How to inspire girls to walk with confidence and reach for the sky
have you heard
about the younger wright sibling you
know the wright brothers
wilbur and orville wright who are
credited with the first airplane flight
well there’s a younger sibling who’s
often forgotten about
catherine wright and in 1909
she became one of the first females to
fly
why because her brothers wanted to
make the point that even young ladies
could travel through the air
as easily as in motor cars
why haven’t we heard this story and why
in 2021 are there only seven percent
of pilots who are female
there are many theories and opinions as
to what are holding women back from
flying
some speculate it’s the cost to learn
but
men pay the same amount some say it’s
schedules
or lifestyle but female flight
attendants have similar schedules
so is it discrimination maybe
or perhaps it’s lack of good role models
when i was a little girl i wanted to be
a ballerina
with my pink tutu and i wanted everyone
to call me pinky
that is until i watched a helicopter
land at my school
in the second grade and i was
hooked i just wanted to be up there
and nothing was going to stop me not
even when my high school guidance
counselor
laughed at me when i told him i wanted
to be a pilot
i went off to flight school afraid i
wasn’t smart enough
i was dyslexic with numbers and i wasn’t
great in math or science
but thankfully my dreams were stronger
than my fears
and as it turns out you don’t need to be
a rocket scientist
to be a pilot in the u.s
there are six hundred sixty four
thousand five hundred and sixty five
pilots
there are 52 740 pilots
who are female there are a hundred
thousand pilots
with a commercial pilot’s license that
just means i get paid to fly doing grand
canyon tours
dropping skydivers or towing banners
but only seven thousand pilots identify
as female
that’s seven percent
that’s crazy put a hundred pilots
in a room and count out seven
there are 25 percent of male pilots with
an atp license
atp means airline transport pilot it’s
the highest license obtainable
and these are the pilots qualified to
fly for the airlines
or in business aviation i am one of only
four and a half percent
of female pilots with an atp license
but the real kicker is that only one
percent
of these females sit in the left seat
flying as captain
one day i really started to look at this
problem of why there are so few female
pilots
and as i thought about this problem it
occurred to me that i was just looking
at it all wrong
instead i needed to flip it upside down
and start asking what it was that made
the seven percent of pilots
successful i wanted to find the secret
sauce
because if i could find it then i could
share that with others
specifically my two daughters and i
could help them be successful at
achieving their dreams
so i set out to interview 50 female
pilots
in the spring of 2020 when most of the
world was in quarantine
i was in my basement office calling
pilots i didn’t know
and asking some pretty personal
questions
and i discovered the secret sauce there
are three traits that all of these
pilots have in common
one they have confidence two they face
their fears
three they have support systems
the definition of confidence is having
trust in one’s ability
when i asked these pilots where they
thought their confidence came from
they certainly didn’t think they were
born with it but it developed throughout
the years by playing sports
having experience or even failure
as it turns out failure is a huge
motivator to build confidence on
and this blew my mind because we are not
raised to view failure as a positive
thing
fake it till you make it was also
another common answer
this is cj she’s a first officer for
united airlines
she’s based in guam and she flies the
south pacific routes to places
i can’t even pronounce but she’s also
flown seaplanes
in the caribbean skydivers in dubai
and intelligence surveillance and recon
missions
in afghanistan and west africa
she’s pretty cool when i asked cj where
her confidence comes from
she replied i fake it i am scared of
most of the things i do
but i am more afraid of missing out on
the next adventure
these women have had to work hard and be
better than their male counterparts
they know their airplane systems three
levels deep
and they study twice as hard to have the
confidence necessary
to command the aircraft
this is katrina she’s an international
captain on a gulfstream 650.
she’s also the assistant chief pilot at
her fortune 500 flight department
katrina’s motto is know yourself what
you want
what you stand for and don’t be afraid
to go after it
this is a perfect example of what
confidence looks like
there’s an underlying fear of being a
female in a male-dominated industry
why because we still face harassment
workplace discrimination and wage
inequality
one of the scariest moments of my career
was having to tell my chief pilot i was
pregnant
my husband’s at work getting high fives
and i’m afraid i’m gonna get fired
there’s a stigma attached that if you
make it in a man’s world
you better not get pregnant and quit
time and time again during these
interviews i heard stories of the
adversity
that these pilots faced whether it was
someone saying
girls can’t fly or they weren’t allowed
to fly because they were pregnant
sometimes it was dealing with a handsy
examiner or an inappropriate flight
instructor
or the fair was more on internal like
thinking they didn’t have the correct
brain
for aviation or they weren’t taking
seriously by their peers
this is susie she’s a five foot tall
puerto rican who flies the kc-135
but she went to the air force academy to
become a lawyer
and it’s also where she met her now
husband who isn’t training to be a pilot
when susie soloed an airplane she knew
she could spend the rest
of her life flying when she told her
boyfriend this
he said if you become a pilot then we’re
never going to see each other
guess what susie told him she said well
then you better get another job
susie’s my hero
i am so glad that these women did not
let fear
change the course of their dreams
because a hundred percent
of the women i interviewed were
successful
because they didn’t quit no matter
what having a support system is also a
major key to success
whether it’s a friend parent commander
or roommate
but having people around you who say yes
instead of no is what helped these women
earn their wings 78
of pilots said they had a mentor
and 69 percent of pilots said they had a
father figure who played an influential
role
in them becoming a pilot
my favorite story is about margaret’s
dad
when margaret was 16 years old she was
dating a guy a couple years older than
her
you know where this is going right
margaret’s dad wasn’t too fond of the
boyfriend so we went to the airport
and got her a gift card for 20 glider
flights
he thought that if she was busy with a
new hobby it would give her less time to
spend with the boyfriend
and it worked margaret retired from
delta airlines last year
so guys dads brothers uncles
what you say and do with our daughters
will matter so much to what they become
give that nudge towards the flight line
and the flight deck
let them know you have an unwavering
belief
in their abilities because apparently
you are
very influential in shaping futures
when faced with fear self-doubt or
discrimination
these lady aviators kept taking off but
they didn’t do it alone
they had communities support systems and
mentors
to encourage and cheer them on
being a pilot takes a lot of hard work
and tenacity
but as amelia earhart once said everyone
has oceans to fly
if they have the heart to do it is it
reckless
maybe but what do dreams know of
boundaries
so how do we get our daughters to shoot
for the moon
well if you’re a pilot and someone asks
you what you do for a living
don’t just say you work out at the
airport stand up tall
and proudly say i’m a pilot
to increase the percentage from seven to
even 50 percent
requires us to start showing our
daughters these role models
but we need more role models in the
spotlight
and this happens in social media and in
the movies
we need a top gun sequel with female
pilots
and we need more children’s books with
girls flying airplanes
air shows are also a spectacular place
to show young girls a fascinating world
of aviation and we need more women in
the board rooms in the c-suite where
policies are being made
without better paid family leave
scheduled flexibility and other support
these women
who have a high amount invested in their
training
and careers are having to make the
difficult decisions
to stay home to become primary
caregivers our systems are broken
and companies are missing out on true
diversity and inclusivity with this
section
of employees
in 2009 i was flying a 25 million dollar
business jet
i just finished pre-flighting and i went
inside
to use a bathroom and wait on our
passenger on my way back outside there
were a group of
male pilots that i had to walk around
and i heard one of them say
since when did they start letting
females in the cockpit
i was shocked i didn’t know what to say
i didn’t say anything about two hours
later
halfway to chicago flying eight miles
above the earth
i finally thought of my reply since when
since 1909 actually
that’s when catherine first flew with
wilbur and i think she would have made
an excellent pilot
she had more confidence than her
brothers always encouraging them
to close the deal and to keep trying
after every
failed attempt she even learned french
when the trio traveled to europe to show
off their flying machine
she obviously didn’t let fear stand in
her way and she had brothers
who supported her
the pilots i interviewed have inspired
me to share their stories
they have worked hard and fought many
battles to earn their home in the skies
and i want our daughters to know that
they could be pilots
or anything else they dream of but it’s
more than just saying you could be
whatever you want to be
we need to teach them how to walk with
confidence how to face their fears
and have people around them who support
their dreams and say
yes
i don’t think my guidance counselor
laughed at me because he thought my
dreams were funny
he laughed because a young girl and a
town full of cowboys
and ranchers was in his office
dreaming of far away horizons
he laughed because he was shocked it
came out of my mouth
if your dreams don’t shock people
they’re
not big enough