the accomplishment is perceived as an exception to the rule.
And I thought it was Aunt Bee on Season 8, Episode 23 of the Andy Griffith’s show when she solo’d in her “Big Moment”…
I’d love to hear the back story of how the Cessna marketing department pulled that one off.
I liked the article. On the record, by the way!
Nothing’s perfect, and I’m sure not either!
All I think she is saying is that we need to find a way (the right way) to communicate every time we attempt to.
Unless she can define her terms, there is NO WAY to understand what she’s saying nor for for her to proceed in a logical steps forward. I don’t respect women as a class of people nor do I respect men as a class of people. Respect is EARNED. If she was fighting this “battle” for better pilots (and therefore better safety) then I would be 100% in support; but this article is only looks at people’s different plumbing.
How about some truth like: get in line, missy, the world is against everyone.
Anyone selling a “solution” to that fact is the one involved in bullshitism.
I agree. Equal knowledge and skills. One standard.
Flying is no longer “a man’s job.” It has become a computer game - no strength required, just good reflexes and, because motion is involved, the ability to accurately project one’s current actions into what happens miles further ahead of where you are now.
Couple of things: There have been great female pilots for a hundred years. Not sure where “ignoring women’s presence as we did before 2010” comes from, that sounds like nonsense. It was hard to see where the author is going with her points. Some of these female-first “accomplishments” sound silly like when you hear about the first Papua New Guinean to race in NASCAR or the first all left-nutted male crew of a space mission. At what point does group identity stop being an accomplishment if other groups did it already for decades?
I learned to fly in 2002 and my CFI was a talented woman. The female CFIs I work with do the job as well as anyone and they are following their dream but there just aren’t a ton of them. I can’t speak to sexism or other things that might culturally discourage women, but aviation is the only career I can think of that there is NO external barrier to entry other than spending a lot of money. At some point, for every other career you can think of, there is someone who will tell you you are done and its time to give up on your dream, but not aviation. You can’t be a dentist or lawyer, podiatrist, electrician, accountant, bus driver by just by spending more $$ when you fail out of something, but literally anyone who wants to waste (invest?) 4 years and $150k and work/spend through PPL/Inst/Com/CFI/CFII/Multi Com/ MEI can then be qualified to wear three-stripes and earn $47k/a year at your fave regional airline. They will hire anyone. They’d even hire me, and that’s insane. So at no point in is someone going to say you can’t stop spending money towards qualifying for an ATP and an almost-guaranteed career in aviation. At my thousands of hours at flight schools, FBOs, hangars I have never seen a CFI who was the least bit opposed to taking a female student’s $$ and helping her toward the checkride. What a country!
So I always laugh at the idea that there is some barrier to entry for women in aviation. It’s the same barrier that’s there for everyone - it’s a ton of $$ that you need someone to front you or its a huge s–t sandwich for 6 years or so to earn those 1,500 hrs, and anyone with a brain (except for few marginal male weirdos who wanted to fly since they were 4) is going to find a different career. A smart 23 yr old woman is going to get a MS in biochemistry and have a better life than working as a CFI in FL for $13k for three years and then working as an RJ FO in Newark with an even worst quality of life.
Oh and fast forward to 2019, my CFII from 2003, yep she has an ATP and a CRJ type rating, but she and her husband (also a CFI) flip houses and are a million times happier running their business than being A320 FOs…
Sh*t sandwich?? Yep, flying is definitely not for everyone.
Carl R. That’s the best presented argument I have read in a long time on this subject. Its all about the money and being able to live through the ladder of s–t jobs whether your male. female, or gender neutral.
C’mon, that’s not a truism. Sounds more like hypercriticism resulting from philistinism. Nonetheless, Good luck with your egalitarianism, if that’s what you think the author wanted, yet never mentioned.
I found it to be a disjointed rant ranging from complaining about media coverage of women pilots, to airports filled with mostly women pilots. Confusing favoritism.
Aviation is more than willing to take anyone’s money for training and is also more than willing to take a decade of your life as a near-slave to be a CFI and regional pilot. The author ignores that reality and embarks on a journey of feelings and viewpoints and politics. That’s fine, but you don’t get to order other people around to change their lives in order to fit YOUR world view.
I’ve taught women to fly in airplanes which got a lot of attention. People at the gas pumps always wanted to talk to me and not the owners because they assumed I was the pilot even if I got out of the rear or right seat. I’ve been in airline training sessions in which instructors have said they were glad there weren’t any women in the room. I’ve seen the pilots’ lounge at a respected corporate FBO labeled as “Man Cave.” A friend of mine was tapped on the shoulder and reminded that the airline event she was attending, hosted by her company, was for “pilots only, not for wives or flight attendants.” Any time women might try to discuss any of these sorts of challenges, they’re immediately attacked and told to lighten up and suck it up. I’ve never faced any suggestions, either direct of passive, that I didn’t belong in aviation. Women face these kinds of things all too often. To have the strength to become a good flyer and also do deal with some of their colleagues who may only begrudgingly accept them at best, women who make a career flying have more stones than the men who dismiss their challenges as false.