Rio-vfr,
Don't worry; I have no intention of deleting this thread; it's getting rather interesting!
I said what I did at the start because of earlier experiences with threads of this sort on PPRuNe. Way back I was accused of being "obsessed with gender". And in many threads like this you end up with some well meaning male saying something like: "Well, I think that women pilots are good; I don't see them as any different from men; they might even be better". Well, I hate to criticise anything that's meant as a compliment, but I see that as emphasising that the sky is blue, when I've commented that a surprising number of people say it's purple with green stripes! (Comments about if God meant women to fly he'd have made the sky pink are not allowed here, or I really WILL pull this thread!!!!
)
Anyway, when I was growing up the same thing applied. In fact, I remember a conversation with a teacher at school when I was about 8. She asked us what we wanted to do; all the boys wanted to be engine drivers or similar, the girls wanted to be teachers or nurses. She asked if any girls wanted to do anything different, and I remember thinking, in almost suicidal despair: "What else can girls do?" A little later I read about women being parachuted into enemy territory as secret agents in the Second World War, and decided that would do for me! I longed for a war for years. Never occurred to me that I could actually fly the aircraft taking them there, or do anything similar in peacetime, not till I was a lot older. There weren't many female role models for adventurous young girls back then. (I'm not 93, honest; we often don't realise how quickly the world has changed)
On women being sensitive/intuitive when learning to fly; I sometimes wonder if I had that knocked out of me by instructors who seemed determined to break flying down into component parts. It often felt that way, but I'm not sure. You can't do that with helicopter flying; hovering has to be done completely by feel, so maybe that's why I seemed to find it easier, at least in the beginning. But as with all generalisations about men and women, I suspect there are many many exceptions.
I too have found that many men have been helpful, encouraging, or simply treated me as just another pilot (I prefer the last of those). I didn't feel it needed to be said - a bit like emphasising that the sky is blue. But that's just me.
One other thing - you're from "downunder". When I was flying in the US, women pilots were still in a minority, but no-one seemed even remotely surprised that I was a pilot. Other British women have told me the same thing. Anyone noticd any other cultural differences?