WestJet Captain receives passenger's sexist note

[CpnCrunch]

That is why Corporations have "Social Media Policy" and have terminated employees for inappropriate use.

Well in my opinion it was appropriate, and Westjet seems to agree since they posted a funny send-up of it on their own facebook page.

Westjet is a reasonable company who treats their employees (and customers) like human beings.

[ahramin]

Interesting stat I came across. Number of female PPL's in 1970 6%, number of female PPL's in 2012, 6.8 %. Seems like we haven't come very far.

Very far towards what exactly? Is there some quota to meet? What if all the women who want to fly and have the resources to do so simply total 6.8% ?

I can't beleive I'm having to explain math this simple to a pilot but yes: The quota is 50%.

do you really think there is something special about the anatomy of a 5 year old kid that makes the dream of flight a 93% male province? Or is it more likely that the stats are due to regressive societal norms and a lack of female role models?

Actually, since women control more than 50% of household discretionary spending, maybe it should be more than 50%. Good point shimmy.

[shimmydampner]

You can't be serious. That's one of the dumbest things I've ever heard. Equality isn't about math and artificial 50% quotas. Or at least it shouldn't be. It should be about equal opportunity without any barriers or restrictions based on gender, race, sexual orientation, etc. I know there are no legal restrictions to obtaining a license based on gender and I'm willing to bet there isn't an FTU in Canada that would turn away a prospective student based on gender. So, any woman with the desire and resources to obtain a license does in fact have equal opportunity.
In the same way that women should not be held back from entering aviation, neither should they be herded into it for the purpose of filling an artificial quota. If 1000 people want to become pilots and 500 are women, great. If it's only 68, but that number represents all the women who want to, then that's fine too. Expecting that every hobby or career path will attract an even gender split is silly.

[ahramin]

Shimmy, you are quite correct, but think about WHY things are the way they are. I agree, the current barriers to entry for women pilots are at their lowest ever, and not significantly different from those for men. So why are so few women actually becoming pilots compared to men? Answer my previous question: Do you think the difference in dangly bits of 5 year old kids really is the leads to so many more boys to dream of flight than girls? Or is it possible that 50% of the kids who dream of flying an airplane around the sky are girls and something happens to skew those statistics later?

[complexintentions]

Why are so few women actually becoming pilots compared to men?

Why are so few men becoming teachers and nurses? Why are there many more women attending university than men? These are variations of the same question, why don't equal numbers of men and women do every job? (Except you only seem concerned with the women. Why?) I have a hard time believing exactly the same number of kids dream of the same job in perfectly equal number. Things change of course, but it certainly wasn't the case in my own childhood (not THAT long ago! heheh). It makes neither logical nor intuitive sense.

I don't believe there is any field that is divided perfectly equally by gender and some lean very heavily one way or another. As long as both genders are free to pursue whatever vocation they choose...next problem? Shimmydampner expressed it superbly.

What I don't understand is why YOU are so concerned about the lack of women in aviation, when women themselves - who by your own admission are facing "not significantly different" challenges to entry than men - are apparently not?

Do you really believe the only difference between boys and girls are the bits between their legs? The question is rhetorical, but what you believe is the answer may give you insight to your own questions about both genders' career choices.

If a little girl decides not to become a pilot because she's afraid she may receive an unkind note on a napkin, I would suggest she is probably not going to succeed at whatever she attempts. Same goes for a little boy.

And if you wish to see true "regressive societal norms", please do come visit me in Dubai.

[Pop n Fresh]

I'll say it. The difference is in desire it's something in our brains.

More males want to fly than females. In a way it is not a gender thing yet it very much is. The only time it becomes negative is when someone with a pen and napkin can't understand why some females do want to fly and further decides those women should be lumped in with those who do not.

I think it is just as wrong to suggest there are millions of unhappy women doing whatever they are doing because they were not allowed to become pilots.

The problem here is when women who have successfully become pilots are incorrectly lumped in with women like my wife who don't even want to drive a car. Strange because my wife is actually an excellent driver who knows how to merge. In my brain she should love driving, music and flying like I do, she doesn't.

I don't know why my wife does not love flying like I do. Fair enough I don't know why any males don't either and that is where the gender bias breaks down.

Having typed all that junk. More males start the process of flight training and no it's not due to physical attributes. How are you planning to hire half and half when typically there are 68 women and 8642 men submitting resumes for 300 jobs?

[Pop n Fresh]

Someone should mention to the guy who wrote the note, some girls are extraordinary pilots. Look how many women placed in the world aerobatic competition last year.

http://www.civa-results.com/2013/WAC_20 ... s02s03.htm

I am certain far less females competed but a larger percentage placed. It should put any questions about whether or not a "fair lady" can master the skills needed to fly, to rest.

[shimmydampner]

...think about WHY things are the way they are. ... Do you think the difference in dangly bits of 5 year old kids really is the leads to so many more boys to dream of flight than girls? Or is it possible that 50% of the kids who dream of flying an airplane around the sky are girls and something happens to skew those statistics later?

Look, I understand the point you're trying to make (I think) but your argument is based on wild assumptions and ultimately showcases the same type of thinking that is at issue here. To answer your question, no. I don't personally believe that a 5 year old's gender leads more boys to flying. However you cannot assume that a person's career choice is entirely a result of parental and societal pressures with no influence from the major physiological changes that occur as they mature, any more than you could assume the reverse. Your argument is based on your personal preconceived idea that 50% of all the kids who dream of flying are girls, which is a wildly arbitrary thing to take for granted and is fundamentally no different than someone else assuming that all girls want to be teachers or nurses.

[Tom H]

Being a parent of both a Young lady (graduating with 2 majors) and a young man in elementary school as well as an avid reader of all things relating to my kids.

My daughter is a recreational pilot (glider working on ultralight and private) who got her start back when she began flying with me when she was 3.

My son things airplanes are cool, but has yet to get into an airplane, and I won't push it.

The difference is what they have been exposed to as I see it.

Back when my daughter was small I had my own aircraft and flew every weekend, it was there.

Now I rarely fly, don't have my own bird and my son (while spending a lot of time around static aircraft) hasn't been around flying aircraft anywhere near as much.

This correlates with much of the other material I have read over the years regarding creating opportunities for children.

If they are not exposed to different things they don't know about them and they have no interest.

It also explains the drop in the interest in flying....people are not exposed to much other than airliners anymore. There are no airport kids, no access to pilots.

So its not just girls...its young people. Add in the average age of a working pilot today and I bet it becomes even clearer.

In my highly biased personal opinion

[frozen solid]

The idea that a person's gender can cause them to be predisposed towards one thing or another is interesting. I find peoples' willingness to accept the idea is based on their agenda. For one thing, we can look at other animals. Some species show a marked behavioural difference between male and female. Sometimes the difference manifests itself to a greater or lesser extent based on the relative numbers of one gender versus another in the immediate vicinity of the subject. OK, animals aren't people, I agree. But this shows us that it's possible for a creature's gender to influence the way it sees the world and the things it is willing to waste its time doing.

People, of course, are capable (supposedly) of using their intellect to redirect this stuff, so it is certainly possible with a human, as opposed to say a liger, or a tigon, to railroad someone into an occupation they don't feel an affinity for.

So back to the agenda idea. Our agenda here, or it should be at any rate, is to observe that there are less female pilots, wonder why, and if it turns out that the reason is that there are lots of girls out there who want to be pilots but are being prevented or discouraged from doing so, to do something about it. Since we know that a woman who is interested in flying has an equal chance of being good at it, she should have an equal opportunity to serve society in the way she chooses by doing so. To this end it serves our agenda to ignore the idea that women are less likely than men to be interested in operating machinery and/or doing "boy" stuff.

I'll give you an example of a situation in which it IS socially acceptable, apparently, to assume an innate predilection for certain gender-normative behaviours: the "transgendered" scenario. When a person is presenting the case for themselves or a loved ones' having been born with a gender-identity that is different to their physical sex, one of the most-accepted ways this presents itself in early life is the child's desire to participate in non-gender-appropriate behaviours. As in, a little boy who, despite being subjected to pressure by his parents or society, refuses to play with trucks and toy guns and gravitates instead towards dolls and dresses. When this happens, it's held up by the LGBTQTS community in particular as a strong indicator that the little boy in question is, in fact, a female, despite being genetically a male.

So we are, in fact, being asked both to accept AND reject the notion that some people may just innately prefer one occupation over another based on their gender. It's difficult, with so many agendas, to be sure which side of the political line to fall on. Everybody should just be able to do what they want. If enough people who self-identify as belonging to a particular group repeatedly demonstrate that they just aren't all that interested in becoming pilots, I say, LET them not be pilots! If we see someone being forced into an occupation they have no interest in, we should intervene. If we see, however, that any human being is being prevented from achieving this goal on the grounds of irrelevant presumed aptitude based on gender, then it is our responsibility to do something about that, too.

[Big Pistons Forever]

Re the 50/50 argument. The Canadian Military did a significant amount of research on what was the "right" percentage of women in uniform. The answer was 20 %. This was a recognition of the fact that many women were simply not interested in a Military career. But if the percentage of women serving was less than 20 % then the conclusion was that there were barriers to entry for women.

Since the participation of women in flying is so low and is not increasing it is hard not to draw the conclusion that there are barriers to entry. I would also add that I have worked for two companies that had an informal but very real policy of "no girls were to be hired".

[Shiny Side Up]

Since the participation of women in flying is so low and is not increasing it is hard not to draw the conclusion that there are barriers to entry.

I'm not so sure about any barriers BPF, there certainly seems to be a lot of women in certain sectors of pilot work. Check the pilot examiner lists on TC's website. For P/N region at least a third, if not a half of them are women. TC seems to be at least 50% in both flying and non-flying positions. The rosters of flight schools also tend to have a large showing of women, and frequently occupy the Chief Friggin' Idiot position.

So its hard to really say that they can't get into the industry, but rather that they don't want to. It could be that they're smarter than men. From my own time in the world of work, my observation is that women are attracted more to jobs that have more job security. I can't think of a worse career for job security than a pilot position. Flight schools and TC are probably the most secure positions when it comes to flying. Case in point, you see even less women where work camps are involved (no one complains that we don't have more women welders, pipe fitters, carpenters, Dozer drivers, excavator operators, jug hounds, surveyors, roughnecks, brush slashers and ditch diggers). Brute labour is also the realm of men. Not because we particularly love it I might add.

[iflyforpie]

The rosters of flight schools also tend to have a large showing of women, and frequently occupy the Chief Friggin' Idiot position.

I think that has more to do with personal situations. Just about every female flight instructor I've been in contact with who was there for the long haul was married to a partner with a job in the same town and a significantly higher income.... enabling the stability and financial viability of being a life long instructor. You won't find too many situations like that with the gender reversed.

[Meecka]

Shimmy, you are quite correct, but think about WHY things are the way they are. I agree, the current barriers to entry for women pilots are at their lowest ever, and not significantly different from those for men. So why are so few women actually becoming pilots compared to men? Answer my previous question: Do you think the difference in dangly bits of 5 year old kids really is the leads to so many more boys to dream of flight than girls? Or is it possible that 50% of the kids who dream of flying an airplane around the sky are girls and something happens to skew those statistics later?

Ok, I'm not a pilot, I'm an AME, so this may not even apply. However, just to illustrate some of what girls with an interest in aviation could be facing.

Every year at Christmas I get asked what I would like. Naturally I respond with a list of tools I'd really like to have, none of which are all that expensive, I'll pay for my own Snap-On stuff. The reply I get? "I'm not getting you any of that!". I respond, "ok... why?". The reply... " because its not lady like". This is from family, who refuse to accept that I do a "man's job" for a living. Now to be honest, their oppinion does not colour my life much, I love what I do, and will continue. But it has been a bit of a fight. Like it or not, for the most part Pilot, AME, ATC, pretty much anything to do with aviation other than FA, is still considered a man's domain by many. The pressures to consider other more, traditional (and I despise that term) career choices can be very subtle, and can often come from well-meaning family members. There is no malice attached, just a belief of what's proper for a child of a certain gender to consider for a career.

[frozen solid]

You might be experiencing trouble not only because you're a girl, but because people who don't have hobbies and don't like tinkering with machines hardly ever give you anything good for Christmas. I can't think of a way my wife could possibly fail to understand that if she would just buy me a goddamn radio-controlled model aeroplane I would be super happy that Christmas. You gotta buy stuff like that for yourself. The only exception is if you have either a grown son, or a father-in-law. These people are often likely to take the "easy" way out and buy something you might actually like. Other than that, forget it.

One observation that just occurred to me: something I noticed at work. I have a (to me) pretty cool R/C model plane and I took it to work, and predictably, all the male AMEs and pilots thought it was pretty cool too. All the female AMEs and pilots thought it was pretty silly. I was surprised by that. The guys all wanted to try it out, but the girls all looked at it through slitted eyes and growled that if I flew it near them they would swat it out of the air. Just like my wife!

[Meecka]

I wasn't kidding, or exagerating when I said they told me they would not get me tools because it was not lady like. That is precisely what they said, to my face. Had nothing to do with inability to "tinker" mechanically.

I was simply trying to give an example.

[Pop n Fresh]

I know this does not help but... I don't understand why anyone thinks they get to decide what you like?

[iflyforpie]

It must be older family members Pop n Fresh. It seems like the older people get, the more opinionated they are. I'm not sure if it is an age thing or a generational one.

I have an awesome wife though. Over the years she's got me RC Helis, plastic models, tools, work wear.... she knows I am happiest when I am tinkering with things. She's been on road trips to pick up airplane stuff, lent a strong arm to move various things from engines to wings to fuselages around... and even tolerates the sounds, smells, and mess of various projects in the house when I run out of room or when it's too cold outside.

But she couldn't care less about airplanes, flying, wrenching, or tinkering.

[Pop n Fresh]

Of course I'm opinionated, that doesn't mean I get to pick your ice cream flavour. Just because I like peaches, maybe you don't.
( bad example, peaches are awesome! But you get the idea )

[ahramin]

I know this does not help but... I don't understand why anyone thinks they get to decide what you like?

That is the first big problem. We treat girls differently from boys from before they are even born. We start brainwashing them about what they like and what they want to be. What percentage of science kits get bought for girls? Next time you are at science world, notice that any science kit that has a girl pictured on it has her looking at a boy using the kit. The most popular toy for girls is Barbie, and one of her first lines was "math is hard". We try to pigeonhole girls into a subservient, non leadership, non technical role from day one. Even if this was good for society (more on that later) it's still wrong.

There are no airport kids, no access to pilots.

This is the second big problem. Kids need role models. Fortunately your daughter was able to view you as a role model, but most girls do not have any role models that are pilots or mechanics. If kids see that all the pilots are boys and all the flight attendants are girls, they are going to assume that that's just the way it is. If a little girl dreams of flying planes, but every pilot she meets is a boy, it's extremely rare that she will follow up on that ambition. This is why it's important to set quotas, even though it isn't fair for the boys. Affirmative action is always going to be unpopular because it isn't fair, but it is important in certain cases in order to get those role models in place to start the process of changing cultural norms.

What I don't understand is why YOU are so concerned about the lack of women in aviation

I'm not concerned about the lack of women in aviation. I'm very concerned about the lack of women in technical, intellectual, and leadership positions. While we can all agree that there are very real differences between women and men - vive la difference - I hope we can all agree here that women are as smart, competent, and creative as men. Now look at important careers: Doctors, hedge fund managers, pilots, politicians, engineers. Are you satisfied with the level of competence of these groups? If we agree that women are as smart as men, but set things up so that the vast majority of these groups are men, we are cheating ourselves out of good doctors, hedge fund managers, etc. We are setting up a system where leadership and management roles are being filled by men not because they are the best ones for the job, but because we've convinced the girls who would do the job better that they don't want or can't fill the positions. Women engineers make up 10% of the total engineer population in the US but only account for 3% of the patents. Why? Because women engineers are less likely to be placed in R&D jobs because they aren't as aggressive as their male counterparts in getting those positions. Why aren't they as aggressive? Because they've been taught from an early age that that kind of behaviour is reserved for boys.

Women make up 10% of the US Army helicopter pilot corps, and are responsible for 0% of the accidents. 0%. This is an important statistic because it shows we could have FEWER ACCIDENTS. It suggests we should DO SOMETHING.

I'm concerned because we are throwing away talent and capabilities in favour of traditional gender roles and I don't think we can afford to.

[Meecka]

Of course I'm opinionated, that doesn't mean I get to pick your ice cream flavour. Just because I like peaches, maybe you don't.
( bad example, peaches are awesome! But you get the idea )

I'm not big on peaches, prefer blueberries.

[Pop n Fresh]

Peaches at the store are typically terrible. I have not had a good one in probably a decade. Good Blueberries are much easier to find.

There's a pretty big difference between me baking one type of pie and offering it. And me baking two, a blueberry pie and a lemon meringue pie, then telling Meecka and iflyforpie they have to eat the wrong one based on my opinion of gender. Regardless of how big a sample size I based the "knowledge" on.

Our son would be allowed to play with only hearts dolls. Not interested. Both him and his sister fight over who gets to be R2-D2. He is sensitive to a point of causing me concern. I would not mind him crying about something but red eye balling because he fell seems like too much. It is difficult for me to understand how to be supportive while letting him figure that out.

I was expecting our daughter to be a rough Tom Boy because we encouraged her to hang out with me. Initially there was probably too much burping. She has developed lots of very flowery traits, yet likes and knows about tools. At our house asking her brother for the hex wrench to assemble her own ski scooter is lady like.

I can't imagine being anything but proud of them regardless of what job they choose. I would be more concerned they find something they enjoy than choosing something based on my preferences. If she loves driving a vacuum truck it's none of my business. I just hope I could still hug her without barfing. There's certainly a shortage of women in that field, I have only ever seen one.

[FICU]

Without reading 4 pages has this (non)event been a big publicity stunt after all?

[Shiny Side Up]

Why aren't they as aggressive? Because they've been taught from an early age that that kind of behaviour is reserved for boys.

I would disagree that agressive behavior is necessarily something taught or reserved for boys, its one of those differences between men and women that for some reason society wrings its hands about. In most of the natural world, its the male of the species which is the one driven to compete and the one who's driven to agression, and unfortunately, violence. Yes there are exceptions, but they generally only prove the rule. Its who we are as a species. At our base level, its the men who compete for the women, not the other way around. This means that men (much to our detriment) are going to be risk takers as has been well proven by insurance companies. They're going to be more competitive for jobs and activities they feel are high risk, high reward. I hate to say it, women don't work in aviation because in general they're smarter and percieve it correctly as a high risk career. Both from a personal standpoint and a financial one.

[shimmydampner]

If she loves driving a vacuum truck it's none of my business. I just hope I could still hug her without barfing. There's certainly a shortage of women in that field, I have only ever seen one.

Funny how no one is too concerned about that, isn't it? Could it be that ultimately, feminism is an ideology of convenience? Cherry-pick the good, ignore the mundane?
One thing is for sure: the form wherein it's being displayed here does not stand up well to scrutiny. First there's the use of words like "brainwashing" and "pigeonholing" to make the implication that anyone not raising a child in a gender neutral or gender reversed manner is a bad parent who is part of a larger, overarching nefarious plot to ensure men rise to the top while women are held back from birth.
Once that shaky crux is established, prop it up by trying to disguise opinions and assumptions as fact. Statements like:

If a little girl dreams of flying planes, but every pilot she meets is a boy, it's extremely rare that she will follow up on that ambition.

and

Because women engineers are less likely to be placed in R&D jobs because they aren't as aggressive as their male counterparts in getting those positions. Why aren't they as aggressive? Because they've been taught from an early age that that kind of behaviour is reserved for boys.

are not verifiable facts in any way. There is no data that bares these assumptions out.
But that's OK, throw in a meaningless statistic and just attribute significance to it:

Women make up 10% of the US Army helicopter pilot corps, and are responsible for 0% of the accidents. 0%. This is an important statistic because it shows we could have FEWER ACCIDENTS

It's not an important stat at all and it does not show us that. One could easily find an equal or greater sample size of males with ZERO accidents. It certainly does not guarantee that an increased number of females would keep that 0% record. But the beauty of stats is how easy to manipulate they are based on what you're trying to prove.
Finally, it's time to put the roof on this thing by completely abandoning all critical thinking. On the one hand, you might say something like:

We are setting up a system where leadership and management roles are being filled by men not because they are the best ones for the job, but because we've convinced the girls who would do the job better that they don't want or can't fill the positions.

implying that it is wrong to hold someone back based on an agenda that discounts them because of their gender. However on the other hand, you would see nothing wrong with saying that:

This is why it's important to set quotas, even though it isn't fair for the boys. Affirmative action is always going to be unpopular because it isn't fair, but it is important in certain cases

You're saying that holding back women is wrong (which I agree with) but holding back men is acceptable and even necessary. Doesn't sound like equality at all to me, so let's just go ahead and get down to brass tacks. You're not advocating equality. You're advocating legislated discrimination based on gender in the interest of supporting your agenda. That's fine, it's your opinion and you are entitled to it. It doesn't really bother me, it's such a shoddily constructed position to take it's borderline humorous. However, I do take issue with the the disingenuity of putting it forward under the guise of equality when it couldn't be anything further from that.