It's the 21st Century. Racism and machismo have survived the last century, obviously. But should we be surprised about these types of uninformed views from our customers?
What is more disturbing, in my view, is when these types of attitudes prevail at the corporate level. I remember reading a post a couple of years ago from a forum member, supposedly a Chief Pilot at a company in a Western country who commented about how we sorts out new applicant resumes. "First, I get rid of the ones from applicants with Al Qaeda-sounding names." I suppose that with an applicant of British nationality and with a name like Richard Reid, one cannot go wrong!
I wonder what Tyler Brûlè thinks of "girl pilots?"