what is it about women?

Thanks Mitch, but that reply was not finished and not
meant to be posted yet.

On a more serious note, there's another point I'd like
to add.

I've noticed that a large number of the older male
pilots in soaring didn't start out flying in gliders.
Many are ex-airline and military pilots. While these
occupations were glorified to young boys back in the
day, women were discouraged from pursuing them. An
all-female flight crew is still newsworthy, and women
are still a small minority of airline captains.

The percentage of young women vs. young men in soaring
is rising but the overall number of youth in soaring
is still low. WSPA is working wonders offering scholarships
to young women and offering a fun week-long seminar
once a year.

If you want more women in soaring, take a proactive
stance yourself. Go take your niece/sister/wife/daughter/friend
for a ride and buy her an intro lesson or two. If they
love it, then you've just introduced another diehard
to soaring.

In article ,
Lauren Reitz wrote:

I've noticed that a large number of the older male
pilots in soaring didn't start out flying in gliders.
Many are ex-airline and military pilots.

I've noticed that when I've visited soaring sites in the USA, but it is
*not* the case here in New Zealand. Most glider pilots here seem to be
computer programmers, accountants, or self-employed small
businessmen/tradesmen/farmers.


If you want more women in soaring, take a proactive
stance yourself. Go take your niece/sister/wife/daughter/friend
for a ride and buy her an intro lesson or two. If they
love it, then you've just introduced another diehard
to soaring.

It's not that easy, but I've been trying ... going through my logbook,
it looks as if I've taken 37 males for a glider flight but "only" 18
females. Five of the females have come back for further passenger
flights (a higher proportion than for the males), but two of the males
have learned to fly gliders, at least to first solo, while none of the
females have. Several of the females have expressed interest in
learning, but seem to have instead continued with their
skiing/snowboarding or sailing.

My 13 year old daughter has in the last couple of weeks sudenly
expressed interest in learning to fly, after many years of only wanting
to be a pasenger, and fairly indifferent at that. I'm intending to take
the opportunity to see if her friends want to try a glider flight as
well.

-- Bruce

It's not that we do a poor job of attracting women to soaring. We do a
lousy job of attracting anyone.

So those that find their way to us are really fascinated with the idea
of flying, and of flying gliders specifically. And they have the time
and money to pursue it.

And while, as a father of two ten-year-old girls, I hope we're doing a
better job in the U.S. of raising children who are less culturally
inhibited and constrained by gender stereotypes than we were, it's
undeniable that boys still get a lot more encouragement--both subtle
and overt--to jump off tall buildings, ride their bicycles at high
rates of speed, and build scale model airplanes than do girls. As one
poster commented: when many of today's best soaring pilots were
growing up, military and commercial flying was glorified to them but
not to young women of similar backgrounds. It's not so terribly
different today.

Because soaring is an obscure sport done mostly by, let's face it,
older men, the social appeal for young women is pretty low. At the
same time, many, though by no means all, "older" women (i.e., just for
the sake of argument, say 35) are either consumed by career or family
or both. And unlike men, who--as they age--tend to accumulate money
and discretionary time, women tend to accumulate children and
husbands, husbands who expect their wives to raise the family and take
care of the house, thus affording the husbands the discretionary time
to golf, tinker with cars, fly, or whatever.

Many avid male soaring pilots complain about the lack of interest
their wives take in their flying (though I am one of the lucky ones in
that regard) even while some condescendingly speak of the many ways
they can participate...as crews or support persons. Many male pilots
fly, and even attend contests, without the support of their wives or
families. It's not perfect, but it works.

On the other hand, it's hard to imagine your average American husband
agreeing to take on all the weekend chores so his wife can spend the
day or the weekend at the gliderport. And let's not even talk about
the conflict that would ensue when she wants to spend two weeks of
her--and potentially his--vacation time at a contest!

Look at sports such as skiing, hang gliding, parachuting, soccer, or
basketball and you'll find no shortage of young women who enjoy
thrilling pursuits, high-stress endeavors, and keen competition. It's
attracting those women to soaring that's difficult, just as it is
attracting young men. I suspect when we find the answer to this second
challenge, we'll be much closer to solving the first.

Chip Bearden

Have a look at:
http://cab.asso.fr/photos.htm

("beynes girls")

You'll see that the situation is no more so desperate in France!

(we had a never-heard-of number of young, female and attractive
student pilots last year at the Beynes soaring club!)

Have a nice flight

Jerome

As I said, Dirty old men:

http://cab.asso.fr/photos/gal11-2.jpg

;-)


At 12:36 13 January 2004, Jerome wrote:
Have a look at:
http://cab.asso.fr/photos.htm

('beynes girls')

You'll see that the situation is no more so desperate
in France!

(we had a never-heard-of number of young, female and
attractive
student pilots last year at the Beynes soaring club!)

Have a nice flight

Jerome