What, you think all army helicopter pilots know each other? Geez.
Just kidding.
I must say I’m surprised that a few posters here have affected astonishment that anyone might possibly think that a female military pilot could be a lesbian.
I mean it’s a pretty weak stereotype, but … really? You can’t see why a woman doing a technical, mechanical, combat-related role traditionally filled by men might trigger some people’s gaydar?
pdts
Um… sort of, but not quite. Yes, fewer things to run into, but if you do the consequences are a lot nastier.
I often tell people that people that either taking off from or approaching an airport does have resemblance to getting on and off the freeway, though.
Hey, I didn’t say it would be a particularly intelligent reaction. 
The women she’s getting this reaction from? Are they nurses?
I don’t have a list, but I know she mentioned it when she was working in the uniform factory in Tennessee. She may have mentioned it previously, when she was a phlebotomist. By the time she started nursing school she was wary of mentioning it to women.
Ah, I see.
The scene: a uniform factory in Tennessee, filled with mostly uneducated women of a lower socioeconomic class.
Your friend: Hey, you know, I’m a pilot and I flew in Iraq and blah blah blah.
The rest of the women: :rolleyes: Shut the fuck up.
Sounds about right. 
Ah, ok then. (Is uniform factory code for something, or was she really making uniforms?)
I’d say two things: Expecting a negative response is changing her body language and/or the way she talks about her experience in ways she may not be aware of. People are picking up on this (I bet the signals she’s giving off subconsciously don’t match what she’s saying) and reacting to the incongruousness in an ambivalent or negative way. Which she then perceives as their reacting negatively to her story. And two, no reasonable woman would have a problem with her being an Army pilot. IMO.
I know an ex-military pilot, and I’ve never heard any other women say anything negative about that. Most of them also think her past is pretty cool. She’s married, so no one has mentioned the L word, either.
Eh, I don’t think they’re affecting anything. No, it’s not completely inconceivable that a lot of people would guess she’s a lesbian, but it is something that did not occur to me, and struck me as odd that it occurs (apparently?) so frequently to others. I also find it odd that women would be put off by her being a military pilot. I think it’s effin’ sweet.My guess is a combination of being intimidated and what **Richard Pearse **said
Right. I can’t imagine the typical female response would be a negative one, but it could occur more often, or more obviously, than a(n obvious) negative male response, so that she is now weary.
Is your friend sure that it’s that they’re hostile, or that she thinks she’s hot stuff etc? And not that they’re merely tongue-tied or intimidated? I mean, what do you say to a hero? A female War Hero? Wow. Most of us are pretty proud of ourselves for being superwoman, for raising kids, running a household AND holding down a full time job. What your friend has done is kinda “above and beyond”.
I’d think it was as neat as could be (but then for a girl, I’m a bit of a gearhead), but I’m not sure that I wouldn’t feel intimidated, perhaps even a little shy with her. I might worry about not coming off as gushy, and it’s possible that in my desire to not act corny or stupid, I might shut down a little conversation wise. And I’m not normally the shy type.
Is she herself shy? If she was already the shy type, and unsure of other women (boy, some women can be SO catty and bitchy), then this may just add gas to the fire of her own feelings of social awkwardness around other women. She may be subconsciously feeling something like “great! I already had women not liking me, now that I’ve got this very cool hero like history, they’re going to hate me even more”.
It’s possible that as much as other women are intimidated by her because of her considerable accomplishments, your friend may feel intimidated by conversation with other women because she doesn’t completely have that “girlie babble” gene. (I obviously was OVERblessed with the girlie babble gene :D).
I’ve realised that I misspelled wary, but either works.
Well THERE’S your trouble! Or what Alice the Goon said.
(I hadn’t gotten to this post yet).
Well, she’s not just a hobby pilot, she was a Gulf War pilot. Maybe some women just don’t know what to say to that.
How silly. Not YOUR observations, Johnny. Just that there are women out there that WOULD be put off by another who flew ANYTHING in the military. I have a client who is a commercial pilot for Southwest (who was actually in the Air Force prior). I see her MAYBE once every 2 or 3 months because of her schedule. She is one of the NICEST, most down to earth people I have ever met. She keeps me totally entertained with her stories while I am doing her hair. Nary an egotistical bone in her body. To her, it is her job, and nothing else.
That being said, I have seen other women in the salon bristle slightly when they do figure out she is a pilot. Now that this has come up, I am going to ask the other women in the salon what the deal is. :dubious:
I want to make this clear: She’s not a ‘war hero’, and she doesn’t see herself as one. She’s proud of what she’s done, but it’s not something she talks about. Heck, I talk about flying orders of magnitude more than she does, and I’m a civilian pilot who hasn’t been able to afford to fly for years and years. When it comes up, it’s because someone asks her.
Actually, she’s always been a bit shy. (We’ve known each other since high school.) But I don’t think she’s projecting because the hostility isn’t momentary, perhaps caused by not knowing what to say. It’s as if they get this one piece of information and then treat her differently after that. I don’t know what she talks to other women about (probably nursing nowadays, since her life has been going to school, doing homework, studying, and doing her clinicals), but she’s a ‘girly girl’. (But like Broomstick, she isn’t afraid to do her own work.)
As to the factory: After her divorce she moved to rural TN to be near family. It’s a depressed area, and she got a job sewing uniforms in a factory. She had already experienced (male) hostility in the Army, and had been living in another rural area where she experienced women being stand-offish when they found out about her service. Seems they’re OK with her ‘being in the Army’, and even with her ‘being sent to Iraq’. But attitudes changed when they find out she was a pilot.
So by the time she got to TN she was wary of mentioning it. Once again: She doesn’t brag about it. She’s not like, ‘I’m better than this job because I was an Army Pilot!’ She’s not that way. She’ll take any job available. She doesn’t particularly want a flying job, though if the opportunity arose she might consider it. She took a lot of crap from her family after she got out. ‘Why aren’t you flying? You should get a flying job!’ But she wasn’t that interested after leaving the Army, and she couldn’t afford to get the required ratings anyway.
There are people who are hostile toward education. If you have an education, then that makes you an ‘Elitist’ and worthy of scorn. I think that the situation in the factory is that these women graduated high school (in some cases barely, or else not at all), got married, had babies, and got into a job they hate because that’s the only opportunity they had. So here comes this woman who was born in California, moved around a bit, was in the Army, was in Korea and Iraq, and was a pilot. She’d been a phlebotomist? That’s OK; that’s an appropriate job for a girl. She was a pilot? Oh, no, no! Nice girls don’t do that! And everyone knows that pilots are egotistical pricks. She’s obviously a bitch, and probably a lesbian to boot! Given that my friend does not brag about her past, and that she is not the kind of person who holds herself above others because of it, it sounds to me as if the women she’s been around in the past decade or two feel intimidated or inadequate if they find out and decide that my friend is inadequate in some way in order to validate their own lives.
Part of that anti-pilot sentiment might be that military pilots are for the most part commissioned officers, who tend to come from higher educational and socioeconomic strata than the groundpounders. (I think warrant officers can fly choppers in the Army, but don’t quote me on that.)
From a small Tennessee town where education isn’t worth much, you might have quite a few serving overseas, but almost all will be enlisted grades.
She was a WO.
I have some experience with rural Tennessee, as my in-laws are there - while military service for women isn’t frowned on, and many elderly ladies were WAVES or WACS back in WWII, the appropriate role for military women is seen as support roles. Being a pilot might appear too “front line” or aggressive to some people, whereas a woman cook, supply officer, or repair technicians would be seen as OK.
Or maybe something else.
Unquestionably, though, there ARE some women hostile towards female pilots. Never quite understood it myself, but they are out there.
I suspect sinjin has it. Your friend needs to find different women to associate with, ones who aren’t jealous of somebody who has gone out and done something big and important and adventurous on her own, not just supporting men.