Just to clear up any misunderstanding...my comments about Ryanair not hiring females for financial reasons were not meant to be taken to suggest I don't think female pilots are any good.
Not at all.
But the fact remains...they have potentially higher specific costs of employment due to their tendancy to reproduce at will.
As to female/male pilot ability. I've seen both sides of this.
I've flown with female pilots who were outstanding. I've also flown with female pilots who were useless...ditto for males.
However, I have on more than one occasion (alright, twice) personally witnessed the abuse of feminine wiles to get ahead.
In the first case a female new-joiner was told she would be streamed onto a turbo-prop fleet instead of the jet type she hoped for (not as a result of any ability issues...just luck of the draw). She went to the Chief Pilot and bawled her eyes out to him. He wimped out and took a young guy off the jet slot and gave it to her. Later, when the young man objected - he was fired for questioning the Chief Pilots motives!
In the other case I actually saw a female pilot burst into tears during a difficult sim check that wasn't going well for her.
The session was stopped so she could compose herself, and when it restarted - everything was laid on a plate to get her through. A male pilot in the same situation would either have had to sort himself out or fail the check.
I believe this kind of thing does go on, like it or not.