Hannah, you are welcome to scrutinise my previous posts on prune.
I began flying at High Wycombe in a glider, aged 50, already had children, foster children, grandchildren.
Now have more than 3,000 hours, IR, 3 diamonds, seaplane rating, glider instructor, and Tugmaster at my gliding club, and represented the UK in the first Women's European Gliding Championship in the USSR - before that political arrangement went down the proverbial....
I fly for fun, nobody ever saw fit to pay me a salary, alas....but never suffered from disrespect. However I do not think women should waste their childbearing years becoming airline pilots, or in fact taking on any other business career that is less important than having a family! So there.
Old commercial pilots, men that is, thrice divorced, bitter and twisted from being disrespected by the airline beancounters, spending nights away with hostile cabin crew in basic hotel accomodation, and unable to hone their true flying skills, being forbidden to fly without using the autopilot in nearly every modern airliner, where's the fun in that?
Men are useful for heavy lifting and getting dirty and covered in grease. But women live longer.