Originally Posted by
TheOneWhoNeverWas
My name is Parminder, which should tell you what I look like, and I am female. I would have joined the RAF to scrub the floors. I had a Cranwell date with every hope of being able to fly, and I withdrew last year because of exactly this.
My parents came to this country in part to give me a better chance and I wanted to give something back and on that basis it feels like about the biggest betrayal possible. I was told I needed to be a reliable and trustworthy person with principles, and I did everything I could to be that person. Now it feels like the organisation which was telling me that was itself not very reliable nor trustworthy and did not have the courage to support its own principles.
I don't want to be a token minority to advance someone else's career or be in a job that I don't even know if I'm really competent to do. I don't want everyone I work with to think hmm, is she actually any good, or is she here for political reasons. I do not want any white males I happen to work with to assume I think they're "useless white males." I don't. Nobody asked me if I wanted this and I don't. I want to succeed on my own merits, I've worked for them. I am not doing it. They can find someone else.
Parminder, that is a tragic situation and a very sobering account. I wish there was a way of changing your mind back to your original intention.
Unfortunately, owing to the sort of people and institutions we have been discussing, it is going to take some brave people like you to be pathfinders to show these idiots how wrong their prejudices are.
In two careers, (television broadcasting and airline flying), I have worked alongside female and BAME engineers/pilots; some of whom have been my bosses, (and some of those bosses were also younger than me as well). Anybody who passed selection and worked to improve themselves once in the job, were and are, perfectly fine people to work with.
I genuinely hope you will reconsider and become a much needed trailblazer.