Originally Posted by
Icarus2001
Yes clearly schoolgirls are unaware that there are female pilots.
Admittedly life is much more aware nowadays than my time. There were 4 or 5 occupations that were available in the country when I was growing up and without the benefit of such things as the internet very few of my peers left the boundaries of the hometown. Simply put schoolgirls are unaware of all the career options available to them. In saying that they are significantly more aware than 50 years ago.
There is no glass ceiling, it is a social construction for the purpose of rhetoric. We have had women chief pilots, women CEOs, a female prime minister, a female premier in every state and various ministers in both sides of politics. So where is the ceiling that is allegedly preventing this? The boss of our second biggest airline is a woman for goodness sake.
Again we are talking about times in the past which becomes applicable to seeing a career as attractive when you have a number of gender peers in that profession. We had a Queen and a female PM, "for goodness sake".
The often heard statement “if you cannot see it you cannot be it” is rubbish. Otherwise you would never have the FIRST black president, the first female Prime Minister etc.
Right, so by some magical means you decide to become something that you have never heard of. So, no black politicians over the years prior to the FIRST black president, no females in politics prior to the first female PM?
Because so long as women have the same opportunity to become a pilot as a man, which they do, then the lack of equal numbers is meaningless. Why are you not arguing for equal engineers or more male cabin crew?
Do they have equal opportunity? A few years back no. And now, no as they have more than equal opportunity but what is lacking is the desire for those careers due to being a product of our environment which sub consciously imprints on them.
Women have less interest in the job of pilot. Do some research about male versus female brains at birth and in the first two years of life. We are programmed by evolution to be attracted to different “things”. This is not to say women and men are not “equal” except men struggle to gestate a foetus and as a result we expect the ladies to do that. They mostly seem to be drawn to that role, odd that.
Not at all odd being products of our environment. Why do women have less interest in the job as a pilot? Does not evolution mean evolving, you know changing. It was proven that when genders were given equal opportunities (Sweden?) that they reverted back to established roles, Not surprising given that evolution does not occur in a generation or two. Odd that? I am not a fan of quotas as they generally require a change of standards to achieve numbers.