"Mxsmanic" wrote in

That is a negative point for some men, also, including myself. I was
never into cars in the way that standard men are because I had
absolutely no interest in playing around with engines covered in
filth, and small aircraft unfortunately also use this type of engine.

Can't drive really well either.

It is true that most men seem to enjoy such things. It mystifies me.
I'm the exception among my sex rather than the rule, though.

Anything else about masculinity that mystifies you?

There are other aspects of flying that can have a gender-neutral
appeal, and I suppose these aspects attract the female pilots more
than the male pilots. For example, the sensations of flying or the
psychological satisfactions of piloting one's own plane could appeal
to someone of either sex. The mechanical aspects, the machine
aspects, and the turning dials would appeal to males. Some aspects of
navigation might appeal strongly to women, as they tend to be good at
some of the operations involved (such as arithmetic and memory tasks).

That's so sexist.

I'd expect piloting of airliners to appeal more to women than piloting
of small GA aircraft, because airliners have less of a mechanical
tinkering aspect to them and a higher intellectual workload, and
airline work has more social aspects. I'd also expect to see more
female air traffic controllers (percentage wise) than female pilots,
because ATC is a much more gender-neutral type of intellectual work.

Wrong.

There are many differences between men and women in the type of tasks
they prefer (which are often also the tasks at which they excel), and
this has an effect on the percentage of each sex working in each
profession. Men like things; women like people. Men like math, but
women like arithmetic. Men like spatial visualization, women like
memorization. And so on.

Crap.

Add to that the large number of men who
make women feel like their questions are dumb or that they don't belong
and aren't welcome (yes, there ARE still many out there!), and it's no
wonder the ratio is not 50/50.

Just seeing how some pilots talk on this newsgroup makes it clear that
some of them are still living in the nineteenth century when it come
to gender issues.

In summary, I should think that a good part of the dearth of female
pilots is attributable to machismo, but the rest is due to a simple
difference in preferences between men and women. I think it's
important for women to have the same opportunity as men to become
pilots. But I don't think it's important to try to force the numbers
to come out 50/50.

So how would you facilitate "opportunity"?

moo