Aviation's Glass Ceiling-why more women don't fly

[Michele]

Cool article in AOPA Flight Training magazine.

The article is titled, Aviation's Glass Ceiling. It discusses the issue of why there aren't more women pilots. I thought it was interesting in that it went beyond financial issues to understand the dearth of women going into flying.

http://flighttraining.aopa.org/magazine/2013/March/career_pilot.html

Here is an excerp.
The phenomenon of female disinterest in professional flying as a personal career track is the subject of a study commissioned by the Wolf Aviation Fund Teaching Women to Fly Research Project. Its report, based on extensive interviews, concludes there are 10 major barriers that women face:

1. Lack of money for general aviation flight training.

2. Instructor-student communication incompatibility.

3. Instructor interruptus, when instructors leave flight training to take airline or charter jobs, often requiring the student to start over with another instructor. This is time consuming, expensive, and discouraging to many female students.

4. Lack of female mentors and support systems.

5. Personal lack of confidence in their ability and a “fear of flying,” especially of stalling the airplane too early in the training process.

6. Lack of experience with and knowledge of mechanical systems.

7. Lack of map reading experience and orienteering skill sets.

8. Flight schools perceived as indifferent to female students.

9. Famous female pilots largely unknown as role models to non-aviator women.

10. Lack of emotional support from family and friends who perceive flying as “too dangerous.”

 

[Jim Logajan]

What a bunch of nonsense. With this kind of whining I hope they don't make it in aviation. Just what's needed in the cockpit, somebody making excuses for everything and taking NO responsibility for anything. Just lovely and NOT COOL at all.....sounds like whining from the 40s or 50s.... :mad2:

Um, wrong thread. This isn't "Let's make Friday Joke Day"

 

[Jim Logajan]

This is an interesting subject - so long as a person is able to study and discuss it dispassionately.

Piloting (but not aviation per se, since that encompasses a lot more than piloting) is just one of many fields in which the male/female ratio lies far from the ratio of the population of approximately 50%. Consider some examples:

• Science doctorates: ~30% women [1]
• Engineering doctorates: ~9% women [1]
• Secretaries and administrative assistants: ~97% women [2]
• Nurses: ~92% women [2]
• Cashiers: ~76% women [2]
• Car mechanic: ~0% women [3]
• Parks and gardens worker: ~1% women [3]
• Manager, small restaurant: ~45% women [3] {One of several where the ratio is closer to ~50%}

Likely theories I've seen for these ratios include (or some combination of these):

• Physiological differences. Such as statistical differences in upper body strength, or hormonal differences affecting behavior.
• Evolutionary pressure. Seems reasonable to assume that death of young women has a greater impact on group survival than death of men. Such pressure seems to favor behavioral aspects that protect pregnant and nursing females that put other members at greater risk.
• Cultural inertia. Both men and women are not attracted to fields already dominated by the other gender. So even when cultural barriers are removed studies seem to show subconscious inclination toward groups having members of our own sex.[1] A sort of Catch-22 that suggests it might take generations for ratios to equalize.

The above theories are just my ad hoc compilation so I don't expect their categorization and explanations to stand up to scrutiny.

[1] http://www.livescience.com/1927-men-dominate-math-science-fields.html
[2] http://womeninbusiness.about.com/od/challengeswomenface/a/jobswomendom.htm
[3] http://www.cbs.nl/en-GB/menu/themas...aties/artikelen/archief/2005/2005-1825-wm.htm

 

[Jim Logajan]

Is there a problem with those percentages?

They seem to be reasonable, give or take a few percent.

More women are getting college degrees these days by a long shot, all those things are open to women if they want it.

So long as men aren't being made victims in the process, good for them. Know any men who have been denied access to college due to their gender?

Should we reduce the number of women undergraduates to even the numbers?

I have no idea why you ask that. No one is proposing to reduce the number of male pilots (or female undergrads) to bring the gender ratios in line with that of the general population.

93% of workplace fatalities happen to men, do we need to even that number out? This is all stupid, women can do whatever they want, claiming victim status is laughable.

With regard to "victimization" remember that it wasn't until 1920 that women gained the right to vote in the U.S. That is within the living memory of the oldest generation now alive.

Just so I understand - are you of the belief that women have never been victims of sexual discrimination, or that such discrimination was shut off quickly, like an electric light is shut off?

Several women pilots have recounted experiences on this thread where a man received the deference accorded a pilot when all evidence indicated the woman was clearly the pilot. You've simply dismissed the existence of this evidence, ironically seeming to undermine your case and verifying the case they are making: that women are still dismissed out of hand due to unequal treatment.

 

[Jim Logajan]

It would appear that in an area of the world where personal aviation serves as a primary mode of transportation/utility, a larger fraction of women will earn a pilot certificate. According to this story, an estimated ~27% of Alaskan pilots are female:

https://www.alaskadispatch.com/article/where-are-all-women-alaska-aviation

While not 50%, 27% is definitely better than the 6% for all U.S. certificate holders.

 

[Jim Logajan]

If under representation was confined to just male/female ratio then one could look to genetic and related differences for a cause. BUT...

Black males are also very underrepresented in the pilot population.

Anyone who continues to push any theory concerning women had better make sure it makes sense when applied to black males. Otherwise you'll be busy inventing a special theory for every group that is under represented.

The pilot population is white male dominated. Not male dominated. An important distinction.

The simplest theory that fits all the facts appears to be discrimination. Since overt discrimination by white males is alllegedly now rare, it may be taking some other form or simply a residual effect from past overt discrimination (i.e. other groups automatically assume "Oh yeah flying would be fun, but that's a white male thing. Not something my group does.")