It's a funny thing and Whirlybird and I have had our discussions on this before; in my experience, I haven't had women say to me "Oh, I couldn't" BUT, Why on earth would I want to!".

There is, (sorry, W) a small age thing here although if I had joined the RAF at 18, I probably would not have been able to fly helicopters. The woman pilot in the RAF who first flew transport aircraft did so when I was about 25.

There was, in the past, a certain amount of nuture and structure in society holding women back but I really do think that this has mostly gone from schools and educational establishments. This under-confidence thing - whilst I accept that it does appear to be the case with many girls/women, I don't believe that social/environmental causes are at the root of this ANY MORE. Times really have changed and think I think there is something within women that is much more instinctive.

As was said on page 1, women don't tend to have an ego; an extension of this might appear as under-confidence.

...and, why do we bother? In an original attempt to answer a question posed by a bloke who could not know the answer any other way. There are some interesting posts on here, not least because some of the women who post here have such different views! I wonder if this is because we are all individual people with our own individual experiences?

Cheers

Whirlygig

Whirlygig,

The women I was referring to - other halves and similar of trial lesson students - were of all ages, and some were much, much younger than either of us. It doesn't seem to be an age thing. And I'm not sure that times have changed that much as far as this is concerned, sadly. Also, I meant to say before, to say women don't want to doesn't answer anything; it just leads to the next question - why don't they want to? Is this just a basic difference in interests between men and women? It might be, but I'm not convinced. I think also women feel guilty at spending lots of money on themselves...society has conditioned them that it ought to be spent "sensibly", or on families, kids etc. So yes, they'll treat themselves to a pair of fancy shoes or a new dress, and feel happily guilty about it, but the idea of spending that much every week on having fun for no reason other than that they want to - they can't do it. Which might explain why my aunt asked me, when I started helicopter training: "How can you spend all that money; how can you bring yourself to do it" while my uncle just wondered why on earth I wanted to. OK, they're an older generation, but it happened to be them; I still don't see that things have changed much.

As to why I bother...some of this thread has been factual, and some, like this later stuff, quite interesting. I think I've ignored most of the other stuff? Haven't I? I'm too tired to go back and look; long day. :(