Originally Posted by
krismiler
Changing society's attitude to traditional female roles is beyond the scope of airlines. All that can reasonably expected is a level playing field which aims to select the best person for the job.
My lengthy post was intended to question whether the playing field is actually level when you take into account society’s attitude, airline attitude, culture and numerous other factors.
If the best person for the job happens to be a female who chose not to apply because her Dad told her “girls should be nurses”, or her school groomed her for a polite society in which girls don’t get their fingernails dirty, or she simply wasn’t interested in putting up with a misogynistic workplace for the rest of her life, then we didn’t get the best person for the job did we?
Instead, we got her brother who’s Dad bought him model planes since he was 5. His road was easy, and he had a good chance of making it even if his sister would have made the better pilot.
Culture plays a part in getting females to consider the profession. The airlines have a part to play in that, and it’s already started. If they send female pilots around to school career days, which I believe they have started to do, that’s awesome. I’d prefer it if they sent male & female pilots together, because then it wouldn’t look so much like affirmative action.
And I completely agree - as long as we can keep quotas out of the equation, and work on the real factors, then let the numbers fall where they may.
Do I agree with the 50/50 gender quotas that appear to be applied at the QF academy? No.
Do I agree with public statements by Airline CEO’s stating a goal of 50/50? No - because it implies a quota system even if they never implement one, and it pisses everyone off, especially females. But if they are saying it just to encourage females that things are-a-changing, then that’s noble, but not the right way to do it IMHO. Anyone in
PR can state a “goal” or a “plan” without ever having to defend it’s subsequent lack of implementation. I prefer it if people speak the truth, even if they are employed in
PR.
Having said all that, I might be a bit old school in saying that you will never really excel in this profession unless some part of your brain falls in love with it. It needs to be part of your life, not just your job.
That doesn’t mean you need a half-built RV7 in your garage, but it means you put in a bit more than the minimum required study to pass your next check.
I sometimes fly with pilots, male or female, who are obviously not particularly dedicated to the job. I’ve flown with a female who really didn’t want to be late home because the baby-sitter was only booked until 8 o’clock. That had the potential to interfere with appropriate decision making during the flight. It would have been very easy for me to jump to the conclusion that females with kids make poor pilots. But I’ve also flown with males who have demonstrated complete detachment from the job, and only view it as an income stream to support their other interests. Who would I like to be sitting next to if the sh1t hits the fan? Someone who knows their stuff, and cares a bit more than the bare minimum to maintain their job!
That’s why quotas won’t work. It’s easy for a CEO to state that their quota pilots meet all the required standards set out by the regulator, and have passed their “high standards of in-house training”. When something goes wrong, you need the best person for the job, and that person needs to care enough to train themselves way beyond the standards set out by the regulator.
So promoting the profession to females needs to go a bit beyond just flashy gold wings and epaulettes with big smiling faces saying “you too can fly”... the reality of the required dedication needs to be part of it.
P.S. If you’re reading pprune, then you either already have the dedication, or you are just trying to work out which subsidiary pilots are currently trying to steal your job.