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Old 26th Mar 2021, 00:15
  #21 (permalink)  
 
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Originally Posted by finestkind
So women are given a chance to do the job and due to being placed in a position where they are not suited (with better male candidates being passed by) for have a high failure rate which just reinforces the perception that women cannot do the job.
What evidence do you have to back up that statement?

Last edited by dr dre; 26th Mar 2021 at 00:32.
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Old 26th Mar 2021, 00:23
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My previous career was in the trades in the mining sector.

I sat in the hiring for apprentices.

We had one young fella who attended, he was perfect. He had tailored all his school subjects to put himself in the best position for an electrical trade, it’s all he wanted to do. His interview was on the mark.
Exactly what we were looking for apart from one thing, he was male.

Instead, HR insisted we hired a female (one applied). She had no real interest but had heard sparkies make good money.

She got the job, lasted 6 months then quit and worked in retail i last heard.

the young fella went onto another mine site and won the state apprentice of the year...twice.
Last I heard he had completed his engineering degree which he studied during his apprenticeship.

So I can tell you right now, big companies do hire based on gendar alone.
It’s nothing new.



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Old 26th Mar 2021, 00:34
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Anecdotes aren’t evidence. The claim was made that women have a “high failure rate” on the job, and since this is an aviation thread I assume that means sim checks, line checks, promotional courses etc. Are there any verified numbers out there to back up that statement?
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Old 26th Mar 2021, 01:13
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Originally Posted by dr dre
Anecdotes aren’t evidence. The claim was made that women have a “high failure rate” on the job, and since this is an aviation thread I assume that means sim checks, line checks, promotional courses etc. Are there any verified numbers out there to back up that statement?
If chicks were meant to fly the sky would be pink? 🙄
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Old 26th Mar 2021, 03:08
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Originally Posted by Turbine70
I think this misses the point.

The purpose of diversity isn't or certainly should not be to accept inferior candidates from under represented groups.

The purpose is to develop a more diverse pipeline of candidates.

If only 5% of applicants are female, the objective must be to find ways to raise the number of suitable female applicants.

Once they have applied, the usual rules should apply.
Of course, but that is a long term fix that does not fit neatly into an election cycle.
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Old 26th Mar 2021, 04:30
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Quota systems do not work. Never have, never will.

Give me a meritocracy or give me death.

I have a cousin who is an early childhood teacher. The attitudes she displays toward the quota system in her industry for males is an almost mirror of the attitudes displayed here. Although somewhat darker. Instead of "she just 'knew' the right people", the conversation becomes "why would a grown man want to teach young kids, that's creepy and risky to give them access" and they are not alone in this view. I am sure the same types of conversations are had in the nursing community. I feel these conversations and comments are a direct result of the personal injustice of quota systems.

Instead of quota systems, we need an organic grass roots system that instills in our children that they can be whatever they want to be and can work in whatever career they want. But as ruprecht stated, that takes time.

j3
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Old 26th Mar 2021, 04:41
  #27 (permalink)  
 
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Here’s a way to solve the problem.

If you have a Willy on your next application circle F. You identify as a female, you are female.

Problem solved. Thank me later...


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Old 26th Mar 2021, 07:27
  #28 (permalink)  
 
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Female aviators

Originally Posted by dr dre
What evidence do you have to back up that statement?
The very fact there is a quota system is all the evidence you need. You stated you have flown with sub standard male pilots, well so have I. You also stated earlier all the women you flew with were basically top notch ace pilots, I call BS on that as a statistical improbability.

I also have flown with some great female aviators and some that should not be allowed to operate a toaster let alone a passenger jet. There is nothing misogynistic or sexist in that, it is simply an observable fact that many a TRI/TRE around the world will agree with as they have seen the same thing..

You are clearly some sort of feminist and that's fine but please stop with denying there have been some shocking female pilots because its just not true. I am the father of a daughter and I encourage her to chase her dreams as often as possible but I also am realistic with her, I let her know she is dealing with other peoples lives in things like aviation, medicine, engineering etc. and she has to meet the standards required to be successful in these fields, not to expect a hand out because she is female. I want her knowing when she gets to where she is going she can confidently say she absolutely earned it on her own merits.

I agree it would be great to see a 50% representation of women in all fields including engineering, baggage handling, tug driver, pilot, board members etc. but lets not kid ourselves, positive discrimination or a quota system was designed to discriminate against mainly 'White men' who dominate these industries.

Another point of interest is young men today are paying for the sins of the father and the old AN boys club or Qantas boys club. How fair is that? Why should a 20 year old kid today be punished because of so called past injustices. Dont even try to justify that because there is no good answer for that, merit is the only yard stick that should be used to measure the success of these candidates regardless of what happened in the past.

The fact that there are just not as many women interested in aviation (that is a fact by the way) does not seem to matter to these clowns in charge who will do anything for even representation but also as another poster pointed out, it only seems to apply in the 'Glory Jobs' never plumbers, street sweepers, car mechanics etc.

On top of that if you are also saying that current representation is about 5% and about 5% of applicants are women well then that is a 100% success rate on hiring, again absolute BS to suggest every woman hired as a pilot has 'Met the Grade', I call absolute BS on that one also because I have seen it first hand. There have been some very good ones and some very bad ones.

I just dont believe every woman you have flown with is that good, more like your feminist credentials kicking in here or you have only ever flown with 1 or 2 women. I am all for women in aviation, just drop the quota or positive discrimination nonsense and go for a job and achieve it on merit otherwise do not expect the support and respect of your peers.
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Old 26th Mar 2021, 08:24
  #29 (permalink)  
 
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Originally Posted by dr dre
What evidence do you have to back up that statement?
I think that TinFoilhat2 has given a reasonable response.
I appreciate that facts to support such claims of lesser quality people being given jobs over better ones due to gender would be nice but how do you suggest anything besides anecdotal evidence. Do you think someone is going to stand up and say "my superior instructed me to fill these positions with specific gender candidate irrelevant of their ability"? Many applicants are aware of this and are loath to create a stir, but I am surprised someone has not pressed to test which would be difficult without knowing your ranking.
It has been going on for years and is called the quota system.
My Canadian mate told me, must be close to 40 years ago, that one quarter of graduating pilots going to fast jet would be French Canadian and it did not matter if only one on course was FC and came last on course he would go to fast jets.
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Old 26th Mar 2021, 10:09
  #30 (permalink)  
 
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Originally Posted by TinFoilhat2
The very fact there is a quota system is all the evidence you need.
Is there? So we do know that some of the Academy and cadet classes have a 50/50 gender ratio, but they have only been a small minority of training positions. As far as making it onto a jet I believe in the last wave of recruitment at Australian airlines (up until last year) the percentage of female applicants for positions was roughly the same as job offers. My own personal observation was it was around 10-15%. Industry stats show licences issued in 2010-15 were 8-9% female, increasing each year I think with a lot of commercial aviation like ag flying would be more male dominated so a higher proportion of females would be attracted into airlines. So 10-15% of new hires being female in 2015-20 isn't unexpected or as a result of a quota. It is still a minority of overall recruitment, nowhere near 50/50.

From what I'm also told most of the recruiting process is de-identified, when sorting through interview results, aptitude and sim test results the candidate's details and even name aren't disclosed to ensure process is as fair as possible.

Now what I do believe is airlines have stated they Aim to move recruitment closer to 50/50, but not through a quota. They aim to do this via increasing the pool of females wanting to fly. Whether it be via Advertising, media appearances, careers days, school visits, greater visibility etc. There's nothing wrong with that in of itself and that isn't a quota system. There's lots of historical reasons why women haven't been involved in aviation and some have decided it's time to change that.

This may have worked, I read somewhere in the recent past (can't find it just now) that recent classes at some of the aviation uni degrees have been closer to 20-40% female. So that's young people interested in Aviation careers who are enrolling in a degree of their own free will, not just being "gifted" a position because of a "quota". So more females are now freely choosing flying as a career than even 10 years ago, again, not the result of preferential quotas.

You are clearly some sort of feminist
Hmmm, wouldn't have used that word to describe myself. I just think a lot of the gripes here against females are a bit overblown.

On top of that if you are also saying that current representation is about 5% and about 5% of applicants are women well then that is a 100% success rate on hiring,
Sorry, you may have to look at your maths there. 5% of pilots being female and 5% of applicants being female doesn't mean it's a 100% success rate in recruitment for females.

merit is the only yard stick that should be used to measure the success of these candidates
And this is where it can get a bit complicated. I think most people who aim for a pilot role will make good pilots. However generally the amount of good applicants usually exceeds positions. So take the best on "merit", easy huh? Well, what defines "merit"? A lot of different answers will flow.

I've asked this question to people and have had dozens of answers. "Best pure stick and rudder skills". "Most total hours". "All ex military first of all". "All ex PNG". "Best Maths and Physics scores" "had their CPL the longest". "Didn't train at a sausage factory". "Good blokes who you can sink beers with on overnights". Then the more personality type answers, communications skills, decision making, empathy, judgement, maturity, etc. In reality it is a combination of a lot of things, and I think there's now probably more emphasis on things that women may do slightly better at, especially in late teens early twenty somethings. It has been proven that females generally mature a bit quicker than men. I wonder if that is observed more in recruiting these days? Maybe that's the cause of cadet recruits, who are likelier to be younger, to be more skewed toward women.

I wonder if the resentment toward the so called "HR" method of recruitment is producing pilots who whilst competent don't fit into the traditional mold of what some believe a pilot should be. I remember once hearing about a so called incompetent female pilot, upon flying with her I wondered what the fuss was about, then I realised the criticism was things like "she's too soft", "she's too nice towards cabin crew, they'd walk over her in an emergency", "her hobbies outside of work aren't what real pilots would find interesting". Nonsense like that. But she was fine.

So is it because how airlines have defined what "merit" is that we see more women in flight decks? Perhaps, you can hardly call that a quota system though.
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Old 26th Mar 2021, 10:14
  #31 (permalink)  
 
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I find it entirely believable that women would have a higher failure rate. A top employer such as QF can easily reject 95% of male applicants and only take the top percentile however because the number of female applicants is much lower, the number of females with top percentile scores would also be much lower. The females with top percentile scores would be just as good as the males with top percentile scores but far fewer in number therefore lower scoring females need to be taken on to make up the numbers.

On average then, the female cohort would be of a lower standard than the male one as it would be comprised of a mixture of top scorers and lower scores bought in to make up the quota, where as the male one would be composed of only high scorers.

This applies to the hiring of any minority group, if QF was found not to employ enough male pilots with red hair and had to increase their numbers then the ginger tops would have a higher fail rate.
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Old 26th Mar 2021, 16:45
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I flew for bmi for twenty years then eastern for five.
Mostly the females were better than the males given age and experience.
I only ever flew with one female who was not well up to the job; mostly because she didn't like it or the men she worked with
On one particular event, bust windscreen spitting hot glass fragments, the female with me was perfect
There were a number of males I wished were working with someone else
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Old 26th Mar 2021, 18:02
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I say make all the ladies management. The guys have proven mostly out of their depth at places I have worked at.

At least the Lady management I have worked with admit when they need help. The guys just blunder through making a mess of everything.
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Old 26th Mar 2021, 20:07
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Crikey, this thread.

I'd trade every arrogant boomer in my co for ladies in an instant
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Old 26th Mar 2021, 22:41
  #35 (permalink)  
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Originally Posted by dr dre

From what I'm also told most of the recruiting process is de-identified, when sorting through interview results, aptitude and sim test results the candidate's details and even name aren't disclosed to ensure process is as fair as possible.
Nope. Not ‘most’. Normally only the final step where those deciding who gets in don’t see the names/ sex/ etc. The rest of the process is definitely not- why would they bother asking ‘male’ or ‘female’ as part of the recruiting process.

The question you should ask is who puts the de-identified names forward to the decision makers. They most certainly DO know the identities of those they are putting up.

There was also an interesting study done in the Public service a couple of years back where they discovered that when using de-identified applications, less women and people of colour got jobs. IE if there was a bias, it was a bias against white blokes.

The results showed that overall, de-identifying applications at the shortlisting stage does not appear to assist in promoting diversity within the APS in hiring. Overall, APS officers discriminated in favour of female and minority candidates.


Notice too the language used to describe the study results? Not explicitly stated is that the processes already in use show there is a bias in the normal process towards women and minority candidates, but that the blind methodology does not ‘assist in promoting diversity’.

Originally Posted by dr dre
In reality it is a combination of a lot of things, and I think there's now probably more emphasis on things that women may do slightly better at, especially in late teens early twenty somethings. It has been proven that females generally mature a bit quicker than men. I wonder if that is observed more in recruiting these days? Maybe that's the cause of cadet recruits, who are likelier to be younger, to be more skewed toward women.
This is a fair point. Certainly in larger organisations you should ask who is designing the assessment process? Female representation in HR far exceeds male representation. (Try this link.) Do you think that this could result in a selection process that is also skewed towards traits that females find important? Certainly the lack of technical questioning in certain airlines in recent times seems to devalue the technical expertise in the job. The lines of ‘they’ve got a CPL so they’ve demonstrated their technical skill’ and the follow on of ‘we assess technical competency in the sim’ were particularly eye opening.

I don’t care what sex you are/ were/ want to be, I just want someone competent sitting beside me- and we’re doing ourselves a disservice if we’re not seeking the best person available. There shouldn’t be anything in the selection process that detracts from that outcome.

Last edited by Keg; 26th Mar 2021 at 23:10.
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Old 27th Mar 2021, 00:39
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The problem with giving jobs to the best candidates is that certain demographics may predominant and there won’t be enough diversity. In the USA for example, Jews are heavily over represented in the field of neurosurgery and basketball teams are almost entirely comprised of tall young black males.

This is being noticed in university admission as well where Asians and Jews score higher on entrance exams and get admitted in a much higher percentage than the percentage they make up of the general population.
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Old 27th Mar 2021, 01:06
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Originally Posted by krismiler
The problem with giving jobs to the best candidates is that certain demographics may predominant and there won’t be enough diversity. In the USA for example, Jews are heavily over represented in the field of neurosurgery and basketball teams are almost entirely comprised of tall young black males.

This is being noticed in university admission as well where Asians and Jews score higher on entrance exams and get admitted in a much higher percentage than the percentage they make up of the general population.
Are you saying that is a 'problem'? If someone is going to do brain surgery on you, wouldn't you want the best neurosurgeon? If you were bankrolling a basketball team wouldn't you want the best players?
If some demographics happen to often be superior in certain fields, that may be seen by some as 'over representation' but, hey, tough - Charles Darwin did not believe we were all equal either. We are neither destined nor entitled to those things for which we have little aptitude.
Any good, competent chick should make it in aviation without any help from biased recruitment programs. And any bad, incompetent pilot of whatever gender/colour/sexual orientation/religion should be weeded out by the check & training department.
Those of us that do this job are the final line of defence, touchy-feely quotas or not.
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Old 27th Mar 2021, 01:46
  #38 (permalink)  
 
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The problem with giving jobs to the best candidates is that certain demographics may predominant and there won’t be enough diversity. In the USA for example, Jews are heavily over represented in the field of neurosurgery and basketball teams are almost entirely comprised of tall young black males.

This is being noticed in university admission as well where Asians and Jews score higher on entrance exams and get admitted in a much higher percentage than the percentage they make up of the general population.
Harvard have been taken to court about discriminating against students of Asian heritage to maintain diversity.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-10-...icans/11566354

Are you saying that is a 'problem'? If someone is going to do brain surgery on you, wouldn't you want the best neurosurgeon? If you were bankrolling a basketball team wouldn't you want the best players?
Exactly. The NBA is racist for a reason.
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Old 27th Mar 2021, 04:34
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The Asian Americans should be suing the NBA for not having enough of them in professional basketball teams. There is covert discrimination in placing the hoops high up on the basketball court, short people can’t reach them. The hoops need to either be lowered or a special hoop installed further down to even things up.

The African Americans can’t complain about this as they benefit from programs such as Affirmative Action and Minority Scoring to help them obtain employment in areas where they are underrepresented.

If Jews are over represented in the field of neurosurgery then it must be because the training and selection process has been set up to favour them. A quota system ensuring that all races and genders are appropriately represented in the professional fields could be introduced. A Jewish student might find that he couldn’t go into medicine but could easily play basketball instead.

Alternatively, it could be ensured that equal opportunity is given to all and selection procedures are scrupulously fair and transparent, the only criteria being ability to do the job. If having the best people in appropriate positions means that certain demographics are over represented in some areas and underrepresented in others then we have to live with that.
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Old 27th Mar 2021, 05:35
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Originally Posted by krismiler
The Asian Americans should be suing the NBA for not having enough of them in professional basketball teams. There is covert discrimination in placing the hoops high up on the basketball court, short people can’t reach them. The hoops need to either be lowered or a special hoop installed further down to even things up.

The African Americans can’t complain about this as they benefit from programs such as Affirmative Action and Minority Scoring to help them obtain employment in areas where they are underrepresented.

If Jews are over represented in the field of neurosurgery then it must be because the training and selection process has been set up to favour them. A quota system ensuring that all races and genders are appropriately represented in the professional fields could be introduced. A Jewish student might find that he couldn’t go into medicine but could easily play basketball instead.

Alternatively, it could be ensured that equal opportunity is given to all and selection procedures are scrupulously fair and transparent, the only criteria being ability to do the job. If having the best people in appropriate positions means that certain demographics are over represented in some areas and underrepresented in others then we have to live with that.
George Orwell would be proud..........
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