Please tell me this tripe is a wind up?
Of course it's a wind up.
I'm in favour of best person for the job and am more concerned that everyone has equal opportunities. No one should be held back or advanced on the basis of belonging to a minority group. Standards should be the same for everyone with the aim of getting the best people, it's known as meritocracy.
Unfortunately the PC mob don't agree and want to see a certain percentage of minority groups in all areas, and unfortunately this results in a lowering of standards in order to meet quotas.
The Police need to have female officers for reasons such as searching women suspects and dealing with rape victims. Whilst they are not as good in a physical confrontation, women often have better communication skills and can defuse a difficult situation better than a testosterone fuelled male officer out to prove himself. Women are invaluable to the police and it would be difficult for the force to operate effectively without them.
Airlines do not need to have women pilots, however should they choose a flying career then they should have the same opportunities as the men and there should be no favouritism or discrimination shown. The top percentile are just as good and should be hired on merit, it's doing them no favours when the female average is dragged down by the bottom percentile who were employed only to make up the numbers.
Rather than setting targets for women pilots, airlines should be making sure that the playing field is completely level and they simply employ the best applicants for the job regardless of gender, race or sexual orientation. I regularly fly with female F/Os and have no issues with this, our selection procedure is even handed and those who got through did so because they deserved to, not because we need to achieve a certain percentage.
The issue of race and university entrance in the USA is an interesting one, do they simply take the best scoring applicants which results in the intake being comprised largely of Asian and Jewish students, or do they have quotas which would give a diverse intake, enable social mobility and all races the opportunity to advance ?