To my mind this all has the potential to become very divisive. Although that said, I think RvB is asking a legitimate question. In reply to FO Kite
Surely a first officer with a professional pilot's licence and selected for the job is just that - a competent pilot irrespective of sex, race or cultural background?
You would hope. However, some of the big scare stories apart, I'm sure the experiences of expat pilots, or contractors would illustrate that cultural background does indeed become an issue in certain flightdecks and situations. Gender (and I'm going down a blind alley here) informs also a great deal of things - I'm thinking literature for example - and whilst I'm as unqualified as you can get to comment on this, it is not impossible that the question of gender merits discussion per se.