To paraphrase a joke making the rounds, what do you call a woman pilot?
A pilot, you sexist pig.
Like all good jokes, it's a simple play on words but it has a deeper, underlying meaning and it delivers a pointed jab at the recipient of the joke for holding backwards views. In this case, the joke exposes how the two words - woman and pilot - don't go together very often. When was the last time you heard a woman say "this is your pilot speaking" on board a commercial flight?
There's no reason, of course, why a woman couldn't be an airline pilot but would it make a difference if a female voice did utter the words "this is your pilot speaking" on your next flight?
Actually, it would. Even the most tolerant and modern of airline passengers would feel a little twinge of concern. Numerous psychological studies have shown that people react negatively to even the smallest difference in stereotypical roles. Our prehistorically-wired brains use those roles as a form of shorthand to make sense of the world and to be mindful of threats. A male pilot is "normal" and the brain relaxes but a female pilot is "abnormal" and the brain fires up over a possible threat to personal safety.
This kind of thoughtless thinking, better known as gut reaction, applies across the board to male nurses, young doctors (of either gender) and older parents of young children.
Fortunately, women in leadership roles in the private and public sector is something that doesn't raise much attention anymore. A woman pilot may raise an eyebrow but if a woman were the head of Air Canada or WestJet, nobody would really think twice anymore.
During a recent leadership conference hosted by the Vancouver Board of Trade, the former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told the delegates, which included Northern Development Initiative Trust CEO Janine North and Carla Johnston, executive director of the city's Downtown Business Improvement Association, that women in power leads to wealthier nations.
With all due respect to Clinton, she's got it backwards. As countries have grown in wealth, education has become accessible to everyone, including women. A wealthy and educated country creates opportunities for everyone, especially women, which then creates more wealth. Even in notoriously male-centred countries like Japan and China, their increasing affluence has started to change their view of female leaders. They became wealthy before individual women started to exert real power but their ability to generate further wealth will be held back if more women aren't allowed to contribute.
In Canada, the premiers of B.C., Alberta, Ontario and Quebec are women. In Prince George, the mayor and senior MLA are women. Along with North at NDIT and Johnston at the DBIA, the administrative leaders of the Prince George Chamber of Commerce, Initiatives Prince George, Tourism Prince George, the Prince George Public Library, Northern Health and the City of Prince George are all women.
But it's important to emphasize that the women leading these organizations are leading them not because they're women but because they're leaders. The attributes of the best leaders, male and female, draw on stereotypes that apply to both sexes - ambition, toughness, perseverance, and pragmatism, mixed with large helpings of loyalty, generosity, sensitivity and trust.
The evolving social perceptions of leaders has happened at the same time as jobs and workplaces have changed. In the modern economy, jobs in manufacturing, construction and natural resource extraction (mostly low-skilled work done by men) now take a back seat to health, education, finance, law, administration and professional services (mostly highly technical work done by well-educated women).
As Hanna Rosin illustrates in her book, The End of Men, women have adapted to the changing landscape at home, at work and in the corner office far quicker than men.
Whether it's to pilot an aircraft to a safe landing or pilot an organization through a challenging business environment, nobody - not even men - want the best man for the job anymore. They just want whomever is best.
