On March 8, the world marked International Women’s Day with media focus on women achievements, accompanied by calls for gender equality that are usually voiced on such occasions.
In the aviation industry, airlines went out of their way to showcase the female professionals in their fold, particularly singling out the few working in traditionally male-dominated departments like flight operations and technical areas.
It was as if they were all striving to be heard above the din of “We too have females doing more than handling reservations and being cabin crew.”
When I mentioned to a colleague that I cannot wait to see the same airlines celebrate with equal pomp their male employees who have forayed into predominantly female-dominated roles during International Men’s Day, he thought of it as ridiculous.
There was a celebratory mood at airlines as the marked the 7th Annual Women Of Aviation Worldwide Week, which took place from March 6-12.
This is an annual occasion which commemorates the anniversary of the first female worldwide, Raymonde de Laroche, to be licensed as a pilot on March 8, 1910.
But this was not the first time in recorded history that women took to the sky or had an interaction with aviation. Marie Élisabeth Thible of France is recorded as the first woman to fly in an untethered hot air balloon in 1784.
Since then, women have had some outstanding achievements that have shaped the industry from a first and innovations point of view.
In history
From Maria Beasley who created an improved version of life raft in 1880, to Valentina Tereshkova of Russia who became the first woman to fly to space in 1963, to Hedy Lamarr whom we have to thank for inflight Wi-Fi as we know it today.
Going by Margot Lee Shetterly’s book Hidden Figures on the life story of three African American women and their role in winning the space race for the US’s National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), women have been at the core of aviation more than we imagine.
So, if women have had such a long and illustrious dalliance with aviation, why and when did it develop into such a male- dominated industry? Or has the equation always been skewed in favour of men?