Gender Discrimination And The Current Number Of Female Commercial Pilots

     “Women must try to do things as men have tried. When they fail, their failure must be but a challenge to others.” This was in her letter to her husband, in case the dangerous flight proved to be her last. She was the woman who crossed the Atlantic Ocean, shared her visions, inspired many, formed the Ninety-Nines, and tried to fly around the world. She is, and always will be, remembered for her

Amid WW2, there was an extreme deficiency of pilots but leaders came up with an idea to fill in the gap and it was to train woman. Jaclyn Cochran was the most prominent female American aviator and she thought of an idea to for a women's pilot corp. In 1943, she established the Women's Air Force Service Pilot, also known as WASP, and she gathered twenty-four American women to fly for the British Air Transport. She proved persuasive when she convinced Chief of the Army Air Forces, Hap Arnold, to create an American flight training program for women to aid in the war effort. Later on as the news spread more than twenty-five thousand women enrolled but the requirements were and on only eighteen hundred of them where admitted. Jaclyn Cochran was then appointed as the director of the program.

Amelia Earhart was an icon. She was a feminist. Not only a pioneer but also brave. During Amelia’s life, all the goals she had achieved were attained through pure perseverance and resilience. While Earhart had become well-known for being the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean, she was likewise known throughout the world for her individual developments and aid in the feminist movement. She acknowledged a grander purpose in life which was the desire to live a life that surpassed beyond home and being confined in society. Her achievements in becoming an active feminist and succeeding in her dreams and goals prove her resilient courageous nature of being a woman during the 20th century despite being in a male dominant society.

Initially, the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) refused to recruit women because it was considered “expensive”. They estimated that housing women per capita would cost about $430 compared to men which was $235. The difference in cost estimations was due to “necessity of special provisions. After much heated discussions, the RCAF women’s division (RCF-WD) was created on July 2nd, 1941. Here, women were given clerical, administrative and support roles to allow as they were not allowed it be trained as flying instructors or combatants. They were employed to allow men in those positions to obtain pilot training. Similar to the CWAC slogan, the RCAF-WD’s slogan was “We serve that men may fly”. Although their roles were very restricting, there were many bright women that broke the boundaries put in their paths. Take Elsie MacGill for instance. She was the first female aircraft designer in the world and was nicknamed the “Queen of the Hurricanes” for her work in aircraft designing. She was a major component in the team that designed the Hawker Hurricane during World War 2, which is considered the most historic British aircraft until the present day. She also designed many aircraft accessories during World War 2 such as the de-icing and skies to assist planes in cold weather while flying. She and many others like her paved the path for women and the future of women in the Air Force. Over the course of the war and because of achievement from people like Elsie MacGill, women were slowly but surely being taken more seriously and given roles such as parachute riggers, laboratory assistants and electrical and mechanical trades roles. Women’s fantastic contributions to the Air Force helped greatly towards Canada’s already successful war efforts and helped in the

“You and more than 900 of your sisters have shown that you can fly wingtip to wingtip with your brothers. If ever there was doubt in anyone’s mind that women can become skillful pilots the WASPs have dispelled that doubt.”-General Hap Arnold. The Idea to have women flying planes in World War two started when a pilot named Jacqueline Cochran sent a letter to the first Lady of the United States, Eleanor Roosevelt. Another woman named Nancy Harkness Love wrote the ferrying division of the Armed Air Forces with the same idea as Cochran.

In the perspective of a citizen of the United States in 1922, it seems almost impossible that a woman, let alone an African-American woman, would be responsible for changing the history of Texas and greatly impacting the world of aviation. However, Bessie Coleman broke the mold when she became the first African American to hold a pilot license. Among her qualities of isolation, insubordination, and imprecision, which would typically viewed by society with a negative connotation, came her title as one of the strongest women of her time.

Paula Coughlin is an attractive female Naval Aviator and in 1992 there were only a hand full of female aviators, remember the first female aviators to join the navy were in 1974 and to date female aviators consist of 13%. This was, and still is, a male dominant work force. The problem has surfaced repeatedly as an organizational issue. More recently in 2012, news broke out about Sexual Assault scandal at Lackland Air Force Base basic training center. Just last year the director of the Air Force’s sexual assault and prevention program was arrested on suspicion of sexual assault (Winerp, 2013).

Positions previously closed to women were now available, and more than 310,000 women worked in the U.S. aircraft industry in 1943, representing sixty five percent of the industry’s total workforce. Previously, only one percent of aviation workers were women. The munitions industry also heavily recruited women workers, as represented by the U.S.

In this paragraph I am going to write about Soviet women pilots and the role they played

Women were permitted into the Air Transport Auxiliary and eventually ferried service aircraft and were paid and respected

Along with theopportunities that the WASP explored, they also encountered considerable discrimination as civilian military pilots. From the outset male pilots often resented women's presence in a traditionally male [End Page 113] military setting. Former WASP Lorraine Rodgers remembered that some WASP experienced incidents of bias from men who refused to acknowledge their ability. She personally felt some distrust and lack of support from men who would not admit that so small a woman could competently pilot a plane.19 Even at Army Air Field Headquarters, commanders thought that women aviators in the military were an intrusion onto sacred male territory.20 Each airfield had its own level of bias. At Romulus Army Air Force Base in Michigan, women

Around 350,000 women served in the U.S Armed Forces, both at home and abroad. Between 1940 and 1945, the female percentage of U.S workforce increased from 27% to nearly 37 % (History.com Staff). Women had been waiting for an opportunity to show what had been suppressed. The idea of introducing a women’s service branch into the army ignited many women to join and to finally be a part of something significant. As women were now in armed forces they secured a position for themselves that was entitled to men. In the Navy, members of Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service (WAVES), held the same status as men. Women in the Women’s Air force Service Pilots (WASPS) became the first to fly American military aircraft. How were these women able to be defiant against what was socially acceptable? A factor that had persuaded many women was Rosie the Riveter. Rosie the Riveter was a patriotic campaign that emphasized the need for women to enter the workforce. The Rosie the Riveter propaganda campaign became one of the most successful recruitment tool in America as women represented 65% of the U.S aircraft industry by 1943 (History.com Staff). Despite the success women had provided during the war, their capabilities were still questioned as the ideology of women was still instilled in the

The United States roughly accommodates 4.5 percent of the world’s total population. Out of the 316.1 million people that live in the United States around 14.2 percent (44.9 million) of these people are deemed black or African-American. The United States has less than 1 percent (less than 3.16 million) of its total population in the military currently. In the United States Air Force there are 312,453 active duty military personnel with 14 percent (43,743) being black or African-American, but out of all the active duty there are 62,349 members with an officer rank according to the Air Force military demographics as of Sept 30, 2014. Out of those 62,349 officers, 13,303 are currently pilots; however, from the 13,303 pilots there are approximately 300 (around 2.2 percent) of them being black or African-American. Obviously, the question that begs to be asked is: why? Why are certain careers fields in the military, in this case aviation, disproportionate in their racial content? There are many political, sociological, and scholarly examples to answer this question. It can vary from those that look at social aspects for causation to those that blame the disparities that racism is still at hand contributing to the dearth of black aviators. But the one feature that appears to be common is the emphasis on the concern of race, because when debating the racial discrepancies in the military with regards to promotions, opportunities, and the like, it

After all analysis done, discussed and mentioned above, it is recommended to Bombardier develop a specific program related to people to better distribute its board of employees equally between the female and male genders. As we could observe in its employee KPIs 80% in average of the total employees is men. This behaviour also is reinforced in the management positions too.

Harriet Quimby was the first women to have a licensed pilot and fly across the English Channel, she joined an exhibition and set many flying records. The U.S began to put licensing pilots for Air Commerce Act 1926 which taught the Secretary of Commerce to promote air market. She had an impact on aviation and women as well as she was the first women to gain a pilot’s license that changed the world by giving women a freedom to achieve their ambitions.