The WOKE Thread (Merged from WTF?)

[Guardian]

Wonder what the pendulum swing back is going to look like.

[tac airlifter]

1 hour ago, brabus said:

ultra-right people who think women don’t belong in a cockpit..

Pictures for humor only.

The right message at every recruiting event, from inner city schools to MIT, should be "we want the best on our team and we believe some of the best are here right now. If you think that's you, come talk to me."

The absurdity of DEI hiring is that it advantages the rich black girl from a private school in New York over the poor white dude from Appalachia with no parents who has been working since 12 and taught himself to read.  Both examples are real people I know. 

 

Edited March 17, 2023 by tac airlifter

[Biff_T]

If you were conducting an interview and this dude walked in, would you take him seriously?   Be honest.  

They won't hire you if you show up to the interview with the wrong color suit at some places.   

I had the pleasure to fly with a future trans a few months before I retired in 2018.  He, by far, was the worst pilot/student I ever flew with. We were conducting a NVG tac form upgarde sortie, in the mountains during a steady snowfall.  He couldn't maintain +/- 100 feet.  That will get you killed when you're flying at 50 feet.  l  I had to cancel our flight before we left the pattern.  The other aircraft went single ship.  We were not able to complete any training. The other aircraft needed us to complete MSN training as well.  He (my student) was not confident or competent...at all.  He actually scared me.  I have been in situatuons where if he was my co, we would have died. He transitioned two months before I retired.  That reaIly helped the squadron.  Especially, the 5 months he spent DNIF trying to figure out his sexuality.  He was a waste of a pilot slot.  I knew it was my time to retire.  

That's my experience.   What's yours? 

[skibum]

18 minutes ago, Biff_T said:

That's my experience.   What's yours? 

Meh - I've got a dozen stories just like that with regular dudes. Your sample size is a bit low. I've had more issues with some pussy AC/DO/CC types who couldn't make a decision to sit a low-performing idiot just because. This was long before we celebrated people for cutting off a penis.

[nsplayr]

3 hours ago, brabus said:

Perhaps a lot of talking past each other here. DEI progressives/leftists/grifters (whatever you want to call them) only care about a narrative, which is to say they want to cook the books with numbers and don’t give a fuck about actual qualifications or merit, and in fact are biased and racists against certain demographics. On the other side are the ultra-right people who think women don’t belong in a cockpit, gay people can’t possibly be doctors, etc. (insert whatever other similar statement you want). 
 

I think most of us agree DEI could simply be destroying barriers to truly provide equality of opportunity. I don’t give a fuck how many white vs. black fly airplanes, but we can do better recruiting and educating in inner city Atlanta. I don’t care if we have 50% women or 2% women pilots, but we can put more effort into targeted recruiting at women’s schools, female sports events, whatever. We should be after these demographics not because of physical traits, but to maximize the applicant pool and look for hiring opportunities to diversify backgrounds (and therefore thought), but with zero fucks given about immutable traits. That direction and weight of effort of education and recruitment is how DEI could be a good thing, but instead, as it stands today, is all kinds of fucked up. 

 

Yea I agree with almost all of this.

It does make you wonder when there’s a highly desirable, lucrative and respected career that’s 95% one gender (or race or whatever), that’s not what you’d expect to naturally occur. Probably worth putting some effort to assess if that makes sense or if it is a societal effect that’s not actually helping make that career field better.

Don’t hire people because of their race or gender or whatever or hire unqualified people, but open up your recruiting lenses and offer opportunities and push people who are underrepresented to apply. There are amazing, top 10% future pilots we’ll miss out on if you don’t do those things, and you’ll have to hire instead more center- or below-center-of-mass in-group folks just to fill the seats.

I’ll say it again, there’s a brittleness to too much sameness. Fully agree that modern DEI stuff is usually insane so don’t put that evil on me Ricky Bobby.

Edited March 17, 2023 by nsplayr

[Guardian]

Yea I agree with almost all of this.
It does make you wonder when there’s a highly desirable, lucrative and respected career that’s 95% one gender (or race or whatever), that’s not what you’d expect to naturally occur. Probably worth putting some effort to assess if that makes sense or if it is a societal effect that’s not actually helping make that career field better.
Don’t hire people because of their race or gender or whatever or hire unqualified people, but open up your recruiting lenses and offer opportunities and push people who are underrepresented to apply. There are amazing, too 10% future pilots we’ll miss out on if you don’t do those things, and you’ll have to hire instead more center- or below-center-of-mass in-group folks just to fill the seats.
I’ll say it again, there’s a brittleness to too much sameness. Fully agree that modern DEI stuff is usually insane so don’t put that evil on me Ricky Bobby.

5% female. Have you ever considered that maybe they don’t want to do the same jobs as men? Why are their so many male construction workers or mechanics? Why aren’t the women equally represented?


Are there other possible answers other than sexism or racism to your perceived problems? And are those reasons way more likely to answer your why question than the system is broken and racist, sexist or some sort of ist?

Do you understand that equity is more likely actually racist or sexist than it isnt?

And do the groups who you claim are under represented feel this way too in actuality or is it just you being offended on their behalf instead of what is the most equal and right thing to do? I’d wager it’s what makes us American in the first place.

The best thing is opportunity to succeed. And someone else hit it on the cranium. Why should a poor, black, female, who worked her butt off to get where he is at and in this example might be just as experienced as a male or majority race be held back because of his skin color and genitalia . The answer is she shouldn’t. And to do otherwise is racist and or sexist.

Switch the roles around in that example of female to male and black to white and ask yourself the same question.

The answer is DEI the way it’s marketed and employed is racist and sexist. It seeks to hold one group down at the expense of another.

[nsplayr]

It’s not that you should have quotas or some of the other excesses of modern DEI warriors. But just ask yourself if, given that talent is relatively evenly distributed (maybe you don’t believe this), what led to a certain career field still being 95/5 split in 2023? Is that a desirable end state?

There was a time when basically all prestigious career fields were approx 100% male. Doctors, lawyers, surgeons, elected leaders, CEOs, etc. That’s no longer the case, and I say that’s for the better for everyone. Maybe you don’t believe that either.

ATP pilots are a bit of an outlier still being so highly male, why is that? Like I mentioned, even some of the most stereotypically female careers (that pay way less) are more gender-balanced. Some imbalance is due to preferences and all else, but 95/5? Likely not.

I actually, no-shit, believe that diversity across numerous dimensions makes us stronger and it’s ok if you don’t, but that’s the foundational belief for supporting programs that help bring underrepresented people into high-status, important fields. Trying to give voice however imperfectly to the other side of a lot of what’s posted here.

Edited March 17, 2023 by nsplayr

[Biff_T]

1 hour ago, skibum said:

Meh - I've got a dozen stories just like that with regular dudes. Your sample size is a bit low. I've had more issues with some pussy AC/DO/CC types who couldn't make a decision to sit a low-performing idiot just because. This was long before we celebrated people for cutting off a penis.

In my entire flying career, I've flown with only one guy who couldn't hold level flight as a rated pilot.   That was him.    

For sure there are subpar performers who aren't trans but once again, they could hold their altitude.   I had a crew chief hold his altitude better than this dude.   Basic pilot skills.  I'm not talking about having him landing on mountains in whiteout conditions or hovering at 200 feet to rescue someone. Or having him fly NVG gun patterns with no illumination l.  Basic pilot skills.  He had some mental issues.  

Look guys,  to be honest, I don't care what you look like or who you fuck.  It shouldn't matter.  I just want the best people flying with our airmen.  In the current environment, that doesn't appear to be the priority.  

I too care about helping the most vulnerable people in our population, but forcing them to be hired because of their appearance vs abilities is not a smart move.  There has to be a better way.

Who do you want hovering that helicopter as you get hoisted out of a shitty situation? Who do you want dropping targets that are danger close?  The best aviator or something else? 

@nsplayr

BTW,  I'm really into hosting masked hiring parties.  Except there is no job.  BRCC  

[Biff_T]

14 hours ago, nsplayr said:

IMHO talent is relatively evenly distributed by race, gender, etc., so if your institution is not, you are accepting more mediocrity than you should. If there are some no-shitter physical characteristics that are essential to screen for, ok. That doesn’t really exist for airline pilots, yet the group is 95% male and I’m sure very overly represented by white people as well.

And while I’m sure the vast majority of current pilots are well meaning and we’ll qualified, you don’t just continue to accept an objectively weird situation with that kind of imbalance forever.

Give more opportunities to folks who are underrepresented and you’ll find tons of excellent pilots, more than if you remained hemmed in by your very off-kilter, limited historical selection pool

I agree.   But the change can't happen overnight.  Use DEI to educate people, recruite talent (sts) and etcetera.  Give them the opportunity to succeed by their own merit.  Don't just hand them a job because of the body they were born in.  To an extent, that's been going on for hundreds of years with my white brothers (all jobs, not just aviation), just like equal rights for all, this disparity will not be fixed overnight.  

[Guardian]

It’s not that you should have quotas or some of the other excesses of modern DEI warriors. But just ask yourself if, given that talent is relatively evenly distributed (maybe you don’t believe this), what led to a certain career field still being 95/5 split in 2023? Is that a desirable end state?
There was a time when basically all prestigious career fields were approx 100% male. Doctors, lawyers, surgeons, elected leaders, CEOs, etc. That’s no longer the case, and I say that’s for the better for everyone. Maybe you don’t believe that either.
ATP pilots are a bit of an outlier still being so highly male, why is that? Like I mentioned, even some of the most stereotypically female careers (that pay way less) are more gender-balanced. Some imbalance is due to preferences and all else, but 95/5? Likely not.
I actually, no-shit, believe that diversity across numerous dimensions makes us stronger and it’s ok if you don’t, but that’s the foundational belief for supporting programs that help bring underrepresented people into high-status, important fields. Trying to give voice however imperfectly to the other side of a lot of what’s posted here.

I get what you are trying to say. And to a certain extent I agree about what you are saying about diversities. However I think a white male and another white male can be an example of diversity. Not because of their skin and crotch obviously but because of an untold number of other diversity factors.

Sex and skin color are some of the worst indicators of diversity imaginable. And yet that’s what’s focused on.

[Grabby]

nsplayr,

The reason there is not an equal gender split is because men and women are different.  We think different, we want different things and are attracted to different things.  I don't understand how this isn't clear to absolutely everyone, especially any adult regardless of political leanings.

Why is it only certain professions that people decry an unequal ratio in?  

 

 

 

[FLEA]

15 hours ago, O Face said:

Hope this helps…Sounds exactly like that data you were requesting.

I don't read that as a direction to hiring manager to pick only minorities or women--which would be unlawful under existing federal statutes and no company would risk doing it. This has been litigated several times and a hiring authority has never won a case trying to justify taking race into account in its hiring decisions. If the HR department is functioning properly, the hiring authorities should never receive candidate information on race/gender/etc..... A separate arm of HR collects that and it is kept highly confidential. 

I read that as a direction to talent recruiters to spend more time in the space of women and people of color to ensure a higher number of applying, thus increasing the probabilities that someone who is qualified for the position from one of those sub-categories applies. Remember, talent recruiters have absolutely 0 bearing on the hiring decision for a candidate. Their soul purpose is to find people to put in front of hiring managers. 

I also read it as a message to ERG's to spend more time doing community outreach, mentoring and working with applicants, to give them guidance on what types of things they can do to prepare to submit the strongest application ever. Again, ERG's have nothing to do with a hiring decision. They are there to internally support workplace culture and to help provide external influences to promote their affinity group. 

I dont think you would find either of those two things problematic. 

[FLEA]

8 minutes ago, Grabby said:

nsplayr,

The reason there is not an equal gender split is because men and women are different.  We think different, we want different things and are attracted to different things.  I don't understand how this isn't clear to absolutely everyone, especially any adult regardless of political leanings.

Why is it only certain professions that people decry an unequal ratio in?  

 

 

 

Because they are typically the high paying ones without significant personal danger or health consequences. Pretty obvious. 

[nsplayr]

@Grabby

As I’ve mentioned several times, there’s some imbalance that’s expected due to preferences. Is it 50/50, 60/40, 70/30, etc. I don’t know, don’t really care one way or the other. But it ain’t 95/5, especially for a lucrative and well respected career field. You have to see that something there is probably not ideally distributed. You have some low-performers in the 95% group who can and should be overlooked for very talented folks in the 5% group who haven’t been given a shot.

Percentage wise there are more male elementary school teachers than female ATP pilots, and I can tell you for sure elementary education doesn’t pay for shit and is not high-status.

It’s worth thinking about how we arrived at 95/5, what talented folks we’re missing out on because of that, and figuring out ways to move toward a better mix that actually maximizes talent in the long term.

I personally know many extremely talented & valuable PhDs, JDs, MDs, etc. that would have never been in those career fields even one generation ago due to racial or gender norms of the time. It’s much better for everyone that we’ve moved beyond that today, and my point that hits close to home perhaps is that ATP pilots as a group are well behind the 8-ball in this regard.

[HossHarris]

The underlying assumption for all DEI is that talent is distributed evenly across the spectrum of humanity. 
 

That’s a large assumption….

I’d concede that it’s probably true at level of young children. But once talent becomes merit, and effort, motivation, hard work, aptitude, and drive is involved to increase your merit…all bets are off. 
 

and there are physiological differences amongst groups of humans as well.  For example, There’s a reason there aren’t any women playing in the NFL. and I don’t think it has anything to do with recruiting efforts or barriers to entry. 
 

could a woman attain the merit to play … absolutely… it’s just a lot less likely. 

Edited March 17, 2023 by HossHarris

[Pooter]

There's a phenomenon where people will subconsciously self-select out of a career fields if they don't see people who look like them doing those jobs.  As white dudes we don't notice it because we're well represented in most desirable high caliber fields. But I have multiple female family members who are military pilots, and they say that feeling is something they had, and is still prevalent among girls. 

I'm not for quotas or specific DEI hiring initiatives but outreach campaigns like the "fly like a girl" one the Air Force has pushed are great in my opinion.  If you truly want to get the best talent you need to cast the widest net you can and whittle down the pool from there. 

[HossHarris]

Just now, Pooter said:

There's a phenomenon where people will subconsciously self-select out of a career fields if they don't see people who look like them doing those jobs.  As white dudes we don't notice it because we're well represented in most desirable high caliber fields. But I have multiple female family members who are military pilots, and they say that feeling is something they had, and is still prevalent among girls. 

I'm not for quotas or specific DEI hiring initiatives but outreach campaigns like the "fly like a girl" one the Air Force has pushed are great in my opinion.  If you truly want to get the best talent you need to cast the widest net you can and whittle down the pool from there. 

Perfectly valid … as long as you’re still selecting for the “best”

[Pooter]

3 minutes ago, HossHarris said:

Perfectly valid … as long as you’re still selecting for the “best”

Exactly. This is how I view the difference between the words equality and equity. 
 

Equality = cast the widest net you can by publicizing opportunities for underrepresented groups.. but still select for competence at the end of the day

 

Equity = prioritize quotas and percentages over all else at the expense of competence

[nsplayr]

11 minutes ago, Pooter said:

But I have multiple female family members who are military pilots, and they say that feeling is something they had, and is still prevalent among girls.

Agreed 1000% on this. When she was a bit younger my oldest daughter told me she didn't know if she wanted to be a pilot because (sic) all the pilots are boys. She did think more about being a librarian because that's what my wife is and guess what, school librarians skew WAAY female. Now she's settled on psychologist - great, good luck with that - funny thing is that she's so far only met female psychologists so maybe she's still a strident sexist (as most kids are in my experience). 😅

I mean, if my kiddo doesn't want to be a pilot for other reasons that's fine, she's allowed to be wrong, but it should not be because she can't envision herself doing it and assumes there's a gendered component to the job just based on how the demographics are today. There is in fact no part of the MQ-9 GCS that you must operate with your penis, I'm continually disappointed to report...

I had to work to introduce her to some women in my squadron because I'm selfish and want a little Guard baby legacy nipping at my old-man heels...problem is there are only 3 ladies who are pilots out of ~55 of us maybe? Not that any of my bros aren't talented and dedicated and deserving of the jobs and all of that, but can you see from a little girl's perspective how it looks?

12 minutes ago, HossHarris said:

The underlying assumption for all DEI is that talent is distributed evenly across the spectrum of humanity. That’s a large assumption….

I’d concede that it’s probably true at level of young children. But once talent becomes merit, and effort, motivation, hard work, aptitude, and drive is involved to increase your merit…all bets are off.

Great, so let's get with kids early and given them all access to good opportunities to succeed and then later on when we're selecting for competitive, highly-paid, highly-valued careers, people have a shot no matter what they look like or where they grew up. I think most people are on board with that in principle.

The rub becomes when you look at the current situation for ATP pilots, that are 95/5 male and 86.9% white (this is a WAG) and see something that isn't the same selection pool as in the kindergarten class, you should absolutely want to look why and figure out if what we're doing right now is truly achieving the above-agreed upon ideal, and then if not, work toward fixing it.

Major airline flight academies are a great way to start this IMHO - start with zero, train all or mostly in-house, funnel to the regionals and main lines when the puppies have met FAA mins and desired experience, train to succeed or cut loose along the way if it's not a good fit. There are tons of people not cut out to be airline pilots because they are dumb, indecisive, won't work hard, etc., 100%. But I firmly believe those undesirable traits are also fairly evenly spread amongst all genders, races, etc. just like the good qualities.

Again, you don't just hire the black trans Romanian with zero flight hours when she shows up at an interview with Delta, I don't think anyone wants that, but you do work to disassemble the structures that lead to undesired unequal outcomes that are a symptom of poorly-distributed talent.

Edited March 17, 2023 by nsplayr

[Prozac]

1 hour ago, HossHarris said:

The underlying assumption for all DEI is that talent is distributed evenly across the spectrum of humanity. 
 

That’s a large assumption….

I’d concede that it’s probably true at level of young children. But once talent becomes merit, and effort, motivation, hard work, aptitude, and drive is involved to increase your merit…all bets are off. 
 

and there are physiological differences amongst groups of humans as well.  For example, There’s a reason there aren’t any women playing in the NFL. and I don’t think it has anything to do with recruiting efforts or barriers to entry. 
 

could a woman attain the merit to play … absolutely… it’s just a lot less likely. 

And there it is. The explanation for white males being an overwhelming majority of professional pilots must be that white males are more inherently suited to the job than any other group. I’m willing to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume this is not what you really think, but you should understand what it sounds like when you make this argument. Same with the pro sports analogies. I think we can all agree that there are certain physical and genetic attributes that allow people to perform at the ultra high levels of professional athletes. There are absolutely not similar limitations for performance in a cockpit. Are certain individuals more suited to flying airplanes? Of course. But you won’t convince me that the requisite skills skew to the tune of 95% white male. We got to affirmative action/DEI/whatever you want to call it for a reason. There absolutely are barriers for certain groups that shouldn’t be there. I agree that in a perfect world we would all be judged, in the words of Dr. King, by the content of our character vs the color of our skin or any other physical attribute. Unfortunately, that is not the world in which we inhabit. There are still groups that need help breaking breaking barriers because people are still shitty. DEI is an admittedly imperfect band aid for the real world. If people want to debate better solutions, fine, but don’t blow sunshine up everybody’s ass by pretending we live in a post racism/sexism world. 

[FourFans]

2 hours ago, Prozac said:

And there it is. The explanation for white males being an overwhelming majority of professional pilots must be that white males are more inherently suited to the job than any other group. I’m willing to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume this is not what you really think, but you should understand what it sounds like when you make this argument. Same with the pro sports analogies. I think we can all agree that there are certain physical and genetic attributes that allow people to perform at the ultra high levels of professional athletes. There are absolutely not similar limitations for performance in a cockpit. Are certain individuals more suited to flying airplanes? Of course. But you won’t convince me that the requisite skills skew to the tune of 95% white male. We got to affirmative action/DEI/whatever you want to call it for a reason. There absolutely are barriers for certain groups that shouldn’t be there. I agree that in a perfect world we would all be judged, in the words of Dr. King, by the content of our character vs the color of our skin or any other physical attribute. Unfortunately, that is not the world in which we inhabit. There are still groups that need help breaking breaking barriers because people are still shitty. DEI is an admittedly imperfect band aid for the real world. If people want to debate better solutions, fine, but don’t blow sunshine up everybody’s ass by pretending we live in a post racism/sexism world. 

Following your logic train for a minute here.  What are the specific barriers to entry into the pilot world that are filtering out women and minorities?  How is DEI removing those barriers?  Is placing people in jobs due to skin color or gender not racist or sexist?

Are you just as concerned that the overwhelming majority of coal miners are white men too?  We're looking for equity of outcome, right?  So it would stand to reason that you also want to see an even distribution of women and minorities into the oil fields of Texas and in the welding career in North Dakota.  Why is the focus only on the high paying career fields and C-suit perceived disparities.  If we're going to level the playing field, then actually level it.  As it stands, for example in the C-suits of america, women are actually paid higher then men in those same jobs.  Fact.  I say good for them!  Oh, but that's not the stat we want to push because it's counter-narrative.  Hell, you know how many women are in the night-cargo flying business?  VERY FEW.  It's not because they can't hold the job.  It's that very few people actually are willing to sacrifice their body to the sleep cycle murder that's involved.  Or does that make night cargo-flying sexist?  

Perhaps it's time we recognize that different cultures have different values.  Perhaps there are less women entering into the airline business, because, per-capita, there are less women that want that job then there are men who want that job.  During the hiring process at the 8 airlines I interacted with, I witnessed all of ZERO barriers that filtered out anyone by race or gender.  In fact, being a minority or woman upped their chances of getting hired (hear that straight from a hiring pilot's mouth).  A qualified candidate was a qualified candidate.  I'm sure the process to get to that point still has some problems.  Fine.  Get to a 90% solution and go to press.  

But perhaps there's credence to a culture where women are the primary care givers to children while men go earn the living.  Can you imagine if they ACTUALLY CHOSE THAT LIFE?!  CRAZY!  It's almost as if we have some inboard instincts and characteristic that make the genders unique in their ambitions or something.  Is that the ONLY way it should happen?  Absolutely not.  But there appears to be absolutely no credit given to that as a viable way of life.  DEI is clearly intent on making some people more equal than others.  Go re-read animal farm if you want a refresher on that. 

I say remove the prejudiced barriers to entry, retain the ones that enforce quality, and let people vote with their feet.  Forcing change with DEI bullshit is just a distractor, and really is another form of tyrannical power grabbing.  It's been done.  Forcing everyone to be equal never ends well.  Talk to anyone older than 50 and from east of Poland and you'll find out how it went.

Edited March 18, 2023 by FourFans

[Biff_T]

14 hours ago, skibum said:

Meh - I've got a dozen stories just like that with regular dudes. Your sample size is a bit low. I've had more issues with some pussy AC/DO/CC types who couldn't make a decision to sit a low-performing idiot just because. This was long before we celebrated people for cutting off a penis.

I flew with a gay pilot in the early 2000s.  Nobody knew he was gay.  He didn't prance around or anything.  He was an awesome pilot.  I always respected him for being a great pilot, even before I knew he was gay.  A few years later, when they allowed gay people to serve, he came out and was married.   One of the most squared  away dudes I flew with.  You would have never known.  I still respect him.  

I flew with two Pilots who transitioned after I retired.  One was a good stick (STS).  I can't speak for this person recently though. 

The second one was the scariest rated pilot I flew with for 17 years AD and 2 years at Compass (RIP)..lol

1/2 of the identitied Trans I've encountered can fly level.   If I've flown with any trans/gay and I didn't recognize it.  Awesome, because they didn't tell me how they like to fuck.   I didn't care, unless I was involved in the playful shenanigans.  

Just don't tell me DEI is heading in a logical direction.  

 

Edited March 18, 2023 by Biff_T
Spelling bee failure

[Boomer6]

1 hour ago, FourFans said:

Following your logic train for a minute here.  What are the specific barriers to entry into the pilot world that are filtering out women and minorities?  How is DEI removing those barriers?  Is placing people in jobs due to skin color or gender not racist or sexist?

Those pushing DEI have no issues with racist/sexist hiring practices because the ends justify the means. Those practices are part of the “help” and “removal of barriers” that are alluded to, but they don’t have the integrity to openly grant their approval.

I find it comical the same individuals that will argue with the conservative dudes on here for hours about how the main stream media bias/hunter Biden laptop story/pick your conservative conspiracy theory are all just BS and there’s no real collusion. Then they’ll jump in this thread and demand that we all agree there’s a large barrier put in place by white males to anyone else entering aviation.

If the liberal minded individuals in the room don’t realize that their quiet endorsement of racism/sexism/gender in the hiring process is extremely hypocritical then you’re never going to find common ground with conservatives. You can’t virtue signal day and night and then agree with these practices and think you have any credibility. I’ve yet to hear anyone say “we shouldn’t be reaching out to underrepresented communities” when it comes to aviation. Using race/sex/gender as a discriminator is what is being argued against. It’s happening  in the government and on the civilian side, it’s been happening and the ends don’t justify the means.

[FLEA]

8 minutes ago, Boomer6 said:

Those pushing DEI have no issues with racist/sexist hiring practices because the ends justify the means. Those practices are part of the “help” and “removal of barriers” that are alluded to, but they don’t have the integrity to openly grant their approval.

I find it comical the same individuals that will argue with the conservative dudes on here for hours about how the main stream media bias/hunter Biden laptop story/pick your conservative conspiracy theory are all just BS and there’s no real collusion. Then they’ll jump in this thread and demand that we all agree there’s a large barrier put in place by white males to anyone else entering aviation.

If the liberal minded individuals in the room don’t realize that their quiet endorsement of racism/sexism/gender in the hiring process is extremely hypocritical then you’re never going to find common ground with conservatives. You can’t virtue signal day and night and then agree with these practices and think you have any credibility. I’ve yet to hear anyone say “we shouldn’t be reaching out to underrepresented communities” when it comes to aviation. Using race/sex/gender as a discriminator is what is being argued against. It’s happening  in the government and on the civilian side, it’s been happening and the ends don’t justify the means.

Except none of that is actually happening. Noone is hiring based on race or gender. This is a hysteria some people are hung on and it is simply a myth a overwhelmingly large proportion of the time. Hiring based on race and gender is against federal law, has been against federal law, and will continue to be against federal law. And this idea that the main stream DEI crowd is trying to overturn that law is not in touch with reality. 

[ViperMan]

7 hours ago, nsplayr said:

As I’ve mentioned several times, there’s some imbalance that’s expected due to preferences. Is it 50/50, 60/40, 70/30, etc. I don’t know, don’t really care one way or the other. But it ain’t 95/5, especially for a lucrative and well respected career field. You have to see that something there is probably not ideally distributed. You have some low-performers in the 95% group who can and should be overlooked for very talented folks in the 5% group who haven’t been given a shot.

Percentage wise there are more male elementary school teachers than female ATP pilots, and I can tell you for sure elementary education doesn’t pay for shit and is not high-status.

It’s worth thinking about how we arrived at 95/5, what talented folks we’re missing out on because of that, and figuring out ways to move toward a better mix that actually maximizes talent in the long term.

I personally know many extremely talented & valuable PhDs, JDs, MDs, etc. that would have never been in those career fields even one generation ago due to racial or gender norms of the time. It’s much better for everyone that we’ve moved beyond that today, and my point that hits close to home perhaps is that ATP pilots as a group are well behind the 8-ball in this regard.

More people would take you seriously if you could offer a coherent theory that explains all manner of differences in gendered choices people make when selecting career fields. You think that women are kept out of becoming pilots due to...barriers? Okay. What are they? And if those are barriers keeping women out, then how about you explain why there are other career fields that have drastically worse gender gaps than piloting does. Don't think 95/5 can just happen? Ok. How about 98.8/1.2? How about 99.7/.3? What about 99.2/.8??? That's all unnatural according to you.

Your view doesn't explain anything. You assume a conclusion and then point to data to support your argument. Problem is, your argument doesn't account for any of the (worse) differences below, and has no actual hope of addressing or explaining them. You need to explain why piloting at 95/5 is anomalous, but yet these other outliers are not. I'll wait.

No. The simple answer is being a pilot appeals to more to men, and has other some other attendant difficulties that make it tougher on women - such as being away on the road for days and weeks at a time - but that has nothing to do with discrimination.

Here's a fact: any women who wanted to be a pilot as bad as I did is a pilot. Some who wanted it less than I did are still pilots. Most who wanted it way less than that aren't. Nothing is stopping anyone from doing this job, or any other job listed below, except themselves. Men and women are different and that's ok. We evolved different strengths in order to be a more adaptable species. It's really quite simple.