I was involved in the training of the first female pilots and navigators in the RAF several years ago. While we found that there was essentially no difference in innate ability between women and men, there were significant differences in mechanical experience and spatial awareness.
The lack of mechanical experience was simply down to not having played as much with Meccano, Lego, or taking bicycles apart as a kid, as the boys had. We found that we were having to explain basic mechanical principles much more frequently with women than with men. Even though this was 17 years ago (and the childhood that lacked this experience was thus 30-odd years ago), this behaviour is still apparent. Courses were changed to allow for this, and it hasn't been a major problem since as far as I'm aware.
Spatial awareness is an issue which won't go away, as it appears to be a fundamental difference between women and men. It's perhaps less critical in the civilian environment than the military, but it is a fact that the proportion of women that posess the minimum required spatial awareness is considerably less than that of men.
However, a far larger problem is the relative lack of women who wish to enter this profession. You can't increase the numbers of women in flight decks if they don't want to do the job! My company, Virgin, is perceived as a foward-looking, enlightened employer, but the proportion of applicants who are female has, if anything,
dropped over the last few years. It's possible that there is a general perception that this is an old-fashioned misogynistic profession, but I don't understand why that perception should have got
stronger in recent years! Nor is it obvious what current evidence there is to support such a perception.
It seems to me that this is, for whatever reason, a career that is less attractive to women than others are. Whether it's the mechanical aspect of it, a perception of misogyny, or a general feeling of lack of aptitude ("oh, I could never do that"), it's impossible to say, but the applicants aren't out there - and you can't
make them want to do this!
While you're trying to work this dilemma out, perhaps you could explain to me why there are almost no male teachers any more (apart from my brother)?
Scroggs