Women In Aviation

Recently, a couple of male buddies and I ran into a mutual female friend who also happens to be a helicopter pilot.  I won't say who she is or where she works, only that she is what we call a "line pilot" for a charter company.  She casually mentioned that she'd been given a job offer by a corporation that operates big, fancy executive helicopters.  It was a step up in every respect...a plum job that any pilot would love to have.  My buddies and I looked at each other and exchanged a knowing glance.

It's been a frequent topic of conversation among us that women pilots get special advantages and opportunities.  A female pilot will often get selected for a job even if she is less-qualified than a male competitor.  To some male pilots, it seems like reverse discrimination.  And here was yet another example.

It is often said that there are too few women pilots.  And it's true, aviation has traditionally been a white-male-dominated industry, just as...ohh, nursing has traditionally been a female-dominated field.  Things are what they are: Women are simply not drawn to aviation in great numbers.

It's not that there is any conscious effort to keep them out - just the opposite, actually.  But honestly, a lot of flying jobs (especially in helicopters) are just not suitable for your young daughters due to the rough conditions or the out-of-the-way places in which we have to work.  

This does not mean that women cannot become helicopter pilots and do well in aviation.  It's just that they choose not to.  Or when they do become line pilots they aspire to "bigger and better" things - which invariably means a move out of the cockpit.  The end result is fewer female pilots.

In an effort to make aviation more accessible to women, employers often seek out female pilots, giving them preference as opposed to hiring another white guy.  The people who run companies (guys, usually) generally like women and enjoy having them around.  The truth is that as I said, even if a white guy has better qualifications on paper, the woman will get the job.  Hey, that's the world we live in now.  It's all about diversity, baby!  Forced diversity if necessary.

A prime example of this is the company I work for up in Washington State.  Every year I am tasked with hiring the pilots for our cherry-drying operation.  Every year, my boss asks if I've gotten any resumes from female pilots.  He always encourages me to give special attention to any females who apply - to put their resumes on the top of the pile.  It might be a little sexist, yeah, but at the end of the day, what's the harm?  He's likes women and is trying to give them an opportunity.  

Would it be better if he said, "No women this year, Bob.  Just hire guys."  Because in truth, it's tough for a female to come up and live in a crew house with a bunch of burping, farting, crude male pilots.  We do not have separate quarters for women.  It's somewhat easier if we just have an all-male crew.  

For instance, with guys, if you have to pee, you just land, hop out and take care of it.  We men see each other pee (from behind!) in public restrooms all the time - no big deal.  But with women around it's not exactly appropriate.  I don't even want to risk the possibility that a woman might see my tiny, shriveled up little penis.  I mean, I have my dignity!  If women need to pee, they have to go find a bathroom - and bathrooms are usually not readily accessible to flight lines that have to be flat and clear of obstructions.  

And believe it or not, it may sound silly but the need to pee becomes quite important in a helicopter pilot's life.  These things vibrate our insides like crazy!  The Wall Street Heliport in New York City sits on a pier that juts out into the East River.  A friend of mine got in trouble once when he landed, hurriedly shut down, got out and peed over the side into the river.  Hey, when you gotta go, you gotta go.

When I flew for that rich guy in Alabama a few years ago, we'd be out on a trip, say. For the return flight, he and his buddies would often show up back at the helicopter after having had "a few" adult beverages.  Invariably on the flight home one or all four of them would have to (ahem) "use the facilities."  So I'd find some place to land (a farmer's field or some clear area) and let them out.  Sometimes I would join them...just because one should never waste the opportunity, if you know what I mean.  More than once, as we were lifting off again, here would come the farmer in his pickup truck, wondering what the hell that helicopter was doing landing on his property. We never stuck around to explain.

Physiological needs aside, some female pilots try hard to fit in.  They feel they have to be "one of the guys."  Truth is, we guys don't want women to be guys.  We like women to be women.   But we don't want women to act like women in the cockpit.

Uh-oh - we don't want women pilots to act like women??  Boy, them's fighting words, Bob!  To understand that statement we have to acknowledge that men and women are different.  There is such a thing as masculinity and femininity.  In our less-PC past we used to call women "the gentler sex" because they generally are.  

When straight people see gay relationships (either two men or two women), they often assume that one of the partners occupies the man role while the other fills the woman role.  Because that's how many people view conventional relationships.  We see both as being necessary on some level - that they compliment each other, whether that necessity is absolutely true or not.

Traditionally women are more tender, more emotional... more mothering.  They're softer in all the right places.  Physically, women are usually weaker than men, with less upper-body strength.  Their thought processes and approach to problem-solving are different.  You may argue with any of those points if you wish.  But to do so denies humanity; men and women are simply different.  We're made that way on purpose.  I think this planet would be a horrible place if there were only one gender.

But then we get into the stereotypical concept of what a pilot is: a tough, macho, take-charge, unafraid (not to say fearless), stoic, decisive kind of...well...guy.  That's simply the image of a pilot that's been projected from the beginning of aviation.  

The reality is that we pilots are the way we are because the task often requires those qualities and attributes.  You just won't find many (any?) stereotypical openly-gay, mincing, effeminate male hairdressers-turned-pilots.  When you take the controls of an aircraft, you must be in command, and there can be no question of that.  

Not saying that pilots have to act all tough and macho.  Far from it.  It's not an act; it's a requirement.  When the hydraulics fail or something happens that requires action RIGHT FRIGGIN' NOW! then you better be on your game, son.  It's preferable, but we helicopter pilots don't always have the luxury of being able to sit back and analyze problems before acting.  Some reactions have to be instinctive and immediate.

Let's face it, even Amelia Earhart was not the most feminine of ladies.  Similarly, Kate Mulgrew's portrayal of Captain Janeway on television's "Star Trek: Voyager" was very...err...mannish in that she was as tough and decisive as you'd expect a Star Fleet captain to be - a female Captain Kirk, if you will.

Any prejudice that women pilots feel usually comes not from the bosses but from male counterparts who know...know!...that the female pilot they work with today with will be getting a better job somewhere else tomorrow.  And so one can understand if the male pilot is a little snippy, or "has an attitude."  It might not be overt, but it's there...a sort of dismissiveness that says, "Meh, what do I care?  You won't be around here for very long anyway."  Any female pilot who denies that this is the case is not being truthful.

Some women these days want to be the equal of men.  I get that - they don't want to be treated like second-class citizens.  They want equal pay for their work despite the fact that they're typically not as career-oriented as men in that they'll give more importance to family issues - they're the ones who take care of the kids, etc.  And of course women are the ones who get pregnant and have kids in the first place.  

Is it fair that corporations pay more money to workaholic men who compromise their family lives and spend too much time at work than to a woman who has different priorities and may have to take maternity leave sometime in the coming year?  We'll leave that for people smarter than me to figure out.

Fact is, not every woman can do every job that a man can do.  For just one example, we do not expect that every woman would be capable of being one of those NYC firefighters that had to trudge up the stairs of the World Trade Center on 9/11/01 with all their equipment on their back.  I would not ask either of my three sisters to do that job, nor would I expect that they'd want to.

The long and the short of it is: There are no systemic barriers to women pursuing a career as a professional pilot.  The reason there are so few women in aviation though is because so few want to be there, not because they can't be.  And no clever marketing scheme is likely to change that.